Letters: Don't blame Baby Boomers for council failings

A reader has some observations on the teacher strikes. Photo / 123RF

Thank you councillor Max Mason (News, May 30) for clearing up the question of who is to blame for the Risk Reserve being millions in overdraft.

Of course, it was the Baby Boomers (scornful snort), who else?

Nothing at all to do with wasteful spending by a series of councils who have methodically worked their way through all the rates monies, all the sinking funds which were established to replace infrastructure.

Max wants an extra 2 per cent added to rates to retire debt. I'm pleased he didn't get it, that will be a problem for the next council, whom I hope won't include many of the existing councillors.

Just for clarification, the Baby Boomers are those who were born between 1946 and 1964. Their physical labour and subsequent taxes built most of the infrastructure present in NZ today. They built houses on mortgage rates of 7 to 10 per cent.

They paid their rates and their bills on time and thought the future would get better. I'm not sure if it did. (Abridged)

Dan Russell
Tauranga

Observations on teaching

Based upon my experience of a family full of teachers, I offer the following observations regarding the teachers' strike:

Teacher maturity - we should be able to revere all of our teachers, who we entrust to co-mould the next generation's minds and skills (along with parents).

This should mean our teachers are persons of "full life experience".

Currently many of our teachers are derived mainly direct from being school students, who have never left the schooling system, in order to become "trained teachers".

En masse, they quite simply are not mature, nor "street-wise".

We need all teacher trainees to be attracted to teaching after a period of their lives (say, minimum of five years) spent in "non-education institution" environment.

Discipline - given failing/diminishing parental guidance of many of our children, coupled with a social policy currently condemning corporal punishment, without an ultimate discipline sanction remaining available to teachers, we are doomed to successive generations of ill-disciplined peoples.

Without discipline exercised, our society is doomed to fail.

Unionised education - is crippling our teachers, teaching non-21st century subjects, and teaches our children how to be unionists.

Let New Zealand get out of "unionised education", being responsible for the current failing scenario. Instead, let merit-based education replace the status quo - and the country becomes better off, as do the teachers.

Alan Trotter
Tauranga

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