Letters: No defence for Spierings' salary

Fonterra CEO Theo Spierings' new salary is a gross overpayment according to a reader. Photo/File

Salary overpayment
I agree with your correspondent D. Fredericksen, (October 9) that on the whole councillor Merepeka Raukawa-Tait's columns are positive.

However, I beg to differ with her most recent column (October 6) on the salary of "$8m dollar man", CEO of Fonterra Theo Spierings.

We are yet to learn the response of NZ farmers to news of this "staggering salary". I believe however that, bearing in mind many farmers are struggling, they cannot be overly impressed.

I am disappointed that Ms Raukawa-Tait condones this gross salary, implying that he deserves it. In my view, this mindset serves to perpetuate the growing gap between the "haves and the have-nots" in New Zealand, which is rated as the highest in the OECD countries.

It is to be hoped that Fonterra's shareholders will vehemently oppose what is, in my view, a gross overpayment to a CEO, irrespective of what Ms Raukawa-Tait believes to be his many talents.

Jackie Evans
Pukehangi
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Consultation
I fully agree with your correspondent John Pakes (Letters, October 7), that if the council wants to consult with our Maori population, it is silly to limit this to just Te Arawa.

Given council decisions affect all ratepayers, all of us funding both essential and vanity projects and our growing debt, I think all groups, both all Maori and other interest groups should be consulted.

That's democracy at work and is infinitely preferable to the elitism that is creeping into our system.

Paddi Hodgkiss
Rotorua
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Wet winter
Hot air rises at the equator taking water vapour with it.

It spreads out towards the poles, cools and comes down as rain.

It's called a Hadley cell, with deserts in the dry area in between. If extra heat lifts more water vapour, it pushes it further out, widens the desert area and drops more rain further on.

This year the south of Australia and the Cape Province in South Africa are drier, and we, that bit further south, are wetter.

Mark Collet
Rotorua