Today's Letters to the Editor from readers cover topics including school lunches, vehicle bans and the gold mining industry.
Making a meal of it: the school lunch saga
This whole school lunch issue is turning out to be media meal in itself. As I understand it, the last government picked a random number out of the hat - 25% - through some form of equity index that somehow measures whether students are in need of support.
The entire school then gets a free lunch, every school day. Every day, some sections of the main stream media then go and interview a principal, or a member of the teacher’s union, or a student who is receiving a free meal, to ask why the meal either is difficult to open, isn’t appealing, or fails in some other way.
One thing the media don’t ask is who was feeding these students during the long school holidays, or any schools or students who are grateful and happy for a daily free meal.
Now when the prime minister reminds us that it is part of parenting to provide children with food and also reminds us that it was not all that long ago that the state provided no free meals, these same elements of the media criticise the PM for pointing out a simple truth. Maybe instead of providing the schools with these free meals, if there is real need, then the state could provide the parents with a voucher and instructions on how to make a lunch for their children. Or is that too simple?
Russell Garbutt
Clyde
Mixed results
Neither Donald Trump, Christopher Luxon or Jacinda Ardern's policies are completely terrible or wonderful. They are all mixed.
I expect an independent newspaper to publish respectful articles on different sides, showing a level of impartiality and have been glad to see some changed narrative on Robert F Kennedy jun, a caring, compassionate soul with a great deal of humanity, in your newspaper recently.
Let the free thought continue.
Thomas McAlpine
North East Valley
Vehicle ban decried
I have never taken a car on to the beach in the Clutha District, nonetheless I do not support a vehicle ban, especially on Tautuku Beach.
What about an elderly or infirm person wanting to enjoy the beach from the comfort of their car?
What about a Mum with a young family wanting to picnic on the beach and needing all those things parents need at close quarters?
What about anyone wanting to enjoy a seaside view on a cold day? It can get cold in the Catlins.
A bylaw restricting access to the beach is going to affect more good, considerate beach drivers than bad because we know the majority of people are responsible.
You can't legislate for common sense, so enforcement of existing rules is the only fair response.
A ban on vehicles on beaches would be unfair.
Gregory Kent
Clutha
Wood work
Re Jim Childerstone’s letter (25.2.25), can I ask if torriefied wood can be stored outside not under cover and if it can be that could be one answer to intermittent supply from solar and wind energy.
All our wilding pines could be useful. Could it be a huge battery?
Jim is fairly harsh on Genesis as they are trying this alternative source of energy and maintaining Huntly so it can be used for future bio-energy electricity production.
Torriefied wood could be used as a direct source of heat, replacing coal in much New Zealand industry as well as schools and hospitals.
Bill Payne
Timaru
Doing the arithmetic on the gold mining industry
As usual, Messrs Dixon and Williams (ODT 26.2.25) and other self-styled saviours of the planet want to control how we-the-people run our lives. Humankind has had a love affair with gold for thousands of years and trying to stop that is an exercise in futility. New carparking lots and roads in the greater Queenstown area have a combined footprint many more times that of a small gold mine.
Mr Dixon states “there is no direct social good in gold mining” as though he is judge and jury on what people should think, like and do.
Most gold mines sell their gold into the free market and once there any gold from New Zealand is intermixed with gold from all over and sold on to jewelry manufacturers (about 50% of the total), coin and bar makers and also the electronics industry (about 6%-7% of total). Gold already is recovered and recycled from some of the used electronics, but that supplies only a tiny fraction of annual demand.
Mr Dixon’s statement that this recycled gold will meet “all current and future needs for gold” is arithmetical nonsense.
Mr William’s statement that ‘‘there is sufficient gold already mined to meet the world’s needs for 200 years” is naivety in the extreme. The current annual production/consumption of gold is around 3300 metric tonnes. Estimates of all the gold that has ever been mined are around 220,000t. That is enough for 67 years if you can get hold of all of it. What would Mr Williams do - take all the gold treasures out of museums, the coins out of bedroom drawers, the bars out of Fort Knox and the rings off women’s fingers?
Messrs Dixon and Williams could bring about a much more positive environmental impact by forgetting about gold mining and buying machetes to cut down invasive gorse and broom, but that would mean less visibility and entail hard work.
My last word on this subject.
William Lindqvist
Abbotsford
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
