The AFLW is minutes old and the mother ship (the AFL) is suggesting a change in game style to improve scoring opportunity and maintain viewer interest (Sport, 7/2). This suggests there is a quick fix: discuss in the locker room and the show is improved for the next game. The AFLW is under-resourced, the athletes are part-time, it is an eight-week season, and coaches have limited time to bring a team together. The feeder systems are yet to mature, with teams recruiting cross-code athletes who do not necessarily have "game IQ".
Learning does not happen overnight. Experience is key; it is underrated until you have it, and this relates to players, coaches, clubs and the AFL. Patience, trust and time are required for this professional game to evolve. As we have seen in other sports, the women's game may give us something different and exciting that even the men can learn from.
Julia Walsh, Kew
The AFL should focus on the administration
I am outraged at the AFL's "advice" to AFLW coaches regarding ways to improve the look of the game. It is yet another example of how the boys' club runs within the AFL. I cannot imagine it making a similar suggestion to an AFL coach. "Clarko, we don't like the way your coaching strategies result in such a one-sided game. We're going to introduce a rule that makes it easier for other teams to beat you".
AFL: let the coaches coach, the players play and you can worry about the administration. (Or at least sort out the second-rate, half-time entertainment at the Grand Final.)
Wendy Jolly, Seaford
We need to gain perspective on the game
The average score in the first season of VFL in 1897 (39 years after men started to play at the highest level) was 39 points. And VFA scores between 1858 and 1897 were routinely lower. The average score in the first AFLW season was 32 points. It is unreasonable to expect AFLW to be averaging anywhere near current AFL scores in season two.
I love watching AFLW and AFL. Women will attain the current skills we enjoy at AFL matches when girls are given the same encouragement, coaching and playing experiences as juniors as boys. And it will not take women 159 years to do it.
Jamin Moon, Eltham
Call it what it is: an amateur competition
Women enjoy playing football and so they should, as an outlet, but in reality AFLW is the standard of suburban, amateur competition. It would require a funding boost of $120million for it to become a professional league.
David Thomson, St Kilda
Women like sport, including women's sport
Andrew Knight's provocative comment that AFLW football receives too much media attention (Letters, 8/2) was sexist and offensive. Finally, talented female athletes are getting the coverage they deserve and their fans are responding. Why should their background stories be any less interesting than those of men's? It is quite simple. Do not watch AFLW if you do not like it. Females make up more than half of our population. We like sport. We also like to watch women play sport. Why shouldn't this include AFL football? We deserve a fair go.
Catherine Boal, Wangaratta
When will the "Men in Suits' stop interfering?
Susan Alberti (Sport, 8/2) is dead right. AFLW has been a success story because of the fabulous women (and some men) who have created it, despite the efforts of the Men in Suits that are the AFL. The success has been driven at the club level.
I remember those fabulous Demons versus Bulldogs games just a few years ago, when spectators realised this was going to become something big. The AFL interfered even then. One game was not allowed to go to full-time because it would have meant the men's game would start a few minutes late. Please, AFL bureaucrats and others, stop interfering.
Graham Hoult, Richmond
THE FORUM
Dangerous mistakes
Victoria Police's firearms registry (The Age, 9/2) has been in disarray for years. On one occasion, as a collector and competition shooter, I submitted a revised list of 10 rifles to the registry with the aid of my local police firearm's officer. I duly received 10 crisp, pink registration certificates that, in three cases, contained incorrect serial numbers, calibres and manufacturers.
The police officer returned the incorrect certificates to the registry with the needed corrections. The new certificates arrived, still with errors. Finally, after a phone call by the officer, the correct certificates were issued. I leave it up to readers to judge the efficiency of the system.
Peter Weinstock, Rutherford, NSW
Try, try and try again
Undergraduates must pass an online course about sexual consent if they want to enrol at the University of Melbourne (The Age, 9/2). Will there be an opportunity to sit a supplementary exam if you fail (sorry, are not successful)? If so, I wonder what special consideration would be acceptable to get a second try?
Ruth Brain, Camperdown
Calling men to account
Jon Faine says that when Robert Doyle came in as a guest on his radio program, over a period of many years, his "lecherous"' conduct towards the women working there caused embarrassment (The Age, 8/2).
It seems a bit late for Faine to come over righteous now, while the debris from the explosion rains down all over the city. Did he tell Mr Doyle: "The way you behave around women is distressing to them and embarrassing to all of us. The women hate it. This is their workplace. You're the lord mayor, for God's sake. It's time you noticed the effect of your behaviour on other people".
Perhaps we can start asking ourselves how and why some men's sleazy behaviour patterns are left free to develop past the point of tolerability. How many steps are there along the way, how many moments where a man can be discreetly or firmly or roughly called to account, between the first or second example and the point where the women blow it wide open with maximum destruction?
Helen Garner, Flemington
Affairs are not illegal
Clementine Ford (Comment, 8/2) must lead a politically correct, sheltered existence. So a man is "conforming to the blandest of middle-age stereotypes" if he leaves his wife and children to start a second family? One in three marriages end in divorce, and the average length of a marriage is only around 12 years.
By emphasising the 33-year old woman as being "a much younger staffer", Ford plays an emotional string. This woman is no teenager, she fits within the social criteria of not being younger than Joyce's eldest daughter. There has been no allegation of harassment. I am bemused by Ford's prim cliche describing Mr Joyce as having a "mid-life crisis".
It is not against the law to have an affair of the heart, albeit in the workplace or online. Laurie Oakes, unfortunately, initiated the breakdown of the Canberra press' respectful tradition of silence. This current salacious and destructive labelling is the stuff of the Fleet Street gutter press, and sadly it is becoming the norm in Australia.
Margaret Gibson, Ferny Creek
Tawdry tale of betrayal
Clementine Ford is to be commended for her insightful analysis. Many studies have shown that traditional marriage disadvantages women in many ways, mostly in the imbalance of power and economically. This controversy is more than that. The public airing of a marital breakdown must be devastating for Natalie Joyce and her daughters. Mrs Joyce has been put in the invidious position of making public that which should remain between the parties.
Craig Laundy lamented the "collateral damage" inflicted on Mr Joyce's family. The damage is not collateral. It directly harms those Mr Joyce professed to cherish. Vikki Campion must be regarded as "collateral damage" as she will be known as "the other woman" in a tawdry tale of marital betrayal.
Helen Goodman, Williamstown
Be careful, Kim Yo-jong
Kim Jung-un's sister will need to be careful walking through foreign airports (World, 9/2) if history is anything to go by.
Francis Bainbridge, Fitzroy North
Serving the public
Emma Skowronski – "Recognise GPs as the specialists they are" (Comment, 8/2) – you have my upmost respect and sympathy. However you must be much younger than me. Thirty years ago we had public servants. You know, people who were there to serve the public, deal with problems and make the wheels of government turn smoothly.
Today we have bureaucrats, people in positions of ultimate power, who are there to make the rules and enforce them. Ticking boxes is their specialty. They live by process, not outcomes. I'm sorry, but I don't know what we are going to do about them.
Bruce Beatson, Toora
Shifting the cost
As the commonwealth "block funds" the states to provide "free" public hospital inpatient and outpatient care, hospitals have resorted to gaming the system to get extra, back-door funding from private health insurance funds and Medicare.
First, patients being admitted to public hospitals, and who have private insurance, are requested (pressured?) to be admitted as private patients. Their insurer, not the state, pays.That significantly adds to the cost of private health insurance, and to premiums. Next, if I, as a GP, refer a patient to a public hospital's out-patient clinic, I am asked to provide a referral. The hospitals say they have "privatised" out-patient clinics. This is an artifice. Medicare provides funding outside the commonwealth-state agreement as it is bulk billed for the services provided in those clinics.
Jeff Kennett was right when he called for both the funding and the provision of health services to be the responsibility of one level of government. This costly gaming must stop.
Dr Paul Nisselle, Middle Park
Acting on our rubbish
Surely we are clever enough in this country to process our recycled rubbish and turn it into something useful. Perhaps we could ask China to give us a few clues.
Cath Dyson, Mount Eliza
Relax, swimmers are safe
Thank you for publishing the CSIRO's research on great whites (The Age, 9/2). Sharks are an incredibly important top predator. They are fundamental for healthy ecosystems. However, the word "lurk" in your headline just increases the irrational fear of them.
Putting CSIRO's numbers into perspective, if there are 5500 great whites between Tasmania, Central Queensland and New Zealand, that is one shark in every 566 square kilometre of ocean. In terms of the western population, the coastline from western Victoria to north western WA is more than 5600 kilometres long. If we assume every shark is within three kilometres of the coast and we use the top estimate for shark numbers (2250), there is one great white in every 7.5square kilometre of ocean.
The ocean is massive. Sharks are few and far between. Irrational fear is why we have the unnecessary slaughter of wildlife in nets and drumlines, and why Josh Frydenberg can say the WA government must consider "more rigorous and proactive measures to protect its citizens from shark attacks".
Richard Coleman, Canterbury
Show us your face
Duncan Fine (Comment, 9/2), a person wearing robes and a wig has their face uncovered and so is identifiable. I do not have a problem with people wearing "traditional" clothing in courts, banks, Parliament or public space that requires some form of security, as long as their faces are uncovered. I would not expect anyone to be allowed into these places wearing a ski mask or bicycle helmet which covers their face. Nor should a niqab or burka be allowed.
Alan Inchley, Frankston
Memories of Hugh
Geoff Palmer (Letters, 8/2), your story about the wonderful Hugh Wirth brought a tear to my eye.
Michael Hanneberry, Black Rock
AND ANOTHER THING
Barnaby Joyce
Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath. Politicians take the "Hypocrite Oath".
Greg Lee, Red Hill
All he needs to complete the cliche is a bike and lycra. Straggly pony tail optional.
Julie Shaw, Castlemaine
Who's been a naughty boy then?
Maxwell Spence, Montmorency
How unusual. Powerful, middle-aged man trades in his well-used family for a sleek, new model.
Janice Florence, Preston
An awe inspiring character advised us: "Judge not, lest you be judged".
Paul Castley, Kew
An ambassador for the nuclear family and heterosexual marriage is "incredibly hurt" by being sprung as a hypocrite. My heart bleeds.
Chris Rider, Blairgowrie
MPs on all sides say it's a private matter. Maybe Barnaby isn't the only one playing away from home.
Peter Carlin, Frankston South
If you work in one of the world's most boring capital cities, you have to kill time somehow.
Bosko Marojevic, Williamstown
Will the ban on MPs and staff having sex be called the "Barnaby Legislation"?
John Tingiri, Mornington
Joyce's private life is just that: private. But for a Catholic, conservative deputy PM, it's not a good look.
John Page, Glenroy
It's astonishing that Barnaby has managed to attract two women.
Patsy Sanaghan, North Geelong
Clementine Ford assumes women are beyond reproach. Joyce's personal life is his, not ours.
Anthony Nicholl, Mount Eliza
Thank you, Clementine Ford, for calling out Joyce's hypocrisy. The private is political. Ask any gay person.
Michael Beresford, Sandy Bay
Everyone who enters Parliament should be fitted with a chastity belt. But who will hold the key?
Steven Scheller, Benalla
After his many years in Parliament, it's pleasing that Barnaby is finally punching above his weight.
Malcolm Grieves, Warrnambool
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