Saint Patrick Day Parade in Auckland, 2009. Photo / Richard Robinson
Tomorrow afternoon our CBD will fill with St Patrick's Day revellers. While the event's mainstream appeal has some charm, many of these partygoers have simply jumped on a bandwagon. What do most know about Ireland or being Irish? I doubt even half could state a sole word in Gaelic or name even one Irish Prime Minister.
Middle New Zealand is Irish for the day. Yet we have little problem the rest of the year joking about "Irish Exits" or deriding redheads as "gingas". As with big rugby games, the day provides an excuse for some Kiwis to embark on a binge-drinking session. And worse, it perpetuates the stereotype of the Irish as over-imbibers when it is often non-Irish doing so.
N.J. O'Brien, Mt Albert.
We all know the problems of getting around Auckland by car. This is not helped by the myriad traffic lights that are not programmed to cater for the different traffic flows at different times of the day.
Furthermore, the refusal of Auckland Transport to remove the right-turn arrow on many intersections, leaving turning traffic to sit through numerous light changes when nothing is coming, is hugely detrimental to the traffic flow.
John Little, Milford.
If the mayor is not in a hurry he will soon have the ideal site for a stadium available in Hobson Bay. A hundred years ago waves broke on the yellow sand along Beach Rd and large ships anchored in the bay. The construction of Tamaki Drive and the railway changed that environment. Today the silt is covered only at high tide and half of the bay has been lost to reclamation and mangroves. A few years more and the whole area will be a swamp only suited to reclamation.
However, it could be preserved if it were managed like Orakei Basin with control gates beneath the rail track resulting in rapid flushing and creating an environment unfit for mangrove growth. Further delay will result in the final loss of the taonga and a new building site.
J. Billingsley, Parnell.
The Minister of Health is adamant unvaccinated children will not miss out on education in childcare centres on his watch. His watch is health, not education. The right to education is not limited. Freedom of choice is always limited by the rights of the majority to good health.
As with smoking, the individual's right to self-indulgent drug-taking must be curtailed because of the harm it causes. Likewise with drink-driving, the right to drink and drive must be limited to protect the majority, something National fought for five years to delay before succumbing to common sense and scientific evidence.
The scientific evidence is not in dispute with vaccination. As a doctor Coleman knows too well his stance is political nonsense and not health and evidence-based. It makes him sound like Key, whose similar "not on my watch" stance on raising the age of superannuation has been scrapped less than two months after he resigned.
Steve Russell, Hillcrest.
I've just witnessed one of the worst performances I've seen on TV by a current minister. Nick Smith, Minister for the Environment, was asked to comment on the thousands of people who marched around New Zealand protesting at the unrestricted access of international companies to our underground fresh water supplies. With his best patronising face, he stated, "It's such a piddling amount it's not worth considering."
He then went on to tell us how charging for water would make no difference to the quality of water in this country. Correct, however he missed the point completely. Citizens are complaining once again that we are being taken advantage of, in a way similar to the mostly unrestricted overseas property dealers of recent years.
International bottling companies should pay at least $1 million a year for a licence to extract, then several cents per litre or several thousand dollars per container to remove our water. Where else in the world would a First World (debatable) country willingly give up one of its most valuable resources?
Allan Gyde, Tauranga.
Jim Rose makes a number of excellent points regarding the so-called "gender pay-gap". Obviously, different occupational choices will show up as higher pay for men and lower pay for women on average. But the problem is that women often seem to get paid less than men for doing the same job. Studies by leading economists find that even after we control for differences in education, labour-market experience, race and choice of occupation, there is still a gender wage-gap of about 12 per cent.
Another study takes Michigan Law School graduates and matches the men and women in the sample for possible explanatory factors, such as occupation, age, experience, education, time in the workforce, childcare time, average hours worked, grades while in college, etc. Even then one-quarter to one-third of the gender wage-gap remains unexplained.
Recent research, including mine, shows another reason why women may earn less than men: women often shy away from negotiating salaries. One study finds that among Carnegie Mellon University MBAs, starting salaries for men were almost $4000 higher than for women; largely because while only 7 per cent of the women negotiated their starting salary, 57 per cent of the men did so. Such small differences early on often translate into much larger differences later in life.
Ananish Chaudhuri, Department of Economics, University of Auckland.
Upon reading Jim Rose's opinion piece I have just told my 13-year-old daughter she may not get to work in a field that is stimulating and rewarding, both financially and professionally. According to Rose, my daughter will want to stay out of the rat race and avoid demanding professions because of her gender. This despite his assertion that, as a woman, she will have an intellectual advantage going into law and medicine, thanks to her superior literacy and verbal skills.
Neither should she consider a career in science, technology, engineering or maths, even though the last is her best subject at school, because she lacks the innate skills needed for those areas.
We are not sure now what my high-achieving daughter can do for a living but would welcome Mr Rose's advice on that. Meanwhile I'm sure her brother is thrilled at the prospect of working 60-plus hours a week "with no time off for families".
Dr Ann McEwan, Rukuhia.
Is New Zealand's nightmare flooding a freak event or are we experiencing the effects of runaway climate change due to unprecedented releases of greenhouse gases in the industrial era?
The link between climate change and flooding is unequivocal. It works like this: the rate of evaporation coming from the ocean is increasing as the world warms. A warmer atmosphere holds more water. With every 1C rise in temperature there is a 7 per cent increase in moisture, and the intensity of rainfalls and floods increases.
Climate change is caused by continued economic growth based on the industrial model of development. With every extreme weather event that occurs this business growth model is looking increasingly dangerous. Yet the link between recent flooding and climate change is not being discussed.
Shouldn't the media be connecting the dots, engaging with the science and placing this unprecedented threat to people, property and nature at the forefront? The head-in-the-sand approach is no longer acceptable.
Lynley Tulloch and Paul Judge, Hamilton.
When Isis struck out of the desert in 2014 driving Hiluxes and carrying Kalashnikovs they looked overmatched by a Mosul security garrison laden with modern US weaponry. Isis triumphed due to an absence of morale in a Sunni army force that had no investment in a state run by Shiite President Maliki.
The unfortunate US withdrawal from Iraq in December 2011 set the preconditions for the Maliki Administration to favour Shiites in all of the important organs of state.
Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. The Iraqi Army seems on the verge of retaking Mosul. At a time when the US might be ramping up diplomatic pressure on Iraqi President Masum to include the legitimate aspirations of the sizeable Sunni minority, President Trump is proposing a 30 per cent cut to the State Department budget.
Trump's preoccupation with the military destruction of Isis at diplomacy's expense risks squandering an opportunity to help establish the foundations for a more stable Iraq.
Peter Jansen, Henderson.
Former Act president's lawyer claims sentence was too harsh, calls for home detention.