Funding fallout
The announcement from the Government that it has rubber-stamped tens of billions of dollars for new roading seems to have flown somewhat under the proverbial public radar, while we are at the same time told that money is so tight that the comparativel drop in the bucket $160 million lunches in schools programme, among other services, is in line for some serious downgrading, due to severe financial restraints.
I am reminded of the story of the board of a large corporation discussing and approving the implementation of two multimillion-dollar projects in the space of 10 minutes.
The next item on the agenda was the janitor’s request for a new mop. After a 30-minute debate the board voted that the janitor be instructed to make the old mop last another six months.
In its rush to embrace its “future roads of significance” this Government will be denying thousands of children a road of significance to their own futures.
Who will mop up the generational fallout from such narrow-minded policies? John Bower, Palmerston North freedom of speech can engage both the public and the private spheres. The members of the Hurricanes women’s rugby team are free as individuals to say what they like about the Government, but for better or for worse they have chosen to become professionals and play as the employees of the Hurricanes franchise.
What they do on the field and in the Hurricanes strip necessarily implicates the franchise, its governors, management, and other employees, who understandably might not see it as the role of the franchise to adopt and proclaim political postures of one kind or another, with which they might or might not agree.
Similarly, while I personally might not be particularly exercised by Professor Joanna Kidman’s X/Twitter “death cult” utterance, I can readily understand how her employer, the university, might have a view about the potential for the intemperate language of its academic staff, even when expressed in a private capacity via a public channel, to send a message about intellectual standards within the institution, to the prejudice of the status and currency of its degree qualifications. David Kember, Mt Victoria buyers. They can offer more, so all it will do is increase property prices.
Furthermore, property developers do not build affordable rentals, but highend apartments of no use to low-income families looking for a home..
This gift to the wealthy will give a huge benefit to landlords at the expense of those on the bottom of the propertyowning ladder.
Once again, shame on this callous and cynical coalition Government. Even more so when this gift to landlords, and I am one, is being funded by cuts to school lunches and keeping police pay low. And the prime minister has the gall to say these issues are not connected. Does he take us for fools?
This landlords’ tax cut is one of the cruellest cuts this Government has made, and in its short term there have already been several. This is not the Aotearoa/New Zealand we need or asked for.
Russell O Armitage, Hamilton