Demountables have morphed into cheap alternatives to solid infrastructure and facilities.

• MAY 20

Whatever the true jobs figure may be, once the coal from this giant mine is burnt, the carbon dioxide which is released into the atmosphere will effectively cook the planet, and all the aspirations of the Paris Climate Summit will be lost.

Irritatingly bland or alarmingly self-indulgent, readers could get no satisfaction from the public utterances of our top political leaders this week.

• MAY 19

Although inconvenient to commuters, I feel the bus strike on Thursday was necessary.

• MAY 18

It took a week to figure out that Gonski 2 is just as flawed as Gonski 1?

• MAY 17

Governments are intervening increasingly in our lives, now they want to intervene in our death.

• MAY 16

It is hard to feel sorry for the fruit and vegetable growers complaining about not having enough labour to pick their produce.

To Westpac chairman, Lindsay Maxsted, let me say "Welcome to the real world" (Bank tax will set 'a terrible precedent'..."May 13-14).

• May 14

I was told by an eight-year-old Fidget Spinners are good for fidgeters ("Fidget spinners taking over city", May 7).

• MAY 13

It is not the entity – the bank – which is greedy, it is the people who run the banks.

• MAY 12

There's a reason that Australia's biggest banks are so widely loathed.

• MAY 10

The Australian government is continuing its selective vision of entitlement.

• MAY 11

Australians will pay dearly for the Coalition's short-term focus on the next election rather than our future.

The fact that Malcolm Turnbull could applaud the most regressive step in American healthcare in decades is a pretty fair indication of the direction in which he would like to take the Australian system, if he could get the parliamentary majority to do it.

• MAY 4

Values, unlike Tony Abbott, evolve. Over time they change to more closely reflect the people who make up Australian society.

• MAY 4

Gonski is wasting his time and efforts with useless successive governments.

• May 7

The solution to the "shark problem" would seem to be quite simple: don't go swimming in their dinner bowl ("Shark bite survivor bitten but not shy", April 30).

• MAY 3

Why should Sydney Airport take all the risks when it knows very well the federal government will do it all for it.

• MAY 1

I live in Randwick, with absolutely no chance of losing my home to a bush fire and yet I am to pay double the levy cost to those who choose to live in the Blue Mountains surrounded by trees.

• APRIL 24

By now it must be evident to everyone that our democracy has failed, given that our nation's politicians are incapable of addressing the housing affordability crisis by virtue of their monstrous conflict of interest ("Houses of Parliament: MPs on top in property game", April 22-23). That these very same real estate speculators have the effrontery to lecture Australians on what our nation's values should be is not only the height of conceit, but damning evidence of their collective sophistry. If ever the phrase "a pox on all your houses" was appropriate, this is surely the time.

• MAY 2

How will Malcolm Turnbull's government slashing hundreds of millions of dollars from the budgets of universities help deliver his ''innovative and creative'' nation.

• April 30

The happy photograph of Logie rivals Peter Helliar and Waleed Aly says it all: 21st century multiculturalism meets mateship, the time-honoured tradition established by the Anzacs which has grown to embrace all Australians, regardless of race, religion or gender. ("Grab for gold", April 23). While the threat of random terrorist attacks cannot be ignored, our greatest strength lies in the Anzac spirit of comradeship and courage in the face of danger.

• APRIL 29

A place for every child in their local public school is state government core business.

The national sport of two-up and the national anthem were preoccupations this Anzac week. Contributor Neil Radford must be a fine two up player many observed or else he had a two-headed penny when he threw his letter/column 8 contribution on the subject of two up into the air, and it ended up in both columns. With our usual editors either at dawn services or on holidays we do apologise for disruption to normal transmission. But it provides us the opportunity to remind readers not to double dip by making the same contribution to both the letters page and Column 8. Ditto for writing letters you have sent to other publications. 

• APRIL 28

Using mass production techniques in the first place could have eliminated the need for $5 billion school upgrades.

• APRIL 27

I'm wondering which of our current values Andrew Laming thinks we should sing about.

• APRIL 26

Peter FitzSimons' push for the Eureka Stockade as a rallying point for the celebration of what it means to be Australian rings a little hollow.

• APRIL 25

War is an evil thing, and it does not become less evil by claiming to be right.

• April 23

Surely experiments in burying pigs could have taken place in a remote location rather than risk upsetting some with a present or future connection with burials at Rookwood.