Every day, we publish a selection of your emails in our newsletter. We’d love to hear from you, you can email us at yoursay@theconversation.edu.au.
Monday April 27
Make better use of rural school buses
“The current national fuel supply challenge is hitting small rural and remote communities very hard. However, it presents a unique opportunity to do something very practical to help by expanding the range of services provided by rural school buses. There are thousands of rural school buses in Australia which almost exclusively now only carry school age children to and from school. When I first started teaching and driving a school bus in rural South Australia in 1967, the bus was also a courier lifeline for many farmers and others. In the morning, bread bags would be dropped at the bakery and mail posted. In the afternoon, the baker delivered orders to the buses, letters and parcels were collected as were any urgent medical supplies. During peak work times such as seeding, shearing and harvest, some groceries were also carried to save long trips into town and interruptions to time critical workflow. The same applied to small replacement parts for machinery. As well, a lift would be given when a vehicle or tractor had broken down. Reinstating very successful and valued past practices as outlined would be inexpensive, make better use of an existing funded resource, and also assist reduce the impact of the current fuel crisis on those often with the fewest options to deal with it.”
Dr John Halsey, Emeritus Professor Society for the Provision of Education in Rural Australia, Flinders University 
Tuesday April 28
Do ‘baby boomers’ get too much hate?
“What annoys me is that the general consensus is that all we boomers have had it easy all our lives, that we all own our homes, don’t have a mortgage in retirement, have multiple investment properties and millions in the bank. No doubt there are boomers out there who are in that position however don’t lump us all in the same basket. Many of us are not in that situation at all.”
Elizabeth Harris
NDIS changes
“There is one central issue with reevaluating the functional abilities of any NDIS participant. Current recipients may have been receiving support for many years, and established their current functionality in the context of NDIS programs – after all, that is the aim of the scheme. It is impossible to know what that individual’s functional ability would be if they weren’t receiving NDIS support. Consequently, any decision to remove or reduce NDIS support due to a higher level of functionality is very likely removing precisely the factors which have made that functionality possible in the first place.”
Kim Ter-Horst, Cowan NSW
Wednesday April 29
Why isn’t Albo more popular?
“I remember well the huge relief when Scott Morrison lost the election. I also remember the shock and disappointment when, five minutes after winning the election, Albanese attended Kyle Sandilands’ wedding and also an all-male shindig for Lindsay Fox. After the earthquake that was the me-too movement and the tone-deaf nonsense from Morrison, I had hoped for a cultural shift. Instead, we got weasel words. Since then, we have seen little done to act on climate change, a government that seems to shut down dissent/diversity, and now the NDIS has devastating cutbacks at the same time as a massive increase in defence spending.”
Jane Davis, Naarm/Melbourne VIC
Taxes on investment properties
“The government is softening us up to the idea of reducing capital gain tax benefits. For them this is simply a money grab to prop up catastrophic government debt caused by profligate government money printing. They have for a long time wanted to extract even more from housing. It cost Bill Shorten an election. They are betting that it may now be acceptable to enough of the voting public. It is lazy policy. The effect of more taxes on housing suppliers will be higher housing costs and increased rental costs. The current housing crisis is caused by a lack of housing supply. Additional taxes will make already critically tight housing supply even tighter. Renters beware. Owners start saving. Costs are about to go up more sharply!”
Gundars Simsons, Sandy Bay TAS
Thursday April 30
The Coalition’s fuel reserves
“A better way for the Coalition to spend our money on increasing the fuel reserve would be to make EVs, electric haul trucks for mines, electric long-haul transport, electric last-kilometre delivery, electric farm equipment, solar plus storage for remote communities, more attractive. Every time a diesel or petrol engine is replaced with an electric motor the days of fuel reserve increases. Energy independence, price stability, lower inflation, lower emissions. Join the dots. Pull an economic lever instead of investing in future stranded assets. Plus improved energy productivity increases whole-economy productivity.”
Julian Lawrence, Karana Downs, QLD
No them, just us
“I read your article, ‘Banning protest slogans won’t end antisemitism. We need to understand the complex forces driving it’ with interest as it explained the complexity of the conflicting ideologies well. However, antisemitism, like racism and sexism, are all forms of bigotry. There are three steps to bigotry: 1) divide into 'us’ and ‘them’ based on any identifiable difference, eg. us the black, them the white; 2) stereotype ‘them’, eg. all muslims are terrorists; and 3) act on the stereotype. If we really want to solve these problems, we must all realise that there is no ‘them’, we are all ‘us’.”
Karin Mogg, QLD
Friday May 1
Interest rate hikes on the table
“Why can’t industry absorb some of the pain by the Reserve Bank instead of householders. Every time they raise interest rates in the name of inflation, who, if anybody, scrutinises/justifies their level of cost increases? A bit of lateral thinking by the bank or more consultation with expert economists might help. They are too RESERVED in their approach!”
Paul Dexter
Which generation had it worse
“I agree with Elizabeth Harris (Your Say, Tuesday April 28) – boomers are seen to have it all. But younger generations fail to appreciate that we had no childcare centres, few kindergarten or services to assist us and/or our families, and there was no NDIS or assistance to help our older family members etc. We did benefit from a strong employment culture, but not everyone was paid well, especially women. So please don’t think that all boomers had good times – some things were better for us, but not everything is worse now.”
Name withheld