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 August 4
All Trump’s friends
“It seems to be an outrageous insanity because without Murdoch and the Fox narrative, Trump would never have won the Presidency. Now he’s putting both his leading supporters – Murdoch and Musk – in his vitriolic sights? When shooting yourself in the foot, would you use a double barrelled shotgun?”
Antoni Sappell
How we parent
“An excellent and timely article on the serious but hidden problem of parental coercive control. As a child, I was thrashed for even minor infringements of my mother’s commands. Even now at the age of 82 I can remember a conversation my mother had with our next door neighbour about what was the best ‘stick’ to use to discipline a child where the stick wouldn’t break! (The cane handle of a fluffy wooden duster.) The challenge came for me when my mother was diagnosed with dementia and I had to support her as she transitioned to a nursing home. I realised that I needed counselling to care for a mother who hadn’t shown me a lot of care throughout my childhood. Sessions with a grief and loss counsellor did wonders for me to offload all my childhood resentments and give my mother the support she needed in her final years of life.”
Name withheld
Right here!
“I’d like to know what your policy is on readers providing comments on articles. For most articles I read there seems no capacity to comment like there used to be a few years ago.”
Jim Donaldson 
Ed: You can read about our decision here, but we still love hearing from you all! Keep emailing us so we can publish a selection each day in the newsletter and right here on our blog.
Tuesday August 5
On bravery
“Brave is: getting fair return for our resources. Taxing the super wealthy. Getting out of AUKUS. Readjusting the GST distribution. Enacting the outcomes of the many royal commissions. We have given the Albanese government a clear direction on the society we desire: fair, equitable, just.”
Bill Morgan
What about B Corp?
“Thanks to Peter Underwood for his very insightful piece Go woke, go broke. I wonder where he’d place the B Corp/B Lab movement in his assessment of the helpful progress of businesses in moving to a more socially aware capitalism in the future of corporate responsibility.”
Len Puglisi, Burwood East
Funny dunny
“In your article Your phone is covered in germs, the author states we take our phones to the ‘bathroom’. Does she mean the ‘toilet’? Here in Australia we defecate and urinate in the ‘toilet’ not the ‘bathroom’. Could you please use proper English not Murcan, lest we become as psychotic as the Murcans.”
Name withheld
Wednesday August 6
Sex tests
“I think Professor Andrew Sinclair has slipped into the trap of perfect being the enemy of good. The role of the scientist is to come up with the test, not the policy. Currently the SRY test is the best we have to determine sex, and in the absence of better, this is the tool we have. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than anything else we have currently? Yes.”
Tony Lickiss
Our duty as humans
“What has become of compassion in this world? When children waste away before our eyes, when homes are razed, and generations are born into displacement – how can silence be anything but complicity? I do not speak out of hatred, but out of sorrow. The loss endured by the Palestinian people – displacement, starvation, grief – is a humanitarian tragedy that demands recognition and action.”
Cecilia Hoppenjans
Carbon Tax II
“The economics of a price on carbon may make economists smile, but the political economics of such a price must fill opposition leaders with joy. Carbon prices have almost no friends, but potentially very many enemies – all those who may have to pay. We need a legislated mechanism which does not involve a tax or any other form of price, but which requires the largest users of fossil fuels to shift to clean energy. The mechanism needs to be carefully designed to protect the most vulnerable Australians and cannot be a ‘one size fits all’ approach.”
David Hamilton
Thursday August 7
Global compassion fatigue
“When people are ground down by injustice within the very systems meant to protect them, it becomes harder to sustain outrage for suffering overseas. But as Cecilia Hoppenjans (above, August 6) so rightly reminds us, our duty as humans remains: silence in the face of suffering is complicity. Whether it is the Palestinian people or those destroyed by domestic institutions, the loss of empathy is not just a symptom – it is a grim warning.”
Jon Wannberg, Inaugural AASW Fellow
Government transparency
“I was surprised to read Gabrielle Appleby’s article criticising the decrease in government transparency. Making things publicly available doesn’t just mean allowing access to ordinary Australians, it could also mean giving this info to foreign governments intelligence services acting in disguise. [ASIO boss Mike] Burgess seems to say the threat is vastly increasing, so perhaps the reduction in government transparency is a valid response to that.”
Alice Jones
Caring for family
“Thank you Danica I. J. Knežević for the deep beauty of your article, exploring the experience of being a carer. I cried. Caring for my own mother was an incredible learning curve and an opportunity I am grateful for.”
Isabelle Canty
Friday August 8
Genocide in Gaza?
“As a legal question it matters because of what consequences can follow within that legal framework. But ‘genocide’ also has other common social meanings. Regardless of the legal hairsplitting, this is genocide.”
Tom Keller
AI taking jobs
“The article about which jobs will thrive under AI missed out a huge chunk of Australia’s workforce – artists. I’m a cartoonist and graphic designer who was recently made redundant. Why pay a human being to do the work when you can prompt a machine intelligence to spit out something trained on stolen art instead? In my work, I make decisions based on ethics, accessibility, sustainability, and avoiding cultural appropriation – all things that AI can’t do. Just because AI can replace us, it doesn’t mean that it should!”
Briar Rolfe, Mildura (Latji Latji and Barkindji country), VIC
Reef observations
“I think your article about the Great Barrier Reef is way understated. Fifty years ago, we went to Heron Island on our honeymoon. The reefs were sensational: fish, colour and vegetation beyond our expectations. Over the years we have returned to North Queensland’s inner and outer reefs and have seen nothing but bleached/dead coral. The sad thing is Australia keeps putting up images of the reef as it was, not how it is, to entice tourists.”
Dr Paul Hewitt