The king of pop, adult education, and naughty paperboys

That's no way to talk of Michael

We were most disappointed - even disgusted - with your weekend headline Bad, mad or just sad. Three negative words and none with provable substance.
It is extremely poor journalism to describe Michael Jackson this way. Whether one likes his music, lyrics or performances or not, he has provided much assistance to various people, mainly children, and given pleasure and enjoyment to many millions of people of all ages.
ROLAND and DOREEN BAILEY
Paparangi

Education is an investment

Finance Minister Bill English and Prime Minister John Key have overstepped the mark by cutting night classes. This will seriously affect many communities in far-reaching ways.
Education is an investment, especially at a time of recession, so for a man who claims to know the world of investment so well, Mr Key's attitude to the abolition of many night classes we find devastating.
What has become of egalitarian New Zealand, where everyone has a shot at realising their educational potential, no matter at what stage of life? Our education system is fast becoming one that benefits only the privileged and wealthy elite. We wonder what our forebears would make of that.
We feel that it smacks of penny-pinching in a vulnerable, easily-targeted area when there are far better ways to make ends meet if that be the financial reality.
Unless both men reinstate night classes tout de suite, they will alienate a large section of mainstream New Zealand.
They continue to do that at their own peril, and it should not be so long for Phil Goff to become prime minister.
ALLAN and MARILYN PORTEOUS
Newlands

Only three have reached the court

Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast claims that every single resource consent application in respect of the waterfront project gets appealed to the Environment Court (June 27-28). She's wrong.
Most applications never reach the court. Only three have been tested at that level. Wellington City Council's record is one withdrawn (the Free Ambulance Building, in the face of what the court described as Waterfront Watch's compelling case), one lost (the Hilton), and one won (the OPT).
Ms Prendergast asks if it's fair that one, two or three dissatisfied people, who might be well-meaning through to mischievous, can hold up a development for two, three or four years.
The three waterfront project cases that have reached the court were taken by community organisations, each with significant memberships. I know of no case where one, two or three people have done so.
Does the mayor? Or is she being mischievous in a not so well-meaning way?
PETER BROOKS
Khandallah

I'm back to where I began

When I was 11, I was employed as a paperboy, a task for which I showed little aptitude and complete unreliability. The problem wasn't just my lateness and frivolous habit of throwing the paper as far from the receptacle as could be managed, but also my ratbag habit of retaining, for my own use, the 1/3d that the good people of Karori paid weekly for their daily copy of The Evening Post.
Naturally, it took months before I was exposed but, in that time, I'd managed to misappropriate a total of 150 payments. So deceitful was my chicanery that I often collected money weeks in advance.
After the detectives, the agent and customers cleaned up the mess, my wretchedness was complete. So it remained till 15 years ago when David Bain, a paperboy, was convicted of killing five members of his family. The relief that I'd no longer be considered the worst paperboy in New Zealand history was immense until a different jury found him not guilty. Not only does its decision reflect badly on Robin Bain, but I'm also back to where I was in 1953.
JOHN RUSH
Rotorua

Stick to the priorities

Last week, while cycling down the Khandallah bridle path, I noticed the better part of it acting as an open sewer. Having most stormwater drains blocked meant sewage had nowhere else to go.
This is not the first sewage that's run down the bridle path; it seems to happen every other month.
Wellington City Council seems to have lost sight of a city's four essential services  clean drinking water, stormwater, sewage disposal and roads/paths.
Everything else is a luxury, especially a $50 million sports centre and $2.6m promoting our open sewers to the Aussies.
TREVOR BUTLER
Johnsonville

What it was the child has learnt

Family First has reached a new low in its efforts to have assaults on children re-legalised by excusing the behaviour of a Lower Hutt father who is reported to have repeatedly pushed his seven-year-old son to the ground (June 23). Apparently the child would not join in a rugby game.
The child is said to have been troubled by the fact that some of his uniform was missing. The child was hurt and humiliated in front of peers.
What did the child learn from this experience? He learned that his father was not available to support him through a difficult and embarrassing spot that he did not have the experience to deal with.
He also learned that, when you are mad at someone, you can "lose it" and shove them. Is this good parental correction?
BETH WOOD
Pt Howard

We need an inquiry

The Commerce Commission has advised ING investors to seek independent advice. But it was independent advice that induced me to invest in ING.
Now that adviser is declaring an interest in the matter and also advising me to seek independent advice on the ING offer.
In any event, ostensibly, ING was backed by a large and presumably reputable mainstream bank (ANZ) in the first place. Am I alone in thinking the finance industry has entirely lost the meaning of integrity?
Investors have been in a state of fear and uncertainty for more than a year now. A significant proportion of people have lost substantial proportions of their savings. Yet neither Labour (previously) nor National (now) seems disposed to do anything about it.
Isn't it time for a royal commission to inquire into the industry? Or would that be too near to home for Prime Minister John Key and Co?
DEREK ROBINSON
Paremata

How did teacher get registered?

Your Last Word item (June 27-28) about a letter to parents from a Wellington teacher is cause for the most serious concern.
Presumably, this person is a registered teacher. That anyone so grammatically and literacy-challenged has gained registration from the Teachers Council beggars belief.
How did a person so educationally deprived pass the necessary prerequisite exams, gain entry to and qualify at whichever tertiary institution granted that person a degree or diploma?
What hope do the pupils of this teacher, and of other similarly ill-equipped teachers, have of ever regaining the year(s) lost under such appallingly impoverished guidance?
This is just one example of the legacy of decades of dumbing-down of our principal language, English.
Pupils cannot adequately learn and properly express their understanding in any subject without a comprehensive knowledge of the language in which it is taught.
GRAEME BRIDGE
Ngaio

TO THE POINT

I see campaigner Joe Karam has been commissioned to write yet another book on the Bain murders. Will bookshops stock it under fiction or non-fiction?
JOHN WESTWOOD, Martinborough

I trust that any taxpayer-funded research used in Joe Karam's new book on David Bain will be paid back to the legal aid fund at fair market value  $300,000 or so should be enough.
GLYN PALMER, Trentham

Last weekend, there were two reported eye-gouging incidents on the rugby field. Eye-gouging is a cowardly and despicable act to which there should be only one reaction. The International Rugby Board should ban for life anyone found guilty of it.
IAN COOK, Taupo

What a fantastic reply from Natalie Simon (Letters, June 29) to my earlier letter about special-needs children. It was a classic example of the prejudice these children face when they're mainstreamed. Me, PC? That's an even bigger joke.
DUNCAN LINTS, Grenada Village

I was astounded to read of the intolerant attitude toward special-needs students by one so young. Let's hope Natalie Simon never has an accident that puts her in the realm of the brain-damaged.
MARY HAMMOND, Otaki

If the word "smack" were replaced with "assault" in the child-discipline referendum question, therefore asking: "Should assault as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?", no doubt many would say "yes". Those who say "no" in the referendum are effectively condoning assault on a minor.
HAYDEN NASH, Cannons Creek

The ING-ANZ debacle, in which investors have lost savings, is an indictment on both organisations. It is also an insight into how ING treats investors. I have zero faith in ING, and have transferred my KiwiSaver account to another provider, having no wish to be treated in the same cavalier manner as other ING-ANZ investors.
FRANK MACSKASY, Wallaceville

Those demanding that sports teams sing the National Anthem are breaching the Human Rights Act. The anthem is a religious song calling on a god to protect New Zealand. No one has the right to demand that New Zealanders sing this song. We don't live in America or Iran. New Zealanders have the right not to be persecuted for beliefs or non-beliefs.
GRAHAME LOVEDAY, Heretaunga

Newest First

Oldest First

Glenn Livingstone   #1   09:12 pm Jul 02 2009

I whole-heartedly agree with Allan and Marilyn Porteous - night-classes need to be retained. They are a part of the fabric of New Zealand life. Where else have parents learned to build Optimists to go sailing with their families, Chinese cooking to share with their friends or constructed playhouses for their children.

Night-classes are more than an attainment of skills and knowledge. They give expression to a New Zealand way of life, where fellowship is formed, friendshios are made and a contributions are made both socially and economically. If the National-led government wants to build New Zealand it will be dismantling it if it takes away night classes.

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