Corporate Australia needs to clean up and restore trust

Is Dutton ready to make a bid for power?

With the Albanese government losing its slender two-party preferred lead in the recent polls, it is right to look at the opposition’s (lack of) policy framework to consider whether the Coalition would be better than Labor in government.

If the teal seats are the Coalition’s way back to government, as looks likely, it is difficult to see how this will happen unless Peter Dutton proposes strong candidates and viable policy ideas to regain the moderate voters who deserted the Liberal Party.

With Labor being flat-footed on recent immigration and refugee matters, and with its an incredibly poor communications track record to tell us what it has achieved, the stage is set for some good policies to be tabled.

Or is the Coalition scared to move away from its relentless scare campaigns? And will Dutton be prepared to stake his leadership on gaining ground in the teal seats? Time will tell.

Bruce McKinnon, Mosman, NSW

Better source of end-of-year sentiment

Each end of year our beloved Financial Review turns to articles on CEO sentiment – soft landings and resilience seemingly ubiquitous for 2024. Is it time we called these reports for what they are? Puff pieces. Let’s face it, in these days of corporate messaging it is highly unlikely any CEO goes to press without stringent review from a bevy of PR advisers, keeping things “on point”.

For a truer look at sentiment, perhaps you could turn to regular contributors to your letters page. Week after week, these writers provide a diverse array of views on many subjects. Compiling their sentiment for 2024 would be far more interesting than rehashing CEOs’ corporate-speak. Just a thought.

Kerry Bell, Jandakot, WA

Why regulatory certainty matters

Contrary to your correspondent’s claim (“Investment ‘certainty’ “, Letters), it is perfectly reasonable for businesses to expect a degree of certainty in regulation, and the size of the CEO’s pay packet is beside the point.

The issue is about effective regulation and a consistently applied regulatory framework to enable long-term planning and investment in capital-intensive projects.

Joanna Wriedt, Eaglemont, Vic

ATAR focus, not curriculum, kills curiosity

It was interesting to see Alan Finkel’s defence of the science curriculum (“Australia’s science curriculum is not broken”).

Back in 1996, I conducted a small experiment at my former high school, Sydney’s James Ruse Agricultural High School. I gave a lecture to the top maths students about the ubiquity of Fourier theory and its descendants in science and modern life.

I used how a mobile phone works as the example. I took them through how the voice signal is converted and transmitted digitally and then converted back to analog. As some of them might end up as radiologists, I thought they might be interested in the signal processing aspects of magnetic resonance imaging, CAT scans and X-rays. But no, I was wrong. The market spoke – they weren’t the slightest bit interested. The head of department later apologised to me, assuring me that there was nothing wrong with the talk but explained the students’ lack of interest on the basis that they were solely focused on attaining a high ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank).

I gave up on high school mathematics education at that stage, on the basis that if kids at a selective school are not interested in understanding how something as fundamental as Fourier theory is to science (Crick and Watson used the Fourier transform to divine the helical structure of DNA), there is no hope. Curriculum may not be the problem at all.

Peter Haggstrom, Bondi Beach, NSW

One-sided ABC left behind in ratings

Pardon the cliché, but the article “New chair must tune in to ABC’s waning reach” fails to address the elephant in the room when discussing the national broadcaster’s shrinking audiences. The scribes blame, in part, “regular barbs from News Corp publications” and the paltry $1.2 billion it gets from taxpayers.

But they don’t mention that the ABC has few, if any, conservative voices, or that about 80 per cent of panellists on its discussion shows are of the left and tend to agree with each other. The ABC’s last two conservative presenters seem to have been Amanda Vanstone and Tom Switzer, now apparently departing because they’ve upset staff sensitivities. Further ratings declines therefore seem assured.

Bruce Heilbuth, Sydney, NSW

Margin of error undermines report

Even before we consider the vagaries of online polling, the margin of error from a national sample of 1109 voters is such as to make your front-page lead (“Labor loses lead, PM’s ratings dive”) completely meaningless.

The poll result tells us none of the things that your report asserts.

Bruce Wright, Latham, ACT

Ignoring the white flag in Gaza

Under what standard of training do soldiers believe it is OK to kill those surrendering and waving a white flag? The answer goes to the heart of what constitutes a proportionate response.

The question must also reflect on Australia’s complicity in not strongly opposing this indiscriminate slaughter of civilians that ranks alongside the firebombing of Tokyo and the bombing of Dresden.

Daryl Guppy, Casuarina, NT

Hamas’ war chest will fund more terror

When this war ends, Hamas’ vast riches will be spent on rebuilding the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza (“Hamas’ financial empire allowed to grow for years”). Hamas will leave ordinary Gazans to suffer in squalor while its leadership eats caviar in Qatar.

Ellis Varejes, Woollahra, NSW