My Account
Social sins
Interesting to note the recent article re the exploitation of children online (Social media fears stalk college classrooms, MM Sept 18). It’s interesting that Mahurangi College assistant principal Christina Merrick wrote to parents expressing concern that girls under 13 had Instagram accounts, when the recommended age for having these accounts is 13 and over.
However, schools are actively involved in signing up students to online accounts, including Warkworth Primary School and Mahurangi College. These schools have signed my child and other students up for a Google account, email account, YouTube and other social media accounts. I did not sign my child up for any of them. Many of these children are under 13. So why is the school allowing children onto these accounts, which are recommended for those over 13? How ironic that parents are now being found at fault for children becoming vulnerable to predators online, when schools have actively encouraged this behaviour. Encouraging children on to social media is not giving our children the right message.
Julie, Warkworth [last name withheld on request]
Christina Merrick responds: We do encourage students to become active, critical thinkers when using online media, as we see this as a skill needed for the future. Educational programmes such as Seesaw, Google Classroom and, at times, YouTube, are used and run through our school systems in the same way other New Zealand schools utilise these sites. We do not use or sign up students to social media sites as part of our curriculum programmes.
Rail fail
I note that the Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Regional Development Minister Shane Jones have announced a nearly $1 billion investment to revive the rail line between Auckland and Whangarei (MM September 18). Their evidence, from the Kiwi Rail CEO was “decades of decline had caused damage that would have closed the line for business within a year”. Facts are that for even greater decades there is no volume of freight suitable for the rail to handle. If there were any cost-benefit advantages, it would be used. Today, better and more cost-effective modes of transport are available – water and road transport. New Zealand is a coastal country. We know that in respect to energy, water is the most efficient, followed by road. Japan is a coastal country and this is why they shift 45 per cent of their freight by boat and their millions of people by fast trains. Eighty years ago, my father had a truck serving our rural farming community. He delivered cream, livestock and collected some fertiliser to and from the local rail stations. Today those same, now disused, rail stations are dotted all along the rail line north. Why? Because they have served their time and rail is no longer cost-effective. One product produced in the north is cement. Rail has been tried but fails to compete against efficient water-transport systems. In the 1980s, The fertiliser store at Wellsford was designed and built to be a rail-only fed bulk store. Despite all the planning to favour rail, that expensive experiment failed. Rail eventually gave it away. Today, the store no longer even operates. The logging operation out of the Wellsford rail yard has also been stopped. Rail needs bigger tonnages over longer distances. Winston Peters and Shane Jones need to state just how the cost benefits of this huge taxpayer-funded investment is supposed to stack up. It is their Government that is responsible for stopping the motorway north, something that every Northlander would really benefit from.
Maurie Hooper, Snells Beach
Burning blunder
It is disappointing to see candidates for the Auckland local government elections supporting rubbish incineration (MM September 18). I have to believe that they have not given intelligent consideration to all the issues. There are three main factors to consider: 1. We deplore the use of fossil fuels to provide energy, and yet rubbish incineration does exactly that – destroying material that has been gained from extractive industries, using it for our temporary convenience and then burning it to provide energy. 2. This is a huge waste of resources that could be reused and recycled and is contrary to Auckland Council’s policy of zero waste by 2040. 3. Cleaning the discharge is complex and enormously expensive (if it was cheap coal and oil-fired energy facilities would use it), and despite the industry’s protestations, there is always a toxic residue to be dealt with. Do not allow this to be used as a reason to oppose the Dome Valley tip. Oppose the tip on environmental and zero waste grounds. Reuse and recycling is the only sustainable solution.
Elizabeth Foster, Whangateau
