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 December 1
Rural healthcare
“I worked in healthcare in Central West NSW from 1980 to 2016. During the earlier decades, there was a strong network among rural procedural doctors with colleagues in metropolitan hospitals. This afforded rapid phone discussion with distant specialists over problems, particularly cancer care and obstetric complications, leading to rapid treatment either locally or by ready transfer. Over the decades, the development of Area Health Authorities (AHA) often cut rural hospitals off from metropolitan hospitals. The previous sense of ‘ownership’ for the outcomes in rural hospitals – aligned to a parent metropolitan hospital – was broken and replaced with non-clinical, bureaucratic financial associations bearing little foundation in clinical practice. The huge developments in communication should allow ready return to the parent/metropolitan hospital, rural hospital paradigm with mutual clinical advantages and thus a return to improved patient outcomes.”
Chris Halloway, retired obstetrician and gynaecologist
Melbourne’s transport woes
“The article on the Melbourne Metro Tunnel got me thinking about why more people don’t use it. I visit friends in Melbourne from time to time and the transport situation from the airport is diabolical. Taxis/Ubers are usually over $65 and not always easy to get. When will the trains reach Tullamarine? Oh, and the signage at the airport is among the worst in the world. But oh, I do love Melbourne.”
Ilene
Tuesday December 2
First-hand experience
“The article on youth crime is very inadequate. Regional statistics are not included. I do not know if they are available but using state-wide stats for Queensland, for instance, is woefully inadequate. Everyone who lives in Far North Queensland knows that youth crime has increased. People have increased their home security because the number of house thefts has increased significantly. People who left their gates open now have large chains around the gate and cameras attached. This article adds to the frustration of people in Far North Queensland. The lack of understanding of people living elsewhere is huge.”
Denise Burns
Legal cost
“I am a long-time reader of The Conversation, however Michelle Grattan’s recent article prompted this response, which is my first entree in the world of ‘commentary’. There have been many followers of the ongoing litigation erroneously called the ‘Higgins affair’ (erroneous because the title once again serves to traumatise a young woman who was the victim of an alleged rape). Grattan suggests Senator Reynolds and her (then) chief of staff, Fiona Brown, have been treated unfairly. Undeniably, this has been a long story of trauma, and one which has adversely affected many, including the Senator and her chief of staff and not least the initial victim. It is a story where politics should be excluded. However, that is enormously difficult to do when Senator Reynolds continues her litigation, effectively seeking to bankrupt the victim of the alleged rape who was a young staffer under her care at the time of the alleged rape. For reasons of balance alone, it would have been helpful if Grattan had included this element in her story. Achieving balance in journalism requires ethical judgments, particularly where politics is involved.”
Sue Millbank
Wednesday December 3
Immigration concerns
“I find your latest piece denying any negative impacts of our high immigration rate quite astonishing. There’s plenty of evidence that it is currently too high: ‘The main factor in the loss of biodiversity is the increased rate of population growth. This has led to habitat change through land clearing and urbanisation, hunting and exploitation.’
Alongside this, we have had analysis of the housing situation by the likes of Alan Kohler, Ross Gittins and others stating that our high immigration rate is contributing to the problem, particularly in relation to rents. Then we have the ramping in hospitals, the infrastructure and housing backlog causing continual congestion in cities, constraints on water supplies requiring more desalination plants, waste dumps running out of space, constant loss and degradation of agricultural land and a struggle to effect the energy transition.
It’s all very well to say ‘the government should spend more’ to fix all these things, but there comes a point where resources reach a limit, and addressing these issues becomes practically unfeasible. We can’t create more land, more soil, more natural fresh water, or more biodiversity. It is not a matter of disliking or fearing migrants. It is a matter of ecological and social feasibility.”
Elinor Hurst, Evandale SA
Thursday December 4
What “youth crime”?
“Your article on the politicising of youth crime is enlightening. Have any of the politicians done a "value for money” analysis? How much does it cost to keep them incarcerated? What is the recidivism rate? What is the comparative cost of redirecting them to training programs? Politicians are selling an erroneous message and costing the taxpayers. Don’t they read your articles?“
Paul Campbell, QLD 
Growth versus space
"We have been promised for 25 years that overseas migration will solve the ageing crisis but we still have one. We have been promised for over 30 years that we need migration to solve the skills crisis but we still apparently have one. If growth is good (which is questionable and unproven) with decades of growth, how is it we have a housing crisis? What is wrong with one country in the world having lots of space and not many people?”
David Oliver, Oxley ACT
What’s “far-right”?
“The article about normalising far-right elements winkling their way into our politics tells part of an important story. It is fundamental that we understand what those people are. Far-right is not the same as conservative, not even the same as very conservative. Far-right is extremism, on the same level as terrorist fundamentalism. To the extent that any right wing party becomes far-right, they leave the Australian way of life behind.”
Kym Houghton
Friday December 5
A vision for education
“As a long retired primary teacher, I wish we could focus on schools at the lower end of educational success – not to denigrate, but to build up hope, connection, opportunity and engagement. Instead of jails to accommodate our ‘criminal’ young people, why not spend valuable government money on centres of education where children who are disadvantaged – possibly through being children of disadvantaged parents – are encouraged to engage in different, more appropriate, learning situations? Where their parents could be involved in the centre with other interested people. Where health workers, mental health practitioners, environmentalists, sports teachers all had a role to play. A ‘disadvantaged’ school could become a centre of community activity, owned by the community and engaged with the community. Eutopia I guess.”
Judy Hardy-Holden, retired primary school teacher
The world wide web
“I work with remote Indigenous people and their access to digital services is severely restricted. It is difficult to exist without digital access. For research personnel it is almost impossible. I have to send written material for consultation and review via a white worker. This activates inconvenience and individual privacy issues.”
Dr Gwenda Baker, historian
Who’s writing these articles?
“When reading some of your articles, a definite leaning towards one party or another is shown by the journalist. I’m not interested in your opinions actually, just good factual journalism in a logical manner would be better. Unless you’ve spent years researching Australian politics, your opinions come across as half-baked and biased.”
Ally Bussell
Ed: All of our articles are written by academics with expertise in the field they’re writing about. Our team of journalists edits and fact checks. You can read more about our unique model here.