Tax cuts here have helped alleviate that disparity but it doesn’t increase actual salaries paid and this is where people perceive there is an anomaly. Apparently there is no charge for doctor visits (10-15 minutes) if you have Medicare otherwise it’s around $100. Houses can be cheaper but they have stamp duty and capital gains tax.
Despite the high number of people leaving for Australia there are many thousands also returning. The point is: is one really better off in Australia or taking in the pros and cons is there really such a difference?
Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
Reg Dempster, Albany.
Killer’s history
I would say that correspondent Mark Young has not taken in the history of Lauren Dickason (HoS, June 30).
She comes from South Africa, where she and her husband both worked as doctors. They had a nanny to look after the children and a housekeeper to look after the home.
They came to New Zealand for her husband to work here. As Covid was in full swing, they had to spend two weeks in a hotel unit. Plainly Mark would have no idea what that would be like with three young children, and no doubt little to keep them busy. That would be a trial enough, as they would have likely had to leave most of the children’s toys and books back at home.
Did they have any friends or family here? I would think that Lauren didn’t spend all day with the children due to work. Parents with young children will know only too well how exhausting they can be, particularly if they are unwell.
Why didn’t her husband suggest or advertise for a nanny? Was he blind enough that he didn’t recognise her distress?
We can all “sit on the fence” and criticise Lauren, but maybe her husband could have helped her.
Judith Dexter, Mt Eden.
Ferry maths
What a shambles! We had a $551 million fixed-price contract with Hyundai in Korea to build us two much-needed large ferries for the Cook Strait run. At around 50,000 tonnes each ship, that’s just about $5500 per tonne, for some pretty sophisticated pieces of kit.
To put this in perspective, it costs about twice that much per tonne to put up a standard house, which is not a sophisticated piece of kit, and you’ve still got to furnish it.
But, of course, building costs in NZ are notoriously expensive, and not just for houses. The reason we are going to incur hundreds of millions of dollars in penalty fees to cancel this excellent fixed-price contract is that the cost of building a couple of wharves in Wellington and Picton to dock the new ships has ballooned out to around $2.5 billion.
This stupendous sum has never been explained to us. How much of it is fat profit margins, consultancy fees, contingency allowances etc etc? It’s part of the general blow-out in infrastructure costs which is becoming a serious drain on our national prosperity.
Perhaps we should ask Hyundai to also give us a fixed price quote to build the wharves.
Tim Hazledine, Freemans Bay.
Improving kids’ reading
I can agree with much of Education Minister Erica Stanford’s ideas regarding reading standards, but not that standardised testing will help.
Surely the purpose of a test should be to pinpoint where problems lie and what needs to be addressed but I never found the Progressive Achievement Test results as useful as actually hearing a child read and discussing what they understood from it.
By the time a child is old enough to sit such a test inadequacies in ability can already be established.
In the days before “look at the picture and guess the word” phonics were regarded as the key to deciphering new words, particularly where a picture was of no help. Pronouncing single letters was just the first step which quickly led to recognising that the combination of two or three letters made simple words or sounds leading on to the syllables that form longer words.
In those former days it was the norm for teachers of beginners’ classes to hear each individual child read a page each day (or two or three times a week at least): time-consuming but doable.
The teacher was aware which child needed help before a problem became ingrained and confidence lost. Problems caught early enough don’t require reading recovery and there is nothing like success for a child to be engaged in learning.
Phyl Belsham, Mt Albert.
Give teachers more resources
Different countries’ reaction to the results of international testing of children such as the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) are interesting.
Here in New Zealand ‘experts’ have persuaded the Government that teachers will now have to focus on teaching reading using phonics rather than whole language approaches. New South Wales is following the same path. In England “experts” are telling the government that phonics teaching has not worked, and a combination of phonics and whole language teaching is best.
The response of the Finnish government to a decline in scores is to provide an additional €200 million ($353m) to support teachers. Its view is that the real experts are the teachers working with children every day. Pity we are not doing the same here in New Zealand.
More assessment, more reporting will not help; there is enough already in our primary schools.
Teachers already know which children need additional help. What is missing is the lack of resources to provide it.
David Hood, Hamilton.
Chocolate affishionado
I refer of course to Piscis Chocolatis Cadburii, the humble chocolate fish.
For over 50 years our family has prized this Kiwi delicacy; and with many others across Aotearoa and the UK, now mourn its passing.
The curator, Cadbury, claims the fish’s demise was due to the lack of demand; however, as an affishionado I am certain that lack of distribution was the main cause. While a few local stores could be relied upon once sought out, this treat was not found in large shops – which is of course why many more were not sold.
Please Cadbury, preserve this piece of Kiwiana – bring back the fishy (sorry, clones are just not up to munch).
Paul Parker, Stanmore Bay.
