In between blogging and other things the blog sometimes writes letters to the editor of various papers. Unlike a prolific neighbour the letters are rarely published but sometimes they are. The worst strike rate is on matters to do with Gaza and the Palestinian genocide.

But here a couple from this year  a couple of which have been published. The first in The Age; the second in The Economist and the third was sent to the Weekend FT with no results.

The Age one was: You have to wonder why on earth our Prime Minister is organising a big talkfest about policy when he is spending most of his time ruling policy options out. No increase to GST; no tackling of negative gearing (even for investors with multiple properties); no reforms to capital gains taxes or dividend imputation policies; and importantly no consideration of a carbon tax – the most effective and efficient tool in the fight against climate change. Above all else multinationals continue to exploit our natural resources while paying minimal – or no tax. Norway has shown the world the way on how to tax their abundant energy resources to create the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. While Norway was building this fund the UK, under Margaret Thatcher, and Australia under successive governments, missed this huge opportunity and gifted multinationals super profits. The best course of action for Australia would be to cancel this talkfest. This would produce some benefit – a reduction in carbon emissions resulting from fewer people flying to the meeting. Australia was once a model for many reforms – particularly in the area of democratic initiatives – now we are a timid little country run by timid little people.

The Economist letter was: Bartleby’s That was my idea column brings back memories of how such a male dominated creative meeting can sometimes have significant impacts. Working in the ad industry (where else?) the author Bonnie Garmus recounts in her book promotions for her novel Lessons in Chemistry that she got much of the idea from sitting in meetings at the ad agency she worked for. Inevitably, when she proffered a creative idea she was ignored although later in the meeting some man would present her idea and everybody would agree what a great idea it was. It precipitated her departure from the ad industry and the writing of a massive best-selling book subsequently made into a film. Not much consolation for others who had similar experiences but a source of some schadenfreude for women (and some junior men in meetings) who heard her recount the experience during her book promotion tours.

…and the unpublished FT letter was: The obituary of the mercenary Simon Mann (31/5) mentioned the 1997 Sandline attempt to take over the Bougainville copper mine. One of the reasons it failed was the strong opposition of the Australian Government. By one of those accidents of history the Deputy Prime Minister, Tim Fischer, who had been a National Serviceman serving in the Army after being called up in the then Australian military draft system, was acting Prime Minister. He had successfully completed officer training at the Officer Training School set up to produce junior officers from the conscript ranks mainly to serve in Vietnam. He served out his time but was not posted to Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Noted for dry humour (and a passionate love of trains) Tim addressed the military team responsible for the Australian intervention to stop Sandline and said: “General, Admiral, Air Marshall and other officers – Second Lieutenant Fischer thanks you for all your contributions.”

…as for the impact of letters, the blog realises it is actually basically nil. But it does remove the tendency to fret about things in people’s heads