Teachers can’t have it both ways

projections paint big black stain on coastlines, Oct 23).

If I claimed that one day New Zealand might be destroyed by an asteroid, so we should abandon the country now just in case, I’d be laughed into a padded cell. Sadly, many of us can’t seem to see how similarly extreme are the claims of the green lobby.

This ‘‘anti-everything, let’s stop the world’’ philosophy, pursued to its logical conclusion, would eventually see us back in the Stone Age wandering from cave to cave on Shanks Pony (the wheel being one more technological advancement they, no doubt, feel we can do without.) JOHN DENTON

Napier I hope the teachers who jumped up and down over the Novopay debacle when many were shortchanged or not paid at all aren’t the same teachers now apparently refusing to repay overpayments (Oct 25). According to the Government, more than $7 million has been overpaid, and in some cases debt collectors might be necessary to recover it.

Teachers can’t have it both ways. The public was right behind them when many didn’t receive any pay at all. But they shouldn’t expect the same sympathy if they’re refusing to repay taxpayer money wrongly credited to them.

Now is the time for teachers to show double standards don’t apply. GERRY CUNNEEN

Khandallah of-date, comments about refugees. In its original intent, the United Nations Refugee Convention envisaged oppressed people making it across a border to safety. Too often nowadays, asylum seekers are really undocumented economic migrants looking for the best deal.

Why for example, doesn’t Indonesia welcome its coreligionists from the Middle East? There’s two reasons: First, Indonesians dislike Arabs and are happy to encourage their rapid transfer onto the boats and off to Australia. Second, Ms McLeod and others see the taking in of refugees as a particularly Western obligation. Even after three terms on the UN Security Council, Indonesia seems to be able to dodge its obligations.

In the Northern Hemisphere, Syrian asylum seekers are camped at Calais, demanding to be taken to Britain. Apparently, France ‘‘isn’t welcoming enough’’. Scratch the surface and one finds that France grants income and housing support to refugees only after their claims are accepted. Britain, on the other hand, grants these benefits immediately on arrival. ROB HARRIS

Carterton