Who's responsible?
With the start of a new school year in Australia and many other countries or the return to school in most other countries there will be a nervous expectation of which teacher they will have but what if there is no teacher?
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A recent report from Ireland showed that most public secondary schools often have no applicants for teaching positions. The short list of applicants is actually short of any applicants but why?
In some cases, there may be a number of applicants but no quality applicants - a hint, run spell and grammar checks on your resume please. There must be a reason why there are less quality applicants and the general suggestions are low pay rates, increased paperwork, less positive students, expectations of solving all of society's problems and many more items. If you want quality and quantity, then it must be significant changes to the profession.
Dennis Fitzgerald, Melbourne
Election victory
Just a quick reply to Daniel Peckham's letter about how Barnaby Joyce won the last election. National people don't vote for the candidate, they vote for the party. I worked that out when I came to Tamworth in the '60s. Some National voters would vote for a cattle dog if it was the candidate.
Jan Morris, West Tamworth
Sports rorts saga
A week or so ago deputy leader of the Federal Nationals Bridget McKenzie resigned her position as a minister because she failed to declare her pecuniary interest in her local club that benefited from a $36,000 grant. This was part of a larger $100 million Community Sports Infrastructure Program that was presumably used to confer benefits to coalition MP's and candidates prior tot the 2019 federal election with a number of grants made in marginal seats.
However initially the grant applications were ranked by public servants in order or merit and the results handed over to the minister's office for endorsement. An application by Tamworth Regional Council for $432,000 for sports lighting on Riverside fields was ranked highly but missed out.
When asked about the grant and why Tamworth missed out the federal MP said that we could substitute what we have received historically for the grant we missed out on. It was an interesting demonstration of community advocacy by the current MP for projects in New England preferring to defend the discredited process by his colleague Senator McKenzie.
If a grant application of over $432,000 stacks up against others from other electorates and we miss out I would have expected that our elected representative would have shown the requisite amount of disappointment. But no he defended the questionable decisions made by his colleagues and that behaviour disadvantages us all.
Mark Rodda, Tamworth
