My wife tells me often that I am trying to be the ‘volunteer of the year', as I belong to a raft of good causes. However volunteers must not replace permanent staff, as can happen, and is wrong. We are volunteers, not cheap labour to boost someone's money saving plan.

Volunteers they say, save the government $50million-plus a year. That's not what volunteers are supposed to do.

We give our time which is the most valuable thing in life. Have you ever heard of a volunteer MP?

Governments have short-changed St John Ambulance for years. They are an essential service, like the police. At least the police do not have raffles to pay their way - at least not yet.

New Zealand has decent labour Laws and needs to look at some charities who rely on cheap labour then call them volunteers.

Displaced, paid staff need to lodge a complaint with organisations in the field of human rights. New Zealand taxpayers pay through the nose for very little.

One young person said to a collector for St John, on a disgusting rainy night, ‘I thought that you were funded by Government'. I think the collector is still laughing.

Ron Chamberlain, Tauranga