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 January 26
Bushfire warnings
“Australia has world-class fire agencies and sophisticated warning systems, but many alerts rely on mobile phones, power, or internet access. During extreme conditions, these systems can fail – or simply go unnoticed at the worst possible time. That’s why I’ve put forward a simple, complementary idea to emergency authorities: using drones equipped with audible sirens to warn communities located in predicted fire-spread paths. This wouldn’t replace Emergency Alert, VicEmergency, or official advice. It would add a physical, place-based layer of warning, particularly valuable overnight, during power outages, or when fires move faster than expected.”
Robert Simons
Will it help?
“With the Coalition drama overshadowing this conversation, I find myself confused about what these new hate crime laws will achieve. Can The Conversation please ask someone to explain how the laws make Australians safer from individuals who choose to go mad with a weapon to intentionally kill people indiscriminately because they don’t like or are offended by the beliefs or actions of people they don’t even know? That, after all, is what we need protection from.”
Lynda Paterson, Eden NSW 
Editor’s note: Constitutional expert Anne Twomey explains hate crime laws here.
What about the Falklands?
“With all the justifiable noise around Greenland, another unresolved territorial dispute in the Americas is getting little coverage – the dispute between UK and Argentina over the Falklands/Malvinas. Regarded as resolved by Britain (with US support then) following the 1982 war, I suspect the chips would fall differently if Trump fan-boy (President of Argentina) Javier Milei chose to act today. It has political attraction for Milei both as a way of distracting from his economic policies and mobilising nationalist support.”
Jeremy Baskin
Tuesday January 27
Time for a rethink
“It is interesting that there are so many comments agreeing with the Canadian PM’s speech on the need for a rules-based order and adherence to international law. Such speeches should have been made by Western leaders, especially middle powers like Canada and Australia, years ago before the US dragged us into ‘forever wars’ around the world, paying scant attention to international laws and order that multilateral institutions were espousing. Had that happened, we would not have been involved from Vietnam to Afghanistan. The Canadian PM had to wait until the wolf was at the door to cry foul. If the middle powers are heeding the Canadian PM’s assertions, then Australia should do a complete audit of our engagement, both in material terms and in diplomacy, in other conflicts. Silence, tacit agreement, and surreptitious acts carried out behind the public eye should cease.”
Ranjan Yagoda, Melbourne VIC
Hate speech
“‘Free speech’ is not an excuse for ‘hate speech’. Hate speech is what has increasingly divided our nation over the last two years. It has led to the numerous attacks on our fellow Australians, culminating in the murders at the Bondi massacre. Our government’s reaction has been feeble & lacking in foresight. Hate speech and its consequences endanger the safety of all Australians.”
Hugh Macindoe, Prospect SA
Learn from the Swiss
“A country is ‘sovereign’ for as long as other countries are happy for it to be so. There can be no international law if there is no enforcement mechanism (a police force) and the only international rule that every country acknowledges is that "might is right”. Diplomats and pundits may cite “international law” but they seem to do so only selectively. Becoming a Switzerland in the South Pacific is the only way to secure Australia’s sovereignty.“
Ian Gill
Wednesday January 28
To celebrate or not to celebrate
"I was disappointed in the data collected regarding society’s attitude to the date of Australia Day. To collect meaningful data, the question itself should be more neutral. By asking ‘we should not celebrate Australia Day on 26 January’ you are influencing the responses and stoking the flames. It was a 4 point alternative: 2 x disagree and 2 x agree, which artificially forces respondents into one camp or the other. Granted this gives researchers, policy-makers, lobbyists and journalists nice neat numbers to quote; however, it disenfranchises that proportion of society which would, if it could, respond ‘3: undecided or neutral’. I can appreciate the arguments on both sides but do not have a strong feeling either way regarding actually changing the date. Moreover, I find the conflict between the camps (which articles like this amplify) quite distressing. The conflict I’ve witnessed, and the hate spat at fellow Australians in the process, does nothing to make me prouder of my country.”
Name withheld
Thursday January 29
A simple fix?
“Any major party can tweak the rug out from under One Nation’s growth by dealing with one heck of an elephant in the room – population growth. Sure, growing Australia’s population by 30% every 20 years makes certain economic goals easy to hit. It also makes citizens’ lives increasingly difficult, and housing impossible to solve, since building can never outstrip new demand. Yet still the major parties won’t touch population issues, and citizen frustration turns to anger, and anger turns to One Nation.”
Peter McPherson
Periods and productivity
“Great to see an article on the subject that is never discussed in the open: the ongoing impact period pain and excessive bleeding has on women and their working life. The fact that it’s monthly means living with a constant rollercoaster that affects energy, concentration, and confidence. Until women’s health is researched properly, period products funded and workplaces are respectful of the unique needs of a woman’s health, we will continue to be less well off financially.”
Jane Davis
Recommended reading
“If there’s one book which will get Australians thinking about themselves as one people, it’s Mark McKenna’s Shortest History of Australia. He sees waves of immigrants in the context of a continuous population of the land we know as Australia. It’s short, it’s to the point, and it is worth being at the top of everyone’s reading list.”
Glenda Gartrell
Friday January 30
School lunches
“While families who send their children to private schools can be compelled to pay for a lunch service, public schools do not have this power. If a fee for lunch service is made mandatory in the public system, it will be the children from the most disadvantaged of families, who have the greatest need for plentiful, nutritious food, who will be excluded from the program. Any discussion of the provision of school lunches needs to address these issues of access and equity.”
Kaylene Henry
How many?
“I ask The Conversation to lead the way for other media in including a nation’s population in stories mentioning other countries. For instance, the article on the prime minister’s visit to Timor-Leste would have been strengthened by noting the population of Timor-Leste (approximately 1.4 million) and also the population of the other countries we have recently signed security agreements with. Not to mention Greenland (56,000) and Denmark (6 million) relative to the United States (348 million) and Canada (40 million).”
Rhonda Daniels, Sutherland NSW
Why we should legalise marijuana: a poem
“All this negative talk about weed is old,
the war on weed hasn’t stopped it from being sold.
Make it just like cigarettes and beer,
let your voices be hear[d],
make it loud and clear.
We want legalisation
Certainly taxation.
Tell me,
do you agree?
That it’s time that they legalise weed?”
Te Bigley
Ed: Unfortunately, we did have to edit for brevity; the deep cut was 117 lines long.