The emasculated family

I want to offer my support to Dianne Hooper who in last week's Salient attacked the economic pressures which destroy family life. The exploitation conducted by business powers in Western society cannot have anything but a destructive influence on healthy loving relationships.

While Dianne goes astray occasionally as when comparing a human relationship with that of the paradise duck—the former is in an altogether different order from the latter—the basic point of her article punched home just as it needed to be.

The emasculated family we have today could be supported by no one. But a reordered, regenerated family, freed from its present terrible pressures, is what we want. While all around people suffer from impermanence and superficiality we look to the family, widened at its base and outward oriented, for the human conditions ideal for growth, permanence and stability in relationships.

I too, attack the power of economic interests which make the family victims of created desires for prestige, possessions and prosperity and destroy the chance to maintain a developing and loving relationship.

Brendan Smith

Some guerillas give up

It is indeed heartening to learn that the first few issues of Salient are again stirring up political issues on Malaysia and no doubt prompting more letters.

Recent events in Sarawak, Malaysia must have been a blow to revolutionary die-hards at Vic. On October 18, 1973 a group of 482 men and women fighting in the jungles of Sarawak laid down their arms and withdrew from the jungle. This act of "surrender" was only made public on March 4 this year, and presumably, Wellington must have been informed.

Among those who came out from the fighting (these men and women have with their own hands taken quite a few lives) were Messrs Bong Kee Chok, Lau Mean Yaw, Pui Man Tui, Lee Thicn Yong, Weng Lee Seng, Wang Kee Hiu, Lai Soon Tak, Chong Soon Chang and Mesdames Liaw Chin Fong and Hai Swee Ing, average ages 36 years. Such names are, I am sure, familiar to some students at Vic, especially to those from Kuching, Sibu and Sareikei. The Rajang students at Dunedin must also have heard of them. The Sarawak Government have openly declared a policy to accept these freedom fighters back into society and are providing protection to them for fear of reprisals from the remaining fighters in the jungle.

One question to be posed, Mr Editor, is whether one can label these genuine freedom fighters as 'running dogs'. Can we really? After all, they have sweated it out in the jungle at least for the past 10 years, living a life that no student at Vic or anywhere else in New Zealand have experienced before.

A further and more important question, one which I have discussed with your President many times before, is whether armed revolution is the only means to achieve social justice in a developing country.

Without doubt, much will have to depend on the Government in power. It seems there's not much point in shouting revolution when the Government in power is already committed to social justice and progress. Short of totalitarian government, a government coming to power by force has still to contend with such issues as poverty, hunger, illiteracy and so forth.

Paradoxically, if you like the Sarawak government is at the moment instigating a revolution in British Protected Brunei. Herein lies the crux and dilemma of politics in South East Asia—who and what should we be fighting for? Against foreign domination or for social progress and justice, or are the two objectives inseparable?

An expert opinion

On coming to this university from Australia, I was shocked by the catering standard of the university union. I do not propose to moan but to offer suggestions.

The upstairs coffee lounge is my first complaint. A University such as VUW should boast a good cup of coffee, the providing of Nescafe and hot water in a quagmire of sugar is appalling. The small area of the bar needs reconstruction, especially in the production of milkshakes. An expresso coffee maker would undoubtedly improve the quality. Snacks could be left as they are—their quality is o.k.

Now for the 'cafe' downstairs. The present number of students places considerably strain the catering, however it is not helped by the design of the building. The 'cafe' should have been placed upstairs, and students would not congregate and cramp the area. In the long run, attempts should be made in duplicating of hot food areas, even at the expense of the cold buffet race.

An increase in staff, or employment of students as cleaners would also be advantageous. Unfortunately also I believe that an increase in Union fees would benefit the most.

A union 'ad hoc' committee on food should be quickly formed, as the bubble is to burst, or somebody is to drown in gravey.

Mens Liberation

This time I think it inadvisable to submit my name.

It is a pity that NZ suffers from sex stereotyping of a particular virulent form. For thirty years I have been trying to get a teaching job and a library job and a science technician job and a lab technician job. All in vain because I am male.

The frustration for males must be a contributory cause to alcoholism, homosexuality and mental hospitals in NZ.

Speaking from experience, I had to get my degree in Library Science in India, because I couldn't get accepted by the New Zealand Library School. The NZ Library Association admits that its members are all women because in NZ and to a lesser extent in N. America, librarian is synonymous with female. Why?

"The day is coming for all that, for all that", when sexes will not be segregated into sex linked job opportunities any more. Why should temperamentally 'female' men be refused admission to jobs now carried on by women, and indifferently and without imagination at that? Many female librarians only work to get married, same with teaching, whereas most of the great advances are contributed by men, if they can get a foothold into a female stereo-typed profession.

Apart from that hurdle one has also to pass the red tape and restrictive practices exerted by the Education Dept. on prospective male teachers. And by the NZ unions and by the State Services Commission. When all these have erected their restrictive barriers, all that the reject (generally male) can do is to end up in a mental hospital or as a pensioner. . . .

What a waste! We all have our spark of creativity, male and female, and there should be no barriers to male creativity especially, as in spite of what Womens Lib say, it is generally greater in men than in women.

Why are the Modern Language Dept. of the NZ Universities patronized almost wholly by women along with the Library Schools and Hospital Ancillary staff training, while the men are supposed to be interested in 'male pursuits' such as rugby and process working stereo-typed as 'heavy weight lifters? Why should these men's brains, intellect go to pot?

As D.H. Lawrence said, "I will not be fully understood until about 100 years after my death", but he wrote, (and I am not being dirty as I quote from his texts "This will be the age of cocksure women and hensure men...")

M.A. Graduate,

Never mind, Dianne

Congratulations on your super centre-page thing. Your phraseology was unspeakably "with-it". I guess it took you all of half an hour to amass that amount of negative generalisations.

Never mind luv, in a couple of years from now, with two kids and a "gloriously successful young man" "behind" you, there won't be much time for the coining and collecting of such trendy rubbish.

Cable Car to the Cafe

Considering the number of Vic students who use the cable-car, it would seem appropriate if the cable-car teminus was the Vic cafeteria instead of the 'Sky-line' restaurant. Although the extra link might perhaps be a little costly to build, just think of the benefits to students, and especially to the cable-car operators who will then be able to buy their lunches at the cafe's 'reduced' prices.

Moaners

I have just finished reading "Letters to the Ed" as a sequel to the article on Page 2, "SRC Apathy"

Many of the letters contained various complaints of bad food in the cafe, dirty windows in the library, the dictatorship of the left (whatever that is!) et al.

If all the frantic writers to editors, and in that book in Studass Office, all complainers and moaners to all and sundry about every bloody thing they think is wrong in this place were to attend the SRC meetings, get off their big (or small) arses and offer themselves for the committees that work on these matters then perhaps there would be less to complain about. Perhaps the food would be better, the library windows clean and the alleged "dictatorship" of the left would be seen in its perspective. Of course it probably doesn't suit the moaners to have nothing to complain about which is why they don't do anything.

Kevin McKone

They shoot Deputy-Managing Secretaries, don't they?

Why the hell must Victoria Students pay 50c to see a film here, while at Canterbury, students pay 40c and their guests, or they can make a yearly subscription of $3, saving $6 in doing so, to see a film once a week every week. What's Christchurch got that we haven't got?

The milk shakes

So far this year I have grudgingly paid 20c in the Union snack bar for an unchilled mixture of milk and syrup. I say 'grudgingly' as at Auckland Uni last year our milkshakes cost 15c with ice-cream included.

Imagine my delight when on Monday I was asked to pay only 15c for my milkshake—same contents!!

But on Wednesday the price was back to 20c—although the contents still had not changed. When I informed the girl serving me about their previous price, she told me that, owing to the fact that they were using double flavour now, the price was back to 20c.

I for one would willingly pay 15c and be prepared to get my single flavour. I did not ask for a double flavour, and anyway, with the amount of milk they use it tastes worse than the single flavour.

J. Benjamin

Super Scheme -a mass ripoff

Jim Delahunty, in his article on the New Zealand Superannuation Scheme, claims that the scheme is something hotched up by the Labour Government to deprive the old rather than tax those who have plenty now. The mere fact that the underlying feature of the scheme may be to accumulate vast sums of money cannot be contrived to imply that this scheme is not going to be run on theoretically sound bases.

The principles of superannuation lie basically in interest, yield on money invested, and mortality rates. It always has been, and must always be, sound practice that an average person (one who dies when predicted from previous experience) can get out of a fund only as much as he puts in, plus interest and yield on investments.

This principle is adhered to in the government scheme, where the income, or contributors to the fund will be handled in a contributor's account.

When a person retires, his contribution plus interest will be used to purchase an annuity from the annuity account.

Annuities are calculated as being the purchase amount, divided by the value of future payments discounted at some interest rate and adjusted by some factor to allow for inflation.

Once the pension has been determined, it must keep on rising at the rate of inflation. If the fund only assumed 6% inflation over the remaining years of the pensioner's life, and inflation one year is 11%, the pension must increase by 11%.

It must be emphasised that the Act specifies that pensions may not be paid from incoming contributions. They are paid from a separate account which comprises all the purchasing amounts for annuities from the various pensioners at that time receiving a pension from the fund.

It will be by no means compulsory to belong to the Government fund. Legislation merely stipulates that other schemes must be at least as good as the Government scheme.

In theory this means that any Life Office which wants to can start a scheme to compete with the government one.

In practise however, full particulars of the government scheme have not yet been decided upon, much less released, so no company really knows what their scheme will have to be like to be a suitable alternative to the government scheme.

It is probably, that even in April 1975 when the money starts coming in, that the full particulars of the benefits of the scheme will still not be decided. However the other life offices do not share the privileges of the government and will be required to submit detailed accounts of how their contributions schemes will be run, before they are allowed to commence operation. A formidable task when you aren't told what to submit.

It is therefore evident, that at the start of the scheme, nearly all of New Zealand presently un-superannuated workers (75%) will go to the Government Scheme for lack of any alternative.

When a person in a non-government scheme retires, the company he is with can give him a pension which they must guarantee against inflation. But since no company will carry this risk, and a fixed proportion of the pension must be guaranteed against inflation, the company will use at least some of the pensioner's contribution to purchase an annuity from the government annuities fund, once again, for lack of any alternative.

All this is a cover to the real issue though. Although this scheme follows well-established principles, there is practically no experience of a scheme of this magnitude.

In this scheme there will be (for a start) $350 million per annum paid in for (say) 30 years before anything is paid out. That is $10,500 million at today's rates.

It is conceivable that the government could lend itself this money and pay the interest from tax.

In an idealised situation where the income from contributions plus return on investment was equal to the pensions being paid out, the pool to be invested would be constant.

To put it bluntly, the government could lend itself $10,500 million from the scheme, and never have to repay it.

The contributions up to this point would then be taxation in the broadest sense. One of the alternatives to lending the money to itself is to lend it to other countries, a practise leading to incredibly low return on investment, since international lending rates are below even New Zealand internal rates, there is practically no chance of the government using funds to purchase overseas owned interests, since most of these are 'political' in any case. The final alternatives then desirable would be to lend the money within New Zealand, or to invest in property within the country.

In New Zealand, most lending is done by the insurance companies. Insurance companies between them, can practically dictate the current mortgage rates for home finance. But by comparison with the new super scheme, the capital invested by the insurance companies will be chicken feed. The Government Life, NZ's second largest insurance company has a capital of around $350 million. The new scheme will be investing that per annum for 30 years.

It appears that so much money available for mortgage must force interest rates down, unless an interest fixing racket emerges, contrary to the principle of a free market.

As we saw last June to December, when interest rates are low and money is easily got, it is inevitable that an excessive rate of inflation results, simply because there are more people wanting houses etc. than there are houses for sale.

If property prices increase, then rents increase and so we are back on the old inflationary spiral. And this argument obviously still holds if the money is invested industrially.

No worker is going to accept a drop in his standard of living as a result of this scheme. It has even been stated by the government that no-one's take home pay will drop as a result.

So if the worker gets an increase to cover the contributions, prices must go up to accomodate for this, and they must go up still further to accommodate for the boss's share.

This inflation thereby created will only serve to decrease the value of the worker's contribution and since a scheme of this size cannot earn sufficient interest to equal inflation, the worker must lose out.

Ultimately then, the scheme can be seen as a mass rip off, cheap pensions for most (but not enough), or a lot of bull about nothing. They're going to get the dough out of you somehow. Does it really make all that much difference how?

—Martin McKendry

Making the beast with two backs

mr williams m.a. clearly shows his age for he should realise that copulation on a backless bench is much more a practical proposition than it is on the backed variety.

Art for arts sake

At last Salient has printed something that has no direct political message. I am referring to the story "The Moment of Freedom" in last week's issue. I feel it would greatly improve the appeal of Salient if there was a regular 'literary' section as, surprising though it may seem, not all students are only interested in the continuing propaganda war between the various political factions that exist.

Surely it would be possible for a couple of pages to be set aside each week where 'art for arts sake' would have a place.

Philip