Boot camp model fails
I worked with “problem/criminal” children in the UK for 12 years.
Our team was initiated and lead by former social workers who had experienced and were disillusioned by the “boot camp” approach. They set up three domestic homes for a maximum number of five youngsters with each given a “livein parent” and additional staff ensuring back-up care and security. The children experienced security, care and love!
This “school” became the last-ditch option from the courts and was expensive. The children learned what a regular domestic life could feel like and if they were not additionally challenged by brain damage due to pre-natal alcohol/drug syndrome or physical harm they were rehabilitated to live a socialised life.
This humane treatment of children, let down by the adults in their families, did not herd them together with others to learn attitudes, beliefs and values from other brutalised individuals to graduate to gang families when they were released. Boot camps fail!
Look to the causes in their homes. The real remedy will cost. The Government would be well advised to stop wasting money on knee-jerk retributions and look for real cures.
Linda Pocock, Oxford
Registration fees
I could accept an increase in vehicle registration fees if the powers-that-be rethought the reason for the charges, quite apart from the blindingly obvious.
Big, heavy vehicles take up more room on the roads and when parked, so why shouldn’t a 3-tonne truckasaurus pay more than Granny’s Demio? Having that sort of charge would also encourage importation of the many options of commuter EVs that are available overseas but appear to be off the radar for importer profit margins, even though they would satisfy the daily needs of a large number of drivers. That ratio has the advantage that it would also render cycle regos too low to bother collecting.
Ian Orchard, Papanui
Trip discount
D Griffiths (Letters, March 5) suggests cyclists pay road user charges. The majority of adult cyclists also own and drive cars from time to time, therefore we already pay rego fees and RUC.
Maybe a better idea would be to give us cyclists a bonus discount for every cycle trip we make, as a reward for reducing wear and tear on the roads and, oh, also doing our bit to save the planet.
Deb Osborn, Southshore
Cyclists pay
In response to D Griffiths, you’re wondering if cyclists should pay $50 for a road tax (perish the thought they should be getting something good for nothing)?
Fear not, cyclists own cars. Cyclists pay for their cars, and their use.
T Marriott, Cashmere
Maintenance issue
I note that again the NZDF Boeing
757 malfunctioned and was unable to transport the prime minister to Australia. Everyone seems to be blaming the airplane for being too old.
I note that Delta Airlines (based in Atlanta, Georgia) operates 156 Boeing 757s each and every day of the week.
Just because an airplane is old doesn’t mean it’s “unreliable”. The problem is maintenance.
Perhaps the NZDF should hire one or two mechanics from Delta Airlines?
Thomas Tripp, Rangiora
System’s integrity
I am surprised and disappointed to read (Council under fire over Thiel’s luxury Wanaka lodge plan, March 6), that the Queenstown Lakes District Council is not supporting a decision of its independent hearing panel.
There has apparently been some backroom negotiation between council representatives and the applicant’s team prior to the current Environment Court hearing.
I acted as an independent hearings commissioner appointed by the QLDC for more than 20 years before I retired. Applicants would often modify their proposals before or during hearings in response to concerns raised by submitters or the hearing panel. That is part of the planning process, but the decision, made on behalf of the council under delegated authority, should not in my view be later undermined. The integrity of the planning system depends on this.
David W Collins, Governors Bay
Kerbside recycling
The Dunedin City Council is improving its kerbside recycling and rubbish service with the use of a green-lidded food scraps bin plus a garden waste bin per household.
Would this strategy help our city’s contribution to Kate Valley waste or does the increase in containers that need to be collected by rubbish trucks mean it’s not cost-effective?
Denise Burrow, Casebrook
Goal of the moon
The article in your paper ‘Lunar gold rush’ on the dark side of the moon (March 5), is chilling reading.
Man considers he has controlled the Earth and Mother Nature through technology, and by doing so has destroyed our beautiful, unique planet. He now wants to control and destroy the moon!
In a Radio New Zealand interview on Sunday British philosopher A C Grayling said tighter regulation is needed by law to restrict the desecration of the moon. Presently, anyone with enough money, can land on the moon and do whatever they want while there, and leave whatever they like.
He also mentioned that Antarctica was at one time considered to be used for nuclear testing before regulations were imposed. More reason for urgency. Without this urgency to bring in regulations and restrictions, humankind will end up destroying our beautiful moon also.
Bronwyn Jones, St Albans
Spot-on, Jeff
Thank you, Jeff Bell, for that great cartoon on Monday (March 4). Spot-on!
L McInnes, Upper Riccarton
Cartoons’ purpose
Robert Black (Letters, March 6), is quite correct in his remarks about antigovernment graffiti/cartoons.
Cartoons are intended to amuse as they point out failings, not to campaign against a regime which has not spent the past six years dithering over how and what to do.
This Government was legally instituted and should at least be given a chance to sort out the current difficulties. After that, cartoon away if they have failed.
Vic Smith, Halswell
Social damage
Robert Black objects to March 5’s antigovernment cartoon, claiming voters demanded this Government’s reforms because of gross social and economic damage by the previous government.
Some people either have very short memories or are simply self-servingly disingenuous. The previous government, along with every other nation, was faced with a pandemic with all the business subsidies, vaccine etc costs involved.
The triumvirate promised tax cuts, to do something about the cost of living crisis, which of course sounds grand as an election soundbite, but I doubt those who voted this Government in were expecting the degree to which Peter, Joseph and Mary working-class New Zealanders would be robbed to pay neoliberal Paul in Ayn Rand drag.
Tax cuts? Overwhelmed in a nanosecond by road user charges, increased registration costs, returning of prescription fees, elimination of fair payment agreements. Meanwhile, education, public health etc, already suffering from fiscal anorexia, are placed on an austerity diet. And don’t get me started on rates…
As for gangs and crime (another election promise) I hardly think attempting to eliminate patches is as effective as more police officers on the ground. Crime remains rampant and sentencing Kafkaesque.
Darren A Saunders, Waltham [abridged]