LETTERS
Illustration: Cathy Wilcox
Julia Gillard is a better prime minister than she is given credit for, but she won't win in September (''PM's poll pain: Abbott and Rudd more popular'', February 18). Swan has become a liability, also. The party must remove them both and let Rudd build an exciting alternative to the piecemeal Abbott who simply doesn't convince as a prime minister.
Jim Moloney Coorparoo (Qld)
How to succeed in politics without really trying: decline all TV and radio interviews (except with Alan Jones), release no new policy details (if a loony idea slips out about relocating thousands of public servants to Darwin, say it's not really a policy, just a draft), and sit tight while your enemies destroy each other.
Nick Franklin Katoomba
Surely the whole point of ''cryogenic storage'', Kevin Rudd, is that the object in there can be resuscitated when required.
Anne Rands Killara
Labor Caucus members only have themselves to blame. Their treachery to an elected prime minister and subsequent attacks on him have come to bite them. Now is the time for David Bradbury, the member for Lindsay, to tattoo Ms Gillard's name on his forehead and see how many of his colleagues do likewise.
Regina Gilliland Blacktown
This morning the national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Paul Howes, responding to the latest Nielsen Poll, said that we should all stop talking about federal Labor's poor polling. Hear, hear!
As a long-time ALP member I've watched, in dismay, the many negative verbal interventions into ALP matters by Australia's most boring trade union official. I look forward to Mr Howes heeding his own advice.
David Mehan Ourimbah
The only thing I understand from this latest poll is that the Australian voter is badly served with the unfortunate situation of still having the same two major parties contesting power for at least 60 years. The fault is all ours for accepting this farce of a two-party system where every few years there is a change of seating arrangements in Parliament.
While ever the middle ''what's in it for me'' class have control over the final result, then we will always have parties without any vision. The old mantras will come out again this election, lower taxes, less red tape, tougher on crime, government efficiencies, blah, blah, blah.
I hope one day the dumbing down of political debate will eventually reach a point where we all agree, enough is enough. I'm not holding my breath.
Zuzu Burford Heathcote
With the opinion polls showing Labor in catastrophic trouble come the election in September, it might be a good time for Tony Abbott to suggest that any member of Parliament who resigns voluntarily (as Paul Keating did in 1996) within two years after an election has to pay for the byelection from their own pockets.
They get a very generous ''pension'' courtesy of taxpayers so it shouldn't be the taxpayers who have to cough up again if these people resign just because their party loses the election.
Ian McLeod Wallendbeen
Given the people we'd really prefer as prime minister aren't in the poll question, shouldn't we refer to that particular statistic as ''least un-preferred'' prime minister?
Peter Fyfe Erskineville
Insurers' push for profits means expensive motoring
Thanks to rises in green slip prices, plus the inevitable increases in comprehensive motor vehicle insurance costs and annual registration fees, the cost of keeping a car on the road is now about $1500 a year - not including maintenance and other running expenses (''Motorists taken for a ride on green slips'', February 18).
While insurance companies adjust their figures to ensure more profits and state governments increase their slice of the pie, via GST, there is also the distinct possibility that these escalating costs, combined with a decision that registration stickers no longer need to be displayed on our windscreens, will increase the numbers of idiots driving unregistered and uninsured cars.
How much will that cost?
Bob Harris Sawtell
After the usual record profits have been posted by banks, we now see that third-party green-slip premiums are ballooning to maintain the massive profits made by insurance companies. Surely these two industries, neither of which actually produce anything tangible, should have been more deserving candidates for the government's ''super profits'' tax scheme when it was first dreamed up.
Mining companies' unpredictable revenue is dependant on global commodity prices, currency fluctuations and the volatile economies of China and India. On the other hand, the Australian finance industry makes money hand over fist in all geopolitical climates.
When a mining company wants to gouge out a few holes in a sparsely populated rural area, there is widespread community outrage. Yet nobody challenges the insurers or banks for gouging our wallets.
Greg Cantori Kareela
Armed children equals cruelty in national parks
The recommendations by the Game Council NSW to allow minors as young as 12 to use bows and arrows as well as guns on hunting sprees in National Parks will encourage cruelty to animals, especially those we have designated as ''pests'' (''Plan to let minors shoot in parks'', February 18). We can be sure that many native animals will also be wounded and die ''by mistake''. Animals will suffer and children will be brutalised.
Is there no way a federal government can take over our national parks and make them truly ''national''? Our national parks need protection from irresponsible, ignorant and destructive state governments.
Deidre Wicks Turramurra
Minors have been legally hunting on public land for years now, without a problem, just like licensed adults. It is hardly as if there's open slather, though.
Before being able to hunt on public land legally the minor must have completed training and been assessed on their knowledge of firearms safety and law, and - with a parent or guardian- applied for and been granted a minor firearms permit.
They must be a member of an approved hunting organisation, and complete further training and assessment to qualify for a restricted game licence.
They must then obtain written permission to hunt in a particular area on particular days, and abide with strict conditions.
Of course, they must also be supervised at all times by an adult who has met the competency and other criteria for both a firearms licence and restricted game licence.
The requirements are in fact far more stringent than apply in Victoria or South Australia, where hunters (including minors) have been hunting in national parks for many years without a problem.
Daniel Murray Bexley
There are plans to let minors shoot in parks with bows and arrows as well as guns? Has Barry O'Farrell been reading The Hunger Games?
Eva Elbourne Killara
Terminally ill deserve better
As a humanist, I was deeply moved by the plight of Gillian Mears (''Food and wine for the spirit, not just the body as I ponder a way to die'', February 18).
As a secularist, I cannot believe that her ordeal has been ordained for her. As a citizen, I deplore the lack of a suitable exit strategy in our society. As an anaesthetist, I would gladly assist her if it were legal to do so. I urge society to legislate for the rights of the terminally ill.
Dr Christopher Borton
Bellevue Hill
I have rarely read a more eloquent plea for the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia than the one from Gillian Mears. Hardly surprising, perhaps from such a talented author.
I am of the same political persuasion as Ms Mears and watch, sadly, as the Gillard government lurches towards involuntary euthanasia. I have only one piece of advice. Bring on the voluntary euthanasia bill. Die a dignified death. What have you to lose?
Yola Center Wollstonecraft
Respect Xenophon
How disappointing that all three letters yesterday referring to Senator Xenophon being refused entry into Malaysia were the usual facetious, jokey stuff about pollies. The way I see it, someone who gets up the nose of an authoritarian government must be doing something right.
Mona Finley Darlington Point
Shabby treatment
One of the saddest chapters in the sordid tale of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and its former dean is the revelation that the "significant majority of responsible senior academic staff" who reported to the Gyles review that they had lost confidence in the dean were reduced, in the process, to an amorphous collective, referred to as the ''disaffected staff'' (''Prose and the Con: millions at stake in lawsuit'', February 16-17).
Gyles's advice was to terminate the dean. In the event that the university ignored his advice and elected to bolster her, Gyles recommended "disaffected staff" be "moved on". That is indeed what the university did; it "moved us on".
What this meant for us, in reality, was the loss of our careers, our physical and emotional wellbeing, and our faith in an institution to which most of us had given decades of dedicated service.
We now ask university management, which was the architect of our shabby treatment, what lessons it has learnt about university governance? I hope one of them is to resist interference from powerful external sources, who cannot know all the facts, and who should have no right to direct such outcome.
Dianna Kenny professor of psychology, professor of music, The University of Sydney
Fast fare too dear
I have a query, Philip Cooney (Letters, February 18). What would the fare be of such a fast train from Canberra to Sydney?
The fare from Kingsford Smith Airport to the city is way too high. I shudder to think what I would pay from Canberra to Sydney.
It would probably be more expensive than flying by a cheap airline from Sydney to Melbourne or Sydney to Brisbane.
Much more thought needs to go into this venture.
Richard Cammies Liverpool
Obeid on the nose
Perhaps Eddie Obeid should be awarded the Ordure of Australia (Letters, February 18).
Michael Engelbretsen Bexley
Cubbie wasted
Spot on, Paul Sheehan, Cubbie Station could have grown food that had a low dependency on water, not cotton (''We'll reap what we deserve'', February 18). Now, what chance does anyone have of forcing the new Chinese owners to do just that?
And ''when will open irrigation channels be covered''? Perhaps there is some safe liquid which may float on the surface of such channels and prevent evaporation, and be infinitely cheaper than replacing channels with pipes. Come, on clever scientists … think about that.
What about growing a harvestable food source in these channels, such as the right sort of algae, and you will achieve two urgent aims in one: grow food and prevent evaporation.
Joan Croll Drummoyne
Labor plays partisan politics, too
Ross Gittins's article bemoaning the collapse of bipartisanship on economic reform lets Labor off far too lightly (''Abbott partly to blame for tax debacle'', February 18). Gittins acknowledges Labor's populist opposition to the GST from the early 1990s onwards, but ignores its many other destructive tactics during the Howard years. This includes opposing efforts to create a more competitive, dynamic telecommunications sector through the privatisation of Telstra and the introduction of high-speed broadband for remote and rural communities (the Opel initiative).
Then there was Labor's brutal and exaggerated campaign against WorkChoices, aided and abetted by multimillion-dollar advertising from its union mates, which has put the cause of labour market reform in Australia back for many years to come.
Finally, there was Labor's disgraceful unwillingness to act on the then bipartisan support for the introduction of an emissions trading scheme after the 2007 election, preferring to use climate change policy to wedge the Coalition. This approach spectacularly backfired in late 2009 with the elevation of Tony Abbott to opposition leader and the failure of the Copenhagen Summit. As you sow, so you shall reap.
Daniel Maurice Glebe
Optimistic Collins way off the rails
Blind optimism must have been high up in the job specifications for Sydney's new head of trains because Howard Collins seems to have it in abundance (''Snarls signal size of new rail chief's job'', February 18). Best of British, Howard, and if you truly perceive Sydney's traffic as worse than London's, you should remove the mote from your eye, mate.
Mike Phillips Wollstonecraft
Fever-pitch elation
Congratulations to our Aussie women cricketers for taking out their sixth ODI World Cup and also to the Herald and The Sun-Herald for the great coverage of the team during their quest in India (''Australian women on top of the world after cricket world cup victory'', smh.com.au, February 18).
These women have worked so hard as part-time players over the past four years to reach this point and we are proud of their achievements.
Ann Mitchell Berkeley Vale
Gene disgrace
Catch 22: I'd patent the cynical greed gene, except that I don't have it in me (''Company wins right to hold patent for breast cancer gene'', February 16-17). Nor, thankfully, the judicial stupidity gene.
Allan Lloyd Lamb Island (Qld)
Engaged
Genevieve Milton (Letters, February 18) says, ''Of course, there would be no need for pissoirs if we still had phone boxes.'' Perhaps this is an opportunity for some tech-savvy mobile phone maker to provide a new feature to address this problem. We could call this new model the "Ipot".
Murray Howlett Regents Park
Fed horse and bull
The problem, Donal O'Sullivan (Letters, February 18), is that the horse meat was labelled as beef. I think that this is called misrepresentation, and someone somewhere has made huge profits.
Dave Horsfall Springfield
Kicked aside
Amid all the turmoils of the Herald going tabloid, does your left hand know what your right hand is doing? On the day you consign Hagar to Valhalla (shame on you, he showed up all our foibles) you feature him in your Omega crossword. Fewer might have mourned the passing of the Wizard of Id, but with the changing scenes of life let's keep the essentials intact. Cheers to Hagar, his family and his sidekick, Eddie.
Robin Hutcheon Edgecliff
Course of action
If the Foreign Affairs Minister, Bob Carr, is serious about getting to the bottom of the Prisoner X case, he should arrange for an exhumation and autopsy of Ben Zygier's body (''Act on Zygier; Rudd tells PM'', February 18). I don't expect the Israelis will co-operate with Carr's inquiry, but Zygier is buried in Australia, so the ball is in Carr's court.
David Hartshorn Toowoomba (Qld)
Carn the Saints!
If there are to be two infallible sources in Rome, whose footy tips should we follow?
Max Horton Adelaide (SA)
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