Dump complaints

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 8, Issue 371, 29 January 1991, Page 4

Dump complaints

• I have just returned from a daily unpleasant task of a trip to the local rubbish dump. And what a trip. I hate to admit anything is wrong with Ohakne but our dump at the moment is a bloody disgrace. It appears the council is still paying out big bucks to have it cleared but the work is not getting done. Rumour reports the contractor's machine has broken down. Stiff. Hire one. The rubbish at 2.30pm today (Monday) was within an easy stone's throw of the main road and with the prevailing wind was a definite fire hazard. I know you can't be everywhere Garrick, but whoever is meant to be looking after this little task sure as hell isn't. Alan Mu.rd.ie Dump trashed • On a recent trip to the dump at Ohakune it was noticeable that the state of the dump is appalling and that it is beginning to spread out onto the road. Not a very encouraging sight for visitors to our area. Windy Council plot • I have uncovered the real reason behind the dense wilderness covering Ohakune's public areas: it is a sneaky but clever plot by the Council to recover funds following devaluation of property in the township. Any day now the Council intends to send in gangs of workers under the cover of a government Taskforce Green scheme, to harvest the long grass and other rampant growth, turn it into fodder bales and store them in secret bunkers placed strategically around the area. Intclligence reports received last June from Wellington's weather bureau and marked "for Council eyes only" predict that from July 1991 onwards, the weather

will be very severe indeed.The Council will, therefore, from late next winter sell fodder at very inflated prices to desperate farmers and thus make up the shortfall in rates.For this reason Mayor Workman is not seriously considering differential or capital value rating systems. Ohakune householders then' have no need to fear rate increases or take exception to the jungle covering favourite recreational areas and roadsides. The good news is all those children under five and dogs lost by parents and owners in the elephantine growth beside walking tracks, will soon be recovered. I lost my dog yesterday, even though it was on a leash! Being ever resourceful, the Council intends to charge owners for the return of children and pets. Those unclaimed will be auctioned. Elizabeth Baigent. Brigade Jubilee • The Wanganui Fire Brigade is holding its 125 th Jubilee celebrations from 22 to 26 May 1991. A full week of activities is planned including displays, parades and culminating with a ball. Any interested persons are welcome to attend. For further information and programme please contact "The Registrar, 125 Jubilee committee, PO Box 334 Wanganui". W.R. Benton Bulletin reminds of NZ's wildness • The following letter was sent to Mr Woods of Rimu Street, Ohakune who is a regular reader and correspondent of "The New Yorker" magazine of the USA. The letter is from the editor of that magazine after receiving a copy of the Ruapehu Bulletin. Dear Mr. Woods, 'Please overlook an old man's garrulity,' you said. Well! One man's garrulity is another man's charm, and you've plenty of that commodity. I didn't mean to let your letter go so long unanswered, but as E. B. White once said, it got buried in the soft earth of my desk. At any rate, I didn't want the old year to go out without saying hello and thank you for the Ruapehu Bulletin, which I am going to send to a third grade teache/ I know in the Florida Panhandle, along with the stamps from your envelope. How's that for recycling! She has let her acquaintances know that she would appreciate stamps from foreign places so that she can talk about foreign places to her children, and these are far more interesting than the pallid European ones that I sent her.

I remember once reading a mystery story, set in New Zealand, by Ngaio Marsh, who I think hails from New Zealand. It was written long ago, but I remember that its landscape featured pools of boiling mud, and that at least once someone came to a bad end in one. It sounded like wild and fascinating countryside, and your Ruapehu Bulletin makes me think that perhaps it's not become homogenized and tame even now. I hope you'll encourage me to think so. My next trip is to the GalapogaS, in January, but New Zealand is certainly a place that beckons. Especially if those nasty mud pools are still there. Thank you for your wonderful letter, and I hope you have a fine Christmas and New Year. Dotty Guth Education politics • As King Arthur of the original Knights of the Round table lay dying he said "The old order changeth yielding place to new, and God fulfils himself in many ways lest one good custom should corrupt the world." However it seems to me that the new order of Knights of the Roundtable and their associates, types like Sir Ron, Sir Roger, Sir Geoffrey and all, together with the members of the last two Governments, are successfully corrupting all the good things that made up our world in New Zealand. Namely employment, health and education. Take the latter for instance. First discredit that which you seek to destroy. So well-trained teachers of a previous era were portrayed as strap-happy, rote-toting ' tyrants. The fact that very few pupils left primary school without a very good grounding in "the 3Rs" has been totally ignored. Compare that with today. Also ignored has been the fact that almost all of us gave up our Saturdays to participate in and to coach sports teams. We coached teams before and after school and also during our lunch-breaks because many of the children were "buspupils". Some staff members ran youth clubs. All this was in our own time and unpaid as was also the lengthy time spent in the thorough preparation and marking of lessons. How could we have been so dumb? It's simple. We were dedicated! The down-grading of State education has been a relentless process. Labour's Associate Turn page 10

LETTERS

From page 4 Minister of Education made political ploy of the fact that he was "orphanage boy done well". So why was he a party to a policy, which National is continuing, of making it difficult for people from a working class background to have a similar first rate education? For the first time in my life I wrote recently to one of those people who are elected by us to look after our best interests and who are paid handsomely for it. I asked the Minister of Education, Dr. Lockwood Smith, whether he intended to re- introduce a national inspectorate. The answer was meant to confuse, or hopefully lose me. I think it meant NO! It's too wordy to quote in total. "The inspectorate of the former Department of Education disappeared on 30 September 1989. (I'd gladly help him find it) but at that point the Education Review office (ERO) was created, shaped by the 'Picot Report' through 'Tomorrows schools' and through review by the Lough Committee in early 1990." I'm shame-

fully ignorant, I don't think I've hcard of the last named, but it must have had some clout because, I further quote, "The office (ERO) has just complcted the development of a methodology of review as required by the Lough Report and has been reduced by one third with the consequent requircment that it lift effcctiveness in use of its rcsources. This increascd effectiveness will be subject to ongoing scrutiny by the Govemment, and by the institutions. It is fair that the Education Review Office, after its modification through 1990, be given the opportunity to prove itself " How can it be effective after having to cannibalise itself by one third? I assume that many members of the ERO must be unhappy too but if they complain they'll be the next for the self devouring maw, and they like the rest of us have mortgages and overdrafts to pay. It seems to me, that National is merely picking the scabs from the scars left by Labour, making the wounds bleed again.

June

Bates,

Ohakune.