School Bus Service

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31320, 16 March 1967, Page 16

School Bus Service

Sir,—The R.N.Z.A.F. and the Education Board are both departments of the huge concern we call “the Government.” All their expenditure is at the expense of taxpayers. There can be no justification

for allowing the continuance of an arrangement which makes available a 36-seater bus, with driver, to carry to school the 10 children of R.N.Z.A.F. parents while other children in the area, denied the use of the bus, are subsidised for private transport costs. The secretary-manager of the Canterbury Education Board, in his reply to “Omnibus,” accepts the dictatorial decision of the R.N.Z.A.F. not to alter anything. This is an absurd position which should be put right at once. The Education Board, by its tacit acceptance of this decision, is unmindful of the statements by Government spokesmen concerning economies by departments. It is stated that the R.N.Z.A.F. bus is not permitted to carry civilians. Surely school children fall into that category, and if 10 of these are carried with the approval of the Ministry of Defence that organisation could be prevailed upon to provide carriage also for the other, now subsidised, children.—Yours, etc., IRISH SENSE. March 15, 1967.