Mark Kenny's words on the dangers of failing to aim for the sensible centre in politics are exactly right ("Cut the clap trap and balance the budget", March 13). The preference deal really was like swapping rotten eggs for rancid meat. Completely not safe for digestion by the broader community.
The world of alternative facts is starting to crumble. Quackery, off-the-cuff thinking and whimsical financial allocations are the fashion in this faraway world. One Nation's chief disinformation officer, Pauline Hanson, is distributing these at a rate approaching something of the order of the Mad Hatter's tea party.
The good news is it is all working out well if you are in love with the sound reasoning of the sensible centre.
David Gunter Glebe
Malcolm Turnbull refuses to rule out deal with One Nation – has he totally lost the plot ("Turnbull urged to learn from Labor's landslide", March 13)?
Alan Morris Eastlakes
Sanity at last. The electors of Western Australia have shown they were not taken by the nonsense that is One Nation and Pauline Hanson.
It is now time for the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader to challenge and repudiate the social, political and economic positions that Hanson espouses. She is not more sophisticated than in her first foray into politics; her supposed appeal to disillusioned voters has just been proven a fantasy.
In reality, one has to question whether she has any political ability given the fractured state of her party.
Attacking the opinions of properly qualified experts and questioning the media might appeal to an uninformed electorate for a time, a sort of novelty effect; but the shallowness of such an approach will soon be revealed as shown in Western Australia.
Hanson and her ilk have nothing to offer and it is past time that our political leaders stop pussy-footing around, for supposed fear of alienating the few who support Hanson, and properly challenge the nonsense she espouses.
Tony Everett Wareemba
Malcolm Turnbull says the WA election was fought on state issues. Yes it was but the main reason more people voted for Labor was that they opposed the privatisation of Western Power. This is of direct relevance to federal policies and the National Energy Market.
Other states have pursued privatisation and it is likely that this has had a bearing on the current energy problems. Private companies naturally prioritise profits, and this is not always in the best interests of the public. It is time a for a rethink of this trend to privatise public assets.
Allan Thomas Lochinvar
Time to call Mathias Cormann a failed strategist. It has been reported he was the brainchild behind changing Senate voting laws to deny independents ahead of a double dissolution; bingo One Nation. Now reports circulate that he effected the WA preference swap with One Nation. Hence it is of concern that as finance minister he is charged with the nation's economic direction, combined with the fact that he is a leading figure in the deluded right wing of the Liberal Party. This man's influence must be questioned, as his judgment leaves much to be desired.
Rod Milliken Greenwell Point
It's difficult to see the evidence for Matthew Knott's argument that the Liberals' preference agreement with One Nation "helped deliver" the weekend's defeat in WA .
Senator Cormann insisted to the ABC that this sordid arrangement was devised because polling showed the Liberals that their primary vote was only 29-31 per cent, yet that is precisely what they achieved at the election. So the plan gained them nothing but opprobrium and, at the very most, might have reinforced their supporters' determination not to vote for them.
Furthermore, the Hanson candidates (allegedly scoring as high as 13 per cent in opinion polling during the campaign) in fact received less than 5 per cent of the vote on Saturday: so even together with the Liberals that total conservative support was only about 35 per cent.
Those Hansonites are the ones who, so Senator Sinodinos was trying to persuade us a few weeks ago, are now far more sophisticated. If Hanson's performance over recent weeks has been sophisticated, then innocence and naivety look ever more appealing.
John Carmody Roseville
Obviously, as it turns out, the Liberal Party is not as sophisticated as it was 20 years ago.
Dimitris Langadinos Concord West
With better resourcing, we could dispense with selective schools
If all government schools were supplied with perceptive leaders, staff and resources, there would be no need for selective classes and schools (Letters, March 13). All children, including the gifted and talented, could be supplied with all the "collaboration, stimulation and creativity" possible, remain with their friends and learn to understand and appreciate the value of the under-valued; the non-academic not likely to be selected, but who often turn out to be winners. Conformity and exclusion can stifle creativity.
Children develop at varying speeds. Some early developers are already bored before "selection" occurs. Other children are not socially ready for fast-forwarding.
While most teachers are able to identify children with special needs, like the talented and gifted students in their care, necessary resources to meet their needs are often in short supply. But usually those who are truly gifted and talented have the innate ability to march to their own tune, and with a little encouragement, find their way.
I was educated in a selective school where academic success always overshadowed "collaboration, stimulation and creativity". Those of us taking art were banished to an inferior, under-resourced building, hidden away in a corner of the playground. We succeeded in spite of the "selective" disadvantage.
The school is now an art gallery. Poetic justice eventually prevailed.
Joy Cooksey Harrington
Sale of land titles registry economic vandalism
Selling Land and Property Information is the same as throwing money away ("Alarm raised over registry sale 'feeding frenzy' ", March 13).
Every day as new subdivisions and strata plans are registered a large number of new land titles are created. As each land parcel or strata lot is bought, sold or mortgaged, law firms, conveyancers, banks or purchasers need to buy up-to-date copies of the relevant titles to prove ownership. This happens thousands of times a week.
As our population grows the LPI becomes more profitable and the dividend to the government grows.
The government seems unable to see beyond the next election and is interested only in a short-term gain.
Don McVay Concord West
Might I remind the Premier and Treasurer that they were elected to govern us, they were not elected to impoverish us. All I ask is that they take the issue of the proposed sale of LPI to the people at the 2019 election. If the people of NSW are happy to lose $3 billion to $4 billion over the long term for a Sydney stadium, and then continually pay property title insurance, then so be it.
Roger Cameron Marrickville
Privatisation of the Land and Property Information System is one of the growing number of privatisations that go well beyond any mandate given the present NSW government. This one is worse than most not only because it involves a core government function but also because of the serious and unsatisfactorily answered questions about the management of the exercise.
The opposition can nip it in the bud by announcing that when elected it will by statute repeal any sale, refund to the buyer a maximum of the amount paid plus bond rate interest and will prohibit any recourse to the courts in respect of such announcement and in respect of the repeal of the sale or for any further compensation.
Greg McCarry Epping
One simple question, requiring one simple non-ideological answer. Why?
John Torpy Dural
Tell her she's dreamin' ...
If the Premier and her government imagine $30,000 petty cash and a 30-year-lease for the Wendy Whiteley Garden is enough to lure the voters of North Shore, who are committed to the protection and public use of rare harbour foreshore lands, they are very poorly advised ("Garden gets $30,000 as election seeds are scattered", March 13).
Maybe a full transfer of title of the Whitely Garden to North Sydney Council, a final saving of the heritage of Berrys Bay from the proposed massive marina and a commitment to dedicate the soon-to-be-redundant Lavender Bay railway land for public space under the proposed "Highline" project, might begin to prove their public interest credentials.
Bruce Donald Waverton
... and he's in fairyland
Brian Johnson (Letters, March 13) has told us what a struggle it was to acquire his own piece of dirt and build a house in Gymea, presumably in the 1960s or 70s.
The implication that young people should try harder and give up their indulgences on things such as "technology, entertainment, cars and travel" is disingenuous and divisive.
In the period he is probably speaking of Gymea was full of new subdivisions. Try finding a "block of dirt" a similar distance from the city centre these days. Add to this average house prices more than $1 million, no real wages growth for 10 years, casualisation of the workforce, rent rises and increasingly high debt from tertiary education and you have a few reasons why the young have given up on home ownership.
Rather than blaming the young, we should all be concerned about the the type of society we may end up living in where a whole generation look like being locked out of home ownership.
Jan Boyd Sylvania
Brains not welcome
Julie Gledhill's statement that selective high schools should nurture naturally gifted and talented children who deserve to be there may not be shared by all families with children at such schools (Letters, March 13). A decade ago, during the first week of year 7 at one of Sydney's highest-ranked selective high schools, my son was asked by other students which tutoring college he had attended to prepare for the entrance exam. Upon hearing he had never been coached in his life, a classmate told him that he didn't deserve to be there because only students who had been extensively tutored for many years at enormous expense to their parents deserved entry into selective high schools.
Judy Gowland East Lindfield
Diets work? Fat chance
While it is true that Australians aren't losing weight it is not for want of trying ("Obesity the new 'normal' as fewer try to lose weight", March 13). According to IBISWorld we will be spending more than $7 billion a year on gym memberships, fitness equipment, weight-loss products and other purchases by 2018-2019.
However, most dieters are thwarted because physiological responses to weight loss such as increased appetite and decreased energy expenditure promote a regain of any losses achieved. Thus for all practical purposes obesity is irreversible.
The only realistic option is prevention. Taxing cigarettes has seen rates of lung and throat cancer plummet. Taxing junk foods is the only way the obesity epidemic will be halted.
Patrick Bradley Wollongong
Pointers for older men seeking attention
Ageing gentlemen distressed at the lack of attention they get from young women need only do one thing: buy a cute-looking dog (Letters, March 13). When my Hungarian pointer was a pup, our morning walk (the promenade at Manly Beach, 3 kilometres down and back) was impossible to complete in less than two hours.
Steve Cornelius Brookvale
A friend of mine was quite overcome when a cabin attendant gave him a huge smile as he lifted his bag from the overhead locker only to come down to earth when she told him he looked just like her grandfather.
Keith Ridler-Dutton Killara
It seems unfortunate that in 2017 older men can still discuss, even jokingly, if "pretty" girls still smile at them.
Norm Neill Darlinghurst
Tudge needs a nudge
Given Alan Tudge's slowness to do something – anything – about the Centrelink debacle, should he change his last name to Sludge?
David Gordon Emu Plains
Watch out coal lobby
Elon Musk and his ilk are the barbarians at the gate for the coal industry ("PM, Musk discuss energy storage", March 13). Students of technological paradigm shift have seen this movie before and they know how it ends. You watch the coal lobby and their conservative backers fight now. Let the games begin.
Peter Spencer Glebe