Your view: Bus service, alcohol, Anne Tolley, John Key, Q&A, crime rate, health board

OPINION:  Click here to find out how to submit a letter for publication.

Quality of life must be considered
I want to express my concern, on behalf of those who have no voice, over the proposed cut in the free bus service provided within the city, reported in The Southland Times on February 9.

According to the 2006 census, 11 per cent of the people who live in the area of Glengarry, Waverley and Hawthorndale have no access to a vehicle.

The newspaper article mentioned that only those who are elderly or choosing to save money use the free bus.

I would like to point out that the biggest users of the free bus service in this area are the poor and the disadvantaged through physical or mental illness and single parents.

The free bus provides the only means of connection with the centralised service providers and shopping, and is the only means of connection with the non-governmental support services that are offered throughout the city.

Whilst it may be that, financially, the free service is not viable, there are other social responsibilities like quality of life that the council also need to take into account when decisions are made concerning core council functions.

I ask that the council reconsider the proposal to remove the free bus service.
Chris Lee, Pastor, Eastside Baptist Church

Minimising harm
As he is such a vocal proponent of individual responsibility ("Onus on alcohol consumers", February 9), perhaps Roger Kerr would like to join the call for cannabis legalisation. It could do with someone of his social standing supporting it.

Oh, that's right, there's no multibillion-dollar industry to protect (there is one to legislate and tax though, Roger).

I am all for individual responsibility but that does not preclude a government being socially responsible regarding alcohol.

As Dr Sellman presents (www.alcoholaction.org.nz), alcohol is a potentially dangerous drug treated as a highly commercialised marketable commodity and international research (Babor et al, 2003, Anderson et al, 2009) supports more effective regulation for minimising alcohol-related harm.

Although I would like to see cannabis legalised, I would never want to see it sold in the same manner that alcohol currently is in New Zealand.

Mr Kerr rolls out the tired old mantra of the "nanny state" and instead advocates "consequences" (ironically t'was often the nanny meting these out).

The consequences for alcohol abuse are already severe (for example, death, job loss, stigmatisation), more so than the ones Mr Kerr proposes, but they have not lowered the incidences of alcohol harm in society. Mr Kerr states that the number of adult drinkers with a potentially hazardous drinking pattern has not changed since 1996-97.

This is a moot point because the problem is already here – 25 per cent of New Zealanders drink in a potentially hazardous manner.

The liquor industry's call to "drink responsibly" does not come with any information as to what this means or how many drinks this entails. Individual responsibility entails social responsibility – taking the hits that will make your whole society better.
Michael Smith, Invercargill
Abridged – Editor

Standards foisted on us
The current drive by Anne Tolley to implement national standards in New Zealand schools totally ignores all the research around not only what changes should be made (the implementation of the New Zealand curriculum, for instance); it also ignores all of the accepted protocols in making such changes – trialling, for example.

It is almost beyond belief that an approach that has already been deemed a failure wherever it has been implemented is to be foisted on to New Zealands schools because a bunch of politicans think its a good idea.

Neither the Education Minister nor the president of the New Zealand School Trustees Association speaks for me, or my board of trustees, when they claim this is what we want. It most certainly is not.

Common sense alone dictates that an independent trial, to see if national standards will deliver the required results, is the very least that should be done. That is unless the gambit is actually about improving teaching standards, and not student achievement. In which case, the existing Professional Standards for Teachers should be employed as they already are in effective schools.
Maureen Deuchrass, board chairwoman, Waverley Park School, Invercargill

Elitist standards
The reasons for our schools to adopt the national standards of Anne Tolley and John Key are unclear for many reasons, but more puzzling for me is why private schools and Maori kura kaupapa dont have to have them. It seems elitist.
Robert Guyton, Riverton

Change the background
Some of us are pleased to have – at last – something nearing a genuine current affairs programme on television.

Sunday morning's Q&A on TV One is a long-overdue addition to a fairly meagre diet of political discussion since the days of Ian Fraser and Brian Edwards.

My only problem with this programme, and others on TV One, is not its host or its content but the visually irritating, continually moving background set, which resembles a colourful David Bain jersey.

Aren't the guests sufficiently decorative?
John Husband, Riverton

Castratingly deterrent
Tom Keyes should ask each criminal he interviews the following question: "If you knew you would be castrated when you got to jail, would you have committed that crime?"

He'd doubtless find the crime rate would have the potential to diminish overnight.
Lou Harrison-Smith, Christchurch

Check the details
So Southland health professionals want to know the details of the plan they support. Pretty radical idea, huh?

In light of Mr Pfeifer's allegations of the Otago District Health Board condition, and the alacrity with which the Otago board supports the scheme, surely a prudent course to take.

Since 1856, when Invercargill was given its name by Dunedin establishment, contrary to the expressed wishes of the residents, Southland has never come out well in any engagement with that province.
R Keith Cook, Invercargill

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