![Illustration: Jim Pavlidis](/web/20170501203621im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/t/y/l/j/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvtmhh.png/1493336794021.jpg)
The amount now having to be spent on schools ("Revealed: $5b plan to fix crowded schools", April 27) reminds one of the flawed arguments that were used by the Greiner government to initiate the Urban Consolidation policy. We were told there was unused infrastructure capacity in lower densities which could be utilised in a higher density environment, so saving many millions in infrastructure cost. This was complete nonsense. The original infrastructure had been designed for the original density. Add more people and it becomes overloaded. We now see the results in overcrowded schools, congested roads and overloaded power networks necessitating vast expenditure for upgrades, much more than the cost of initial creation using techniques of mass production.
The same spurious savings arguments are still being trotted out, for example to justify forced council amalgamations. Examples from around the world show that the claimed savings do not materialise.
![How to better plan NSW schools?](/web/20170501203621im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/s/b/t/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvtmhh.png/1493330864825.jpg)
Tony Recsei Warrawee
Has anyone in the NSW Education Department considered/investigated maximising the use of school properties by locating two separate campuses on the one site – with one operating in the morning (would mean an earlier start and finish) and another in the afternoon/evening? I know that this system is used in other countries.
![Illustration: Cathy Wilcox](/web/20170501203621im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/t/y/e/s/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gvtmhh.png/1493337870469.jpg)
Ian Cooper Cabarita Beach
The state government's plans to increase standard enrolment capacities in schools may have unintended consequences. Fewer schools with more students in them will only lead to more children travelling to school by car due to the distance involved. Proper planning is needed to make sure the government isn't creating mini traffic jams all over Sydney.
Jeffrey Gabriel Gladesville
The NSW Education Minister says gating a school off from the rest of the local community is an outdated 1960s approach that "doesn't work anymore" ("Revealed: the $5b plan to tackle overcrowding crisis in NSW schools", SMH, April 27). As the biggest supporters of private schools that epitomise exactly that: gating themselves off from the rest of the community, the Liberal Party's hypocrisy is again on full display.
Carol Witt Boronia Park
So we're having a schools crisis due to poor planning? Let me see … which would be best? Having a single public system where we can co-ordinate resources and plan where schools go to best serve the needs of the public? OR a mixture of schools that can set up wherever they like (even next door to existing public schools) knowing that they'll be generously funded until kingdom come?Mmm?
Tom Orren Wamberal
As an old public servant heavily involved in the schools building program in the late 20th to early 21st century, I'd like to applaud the Education Minister's initiatives of replacing demountable classrooms with modular buildings and the development of planning standards for new and redeveloped schools.
These used to be called "Classrooms for Demountables" program and "Schools Facility Standards" until they were abolished by the minister's government. Thanks Rob, you've given me a good laugh. I can only assume you're auditioning to fill the void left by John Clarke. You're a front runner.
Gene Ransom Kingsford
While the need to fund for public school overcrowding is essential and $5 billion targeted, the "where it is coming from" has not been revealed. The privates have been assured they won't be losing funding and the public system is already behind in maintenance of existing facilities by multiples of millions and general funding for children's opportunities are already lacking. I hope our public school children aren't forgotten in the greater glory of building.
Janice Creenaune Austinmer
Introducing a new school layout for new schools is not the issue, but reconfiguring established schools is. The way Sydney's housing market is, $5 billion may only build a handful of schools. Let's do the math: 160,000 students at an average of say 800 per school equals 200 new schools, $5billion divided by 200 equals about $25million per school. I'm not sure you can build a school for that when you also factor in a 25-40 per cent mandatory government budget cost blow-out.
Peter Miniutti Ashbury
What's the point of building more public schools if Rob Stokes, NSW Minister of Education chooses to ignore what is going on "inside" the classroom ("NSW government rejects findings of independent review into scripture in schools", April 27)?
Robyn Bernstein Annandale
Teaching of ethics makes a mockery of SRE privilege
Kelsey Munro's down-to-earth critique of the church's role in implementing and delivering SRE in public schools is spot on, and not one they should be proud of. ("Churches should play fair when teaching scripture in public schools", April 27). The Education Act makes clear that time for the teaching of SRE each week is part of the law of this land, and rightly so. However, political interference in allowing other options, such as ethics, has made a mockery of this privilege. Even more disturbing is the suppression of an independent review's recommendations. Children, and parents, thrive when given responsibility for their learning. Being corralled into a system that does not recognise this basic truth demeans our very fine public education institutions.
Pam Connor Mollymook Beach
There is no more important teaching than Special Religious Education. SRE teachers teach the "why" of existence. Why the world exists and its purpose. Science and mathematics explore the "how" of existence. You may believe that the world is without purpose and it "just is". You may believe that your existence is just a fortunate chance encounter of atoms. SRE people teach that we and the world have a reason for existence and have a creator called God. Now of all the questions you can ask yourself this is surely the most important. You will live your life according to those beliefs or world view. Parents of children make a free choice to support SRE classes; they see it as important.
Anthony Horan Campbelltown
Free market deaf to bark of Pavlovian dog
![Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday 20 April 2017. Photo: Andrew Meares](http://web.archive.org./web/20170501203621im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/o/u/t/q/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1492895719837.png)
Malcolm Turnbull has intervened in the export market to tackle surging gas prices. Photo: Andrew Meares
The federal government's threat to slap new export restrictions on east coast gas suppliers ("Malcolm Turnbull intervenes in gas market to tackle surging domestic prices", April 27) is an admission that a free market does not always work. Despite Australia having a massive gas resource, the free market in energy has failed to deliver, in the PM's words, "the gas Australians need at prices they can afford". If the market was working properly a host of entrepreneurs should be competing feverishly for our business and driving prices down. Instead, the profits have been retained by the gas companies and have not trickled down to the consumer in the form of lower prices. It is strange, therefore, that Mr Turnbull and his Treasurer are so confident that the market would perform perfectly if the Senate would only grant massive tax cuts to big business. Like saliva from Pavlov's dog on hearing the dinner bell, the business tax cuts would automatically flow down to the rest of us in the form of new jobs and higher wages. Yeah, right.
Mike Reddy Vincentia
On March 15 it was reported that representatives from the fat-cat gas industry had agreed to the PM's request to supply more gas to the domestic market. There would be accelerated market reforms. The next day major east coast gas companies gave the federal government a "guarantee " they would make gas available to meet domestic demands. They "pledged" to put more supply into the market. So one month later Malcolm the Terrible explodes new export restrictions on east coast suppliers. Was the cartel that hides information, receives generous write-off allowances and pays bugger all resource tax just passing wind?
Mark Paskal Clovelly
Now the gas export fiasco has bubbled to the surface can we dig into how and why it came about? I suspect the underlying reasons will nail our current mindset as mercilessly as the national anthem and Gallipoli landings exposed the yawning gap between hope and reality.
Peter Farmer Northbridge
Olympic head on chopping board
I see there's a new uniquely Australian Olympic sport in the offing ("Coates remark ads fuel to ire", April 27). Its called the Coates-a-thon, where the goal is to get the current AOC president across the line at all costs. In this event friendly journalists are required to provided long-winded and irrelevant puff pieces, staff members are thrown under buses and character references provided by some characters of dubious reputation, such as former politicians. And there can only be one winner.
David Farrell Erskineville
Arthur Tunstall did not resign as chairman/president of the Australian Commonwealth Games Association NSW Division (ACGA NSW) until he was in his 90s, and Juan Antonio Samaranch did not leave his gilded life as president of the IOC until his 80s. So, people are being premature in suggesting that John Coates put his cue in the rack as president of the Australian Olympic Committee. He is only 66 years old and on the time scale for high level sports administrators, there is plenty of squeezing left in that lemon.
Joe Weller Lewisham
Dispense with Pence
While the thought of impeaching Donald Trump fills my heart with joy ("Mar-a-Lago one for the impeachment file", SMH, April 27), that joy is tempered by the thought that if Trump goes, we will get Mike Pence. While Pence has an altogether more wholesome image than his president, under the surface lurks some unpalatable policies. In addition to being a climate change denier, he spent his time in Congress fighting against a range of liberal social policies. Pence is Trump in long pants. Perhaps we are better off with a man we know is a danger than one who is slicker and less likely to show his hand.
Richard Keyes Enfield
Good debt, bad debt
Scott Morrison's upcoming budget could be a real doosy with its anticipated redefinitions of "debt", ("Morrison redefines debt to balance the budget", April 27).
There will be "good debt", which won't count of course, to allow the awarding of huge contracts to the big end of town to built new infrastructure. This will be accompanied by "bad debt" which will have to finance all our federal social services and generally look after the hoi polloi. This "bad debt" of course will have to be reigned in and cut to the bone where possible.
In keeping with populist parlance these days why not announce the use of "fake" debt? Could make things look ever rosier.
Let's just hope we don't get a fake budget.
Stewart Smith North Kellyville
Memo to Scott Morrison, debt is debt and no matter how you reclassify it we still have to pay it back. That tired old argument that spending on infrastructure is "good debt" is simplistic and only very patchily correct. Spending on ports, railways etc may well increase efficiencies and stimulate business but spending on roads in suburbs and similar doesn't. That spending is just spending on things we need to have to live comfortably and we should pay for it straight up – and include it in the deficit. The government has failed to look at, or ruled out, multiple options that can help the budget position and has now fallen back on cheap accounting tricks.
Rob Bower Peregian Beach
And how would Scott Morrison classify the tens of millions of taxpayer dollars given to the corrupt Cambodian government to take a couple of asylum seekers? Good debt, bad debt or sheer stupidity?
Rod Hughes Epping
So, running up spending on such areas as welfare (supported by the taxpayer) will, it seems, be treated by Scott Morrison as "bad debt" and be compared with household spending on a credit card. I wonder how he will classify household spending on negatively geared residential investment property, supported by the taxpayer?
Geoffrey Williamson Woollahra
Happy Anzac Day wish missing the point
Let me try to explain, Peter Procopis (Letters, April 27). Christians believe that Christmas marks the birth of the Son of God, and therefore celebrate it as a happy occasion. They wish each other, and everybody else, "Merry Christmas". Good luck to them.
On Anzac Day we solemnly remember those who died and suffered in war. Anybody who wishes "Happy Anzac Day" has completely missed the point. It'd be like wishing somebody a quiet and decorous New Year's Eve.
Jim Mackenzie Lane Cove
Nominal poll appeal
For conservative voters Laurence Pearson at the ballot box (Letters, April 27) "Cory First'" has a better ring to it than "Pauline One Nation".
Nan Howard Camden
Advance Australia where?
It's encouraging to read the efforts of those letter writers who've responded to Andrew Laming's request, but we already have a verse to Advance Australia Fair that meets the needs of our modern land and sums up true Australian values (Letters, April 27). It's the one I learned at school in the 1960s.
When gallant Cook from Albion sailed
To trace wide oceans o'er
True British courage bore him on
Till he landed on our shore.
Then here he raised old England's flag
The standard of the brave.
With all her faults we love her still
Britannia rules the waves!
Can't see too much wrong with that.
Grant Heaton Port Macquarie
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