Your say: week beginning January 12

Every day, we publish a selection of your emails in our newsletter. We’d love to hear from you, you can email us at yoursay@theconversation.edu.au.

Monday January 12

The Hiding Place

“This review of Kate Mildenhall’s novel resonated with me on a couple of levels, as a picture of contemporary Australia and as a reminder that all that glitters is not gold. My first thought on reading it was a resemblance to Christos Tsolkas’s The Slap, which also skewers a section of bourgeois life. My second thought was that the characters here represent a recognisable section of Australia in the first quarter of the 21st century. Perhaps the characters are young, upwardly-mobile, professional people (Yuppies) and carry all the poison that the group has been notorious for. The sheltered, naive ‘lifestyle’ of these well-heeled Australians is a gift and a curse for them. It is also just a curse for the rest of us. The enclave they seek to create represents a phenomenon we see every day, in real life, where exclusivity is a desired goal.”

Kym Houghton

From democracy to corporate control

“Trump is carving up the world. Is this the start of blatant corporate takeover of nations? In the Mars Trilogy (written in the 1990s) by Kim Stanley Robinson, the Earth’s nations now belong to, and are divided up between the Corporates. The world is flooded and the new settlers on Mars hope to create a community using common good economics and existing in rather than owning their environment. All is good at first, until the Corporates arrive, who wish to harvest Mars’ resources. Whilst back on Earth, the general population try to lead a meagre life in a flooded world. When we look to money as the goal, and not living along with the Earth, the quality of life is not a right, rather a privilege gained through toxic culture.”

Emma Hain

Keep the flags

“I support the use of consistent coloured surf flags globally. The red and yellow stand out miles away. Australia’s system saves many lives. Advertise them on all forms of public transport for those who come across the seas. They’ll soon learn.”

Ms Louise

Tuesday January 13

Writers’ week controversy

“The arts community in general needs to take a hard look at itself during the Royal Commission as to how they may have contributed to the growth of antisemitism. Across several areas of creative endeavour (theatre, film, music, visual arts) their unconditional support for the Palestinian cause has not differentiated between Israeli government policy under Netanyahu and Jewish identity itself. The two elements are not the same. Creatives, including writers, will find an inconvenient truth lurks in their own home ground.”

Charles Latimer

Lunch time

“Providing free lunches to Australian school children is a no-brainer. When visiting Finnish schools on an Australian Executive Fellowship, the single thing I noticed about the Finnish education ‘miracle’ was that the entire school community sat down to a cooked lunch every day. Children ate nourishing food and learned about socialising and behaving at meals. Teachers ate with them and could observe peer group interaction. There was an obvious direct correlation with improved classroom behaviour. A cost benefit analysis with this last effect alone would show that investing in school lunches would save in the long term, given our current problems with behaviour management and teacher burnout.”

Dr Tom Stehlik