Tertiary fiasco Greedy price rises

the flight deck door is locked we assume there are two well-trained and professional crew in charge of a very technical machine.

After 29 years as chief executive of three polytechnics in New Zealand and overseas, I am increasingly stunned by spectacular failure of

Te Pūkenga, the misguided attempt to reform the polytechnic sector ( Cash-strapped provider wants eight $200k execs, Nov 22).

In 2005, as CEO of Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, I developed a proposal for the sector involving a high level of collaboration and co-operation aimed at saving millions.

The advice to my colleagues was that if we didn’t learn to co-operate across the sector, it would be ‘‘done to us’’ by those ill informed as to how to bring about such reforms. And so it has come to pass.

Instead of learning from the collective wisdom, much of which resided in those who have now resigned and is therefore lost to the sector, Te Pūkenga has set about creating up a new, inexperienced top-down megastructure doomed to failure.

I lament what could have been achieved. Te Pūkenga is now costing million, with little prospects of savings. What a waste. What a fiasco.

John Scott, Christchurch

NZ Post is another example of an

NZ state-owned enterprise announcing a price increase.

The charge for a PO Box has nearly doubled over the past few years. Is this increase needed given the $70 million rise in profit from last year?

It’s not very hard to figure out how this profit increase was achieved – raise prices for the captive market. Job done. A bonus for this ‘‘performance’’ was probably in order.

Once again, as with the electricity suppliers, the Government does not have any incentive to control these price increases as the GST take will also increase.

Richard Anderson, Martinborough