Sex education
Nicholas Pole, of the Education Review Office, takes umbrage at expressed concerns regarding sex education in schools (Chronicle, October 11).
Perhaps he could allay the reservations of some parents if he could clarify whether or not students will be set homework assignments in the practical section.
ALLAN ANDERSON
Brunswick
Love one another
Last week being Mental Awareness Week ...
Hearing of young people and more mental issues needing addressing, is not mental health a current issue for us all?
Mental health is related to "identity". Identity, meaning in life, is related to "intimacy in relationships".
Socially, we have been too busy to be putting time into intimacy in our relationships; indeed, our senses have been dulled through lack of use! But we can together change that and happily take responsibility in this matter of mental health.
Here is one simple way. When we ask another "How are you?" look for a response that would encourage a sharing of how they are being, rather than what they've been doing. And be prepared to share how you are being also.
And what about an additional logo for our town?
"The place where we love one another".
Even just saying it changes things.
ELIZABETH PARSON
Durie Hill
Bottomless money bag
I hope your columnist, Kate Stewart, is sitting down when she reads this — as I have some good news for her, incredible as it may first seem.
"Ideally, monies allocated for the like of health and education would be bottomless", wrote Kate in a recent article.
Well, this ideal is more practical than most folk realise. Not a bottomless money bag for those "obscene pay packets" and the bureaucratic wastefulness she describes, but one containing enough for our social and environmental needs — not too much and not too little (the "Goldilocks" principle).
Recently an Australian apolitical group (www.fairmoney.org) asked the Reserve Bank of Australia, "Can the RBA ever, under any circumstances, run out of Australian dollars?" The answer must be the shortest official answer on record. It was: No.
What is more, the same answer would be the response from our own Reserve Bank.
Indeed, I have been personally assured by a former top Treasury official that our RBNZ has the power to credit-fund our public needs.
Sadly, Finance Minister Grant Robertson announced earlier this year, at a bank-sponsored breakfast meeting, that he intends running a budget surplus — a promise enthusiastically approved by Moodys of New York.
Means the private owners of our government debt securities can relax under the assurance they will continue to profit — knowing they have first call on Government revenues.
The demands of public health and education would continue to have much lower priority.
Monetary sovereign governments can actually run deficits for necessary spending — and can lawfully balance the books using their own currency. Kate can now have that glass of bubbly — as long as it's Kiwi-made.
HEATHER MARION SMITH
Gisborne
Send your letters to: The Editor, Whanganui Chronicle, 100 Guyton St, PO Box 433, Wanganui 4500; or email editor@wanganuichronicle.co.nz
