Population:

Geoff Russell, Animal Liberation SA, writes: Re. “What does population growth mean for environmental policy?” (yesterday, item 2). Both Charles Berger’s story and the amazingly stupid on-line tool for the “Growth Management Summit” ignored the number one driver of environmental impact … food choices.

Believe it or not, Queensland and Indonesia are about the same size (180 million hectares). Indonesia is home to 237 million people compared with a state wide Queensland population of 4.4 million with most of them tucked away into that South East corner. But each of those Brisbane dwellers has an impact via their food choices that spreads out from the city like a giant spider web and blankets the state.

Cattle in the 1990s drove deforestation at a rate of almost half a million hectares per annum. That’s an area the size of Brisbane every year.  But as well as the deforestation, vast feedlots and factory farms suck in grain from a huge area both within and beyond the state. Queensland’s livestock alone consume more grain than the entire human population of Australia. In 2006-7 they consumed 3.4 million tonnes of grain.

The biggest determinant of environmental impact for any human population is determined by its food choices, both in terms of what it eats and what it exports. To leave that off the amazingly fancy but stupid on-line tool is like forgetting to mention smoking at a conference on lung cancer.

Oh, yes, and the amazingly stupid on-line tool didn’t mention bicycles in its transportation section.

Spinning the media:

John Turner writes: Re. “Spinning the media: pack your suitcase for some free advertising” (yesterday, item 4). Tuesday’s story confuses the Tour Down Under with The Great Australian Outback Cattle Drive.

A particularly major PR success was the 2009 Tour Down Under, a three-day event at Coober Pedy and William Creek, which gave media the chance to “experience first-hand” the cattle drive. The result was $266 million of editorial media coverage for the event. The 2010 event will be held in July, with six five-day/four-night tours planned for the media.

Can the authors clarify which event attracted the $266 million editorial coverage (and how they arrived at that figure)?

Polling:

Tony Re writes: Re. “Essential Research: Abbott can’t be trusted with health” (Monday, item 1). Could Bernard Keane please give the readers a comparison of the polling techniques used by the major political pollsters?

Looking at yesterday’s Newspoll results, there is the usual reference:

These surveys were conducted on March 26-28, 2010 on the telephone by trained interviewers in all states of Australia and in both city and country areas. Telephone numbers and the person within the household were selected at random.

However, there is no mention of the type of telephones contacted.  It is probable that, if only landlines were used, the results could be skewed. More and more people, especially those under 40 years, only use mobiles.

I have looked at the results from the other main polling companies and I find a similar footnote or none at all.  It would be useful if an independent organization such as Crikey could examine the polling techniques of the pollsters and put the results in a short article.

SMH Letters to the Editor:

Doug Mackenzie writes: Re. “How to get a letter published in The SMH. #1: be a bloke” (yesterday, item 17). I’m a bloke (at least I was the last time I looked), and I’ve written many letters to the Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. Very few were published. (In contrast, The Canberra Times publishes — or used to publish — almost all the letters I sent in.)

The management and editors of the SMH are, unsurprisingly, interested first and foremost in selling newspapers. My distinct impression is that, therefore, certain publishing imperatives far outweigh serious opinion from  “the public”. It seems to me that letters must be:

  1. Short and snappy (alas, the letter by Gabe Kavanagh and Rosa Campbell, good though it is, is too long).
  2. Topical (of course).
  3. Parochial (Sydney seems to be, like the USA, fond of navel gazing).
  4. (Preferably) lightweight, even trivial, and/or mildly amusing (the Letters Editor doesn’t seem to have a high regard for the intellect of the SMH readership, but a semblance of seriousness must be maintained).

Forgive me if I’m a little cynical, but I’m at that “Will you still need me, will you still feed me?” age, and have had lots of not-always-pleasant experience in trying to make my voice heard.

Denis Goodwin writes: One letter not getting published and statistical analysis of gender based on one week is not enough evidence to conclude that the letters editor is sexist. One would need to know the proportion of letters sent by women over a longer period of time and compare the proportion of men and women published by different letters editors.

Mike Ticher also has posted online tips on getting your letters published. One rule is to keep letters short and less than 200 words is recommended — this is also mentioned in the letters section of the printed edition — and the letter submitted was closer to 300 words.

As someone who has been a regular contributor to the Herald letters page over a number of years my best advice is to keep trying and possibly do a bit more research to determine if your hypothesis has any foundation.

Also if it is going to be a long letter perhaps try the Heckler column, which, although it has a slightly different focus does have a 450 word recommended limit.

Andrew Lewis writes: I read Gabe and Rosa’s article on NOT getting a letter published in the SMH following Paul Sheehan’s usual blowhard article.

They consider a few reason why their letter didn’t get published including, it seems, the “anti-feminists editor” theory. I have asked before about how letters are decided at SMH, and apart from space issues, they do try to achieve a pro-rata response  i.e. if 10 men got letters published and seven women, it is probably indicative that 10 men sent letters for every seven women.

As someone who did get a letter published that same day, let me give them a hint.  At 292 words long, it was about three times longer than what was a comparatively long letter from me. Pithy also seems to go down well. Edit your work!

For what it’s worth Gabe and Rosa, my strike rate for letters published in the SMH is surprisingly high, but there was a period of a few years where I got no letters published at all, in spite of using a variety of methodologies, long and considered replies, short and pithy, attempts at humour etc.  Nada, nil, zilch.

And although the LTTE editor at the time was a woman, I didn’t put it down to any form of overt or covert sexism, but I did notice that the intellectual quality of the letters during that period seemed to be much lower than in bygone times, and I suspect I kept using words that she just didn’t understand.

Justin Templer writes: Self-described pinko feminists Gabe Kavanagh and Rosa Campbell have researched the letters page of The Sydney Morning Herald and concluded that the number one rule if you want your letter published is to be male.

They then provide a copy of their unpublished letter, unfortunately illustrating that, never mind not being blokes, their letter broke every “how to get a letter published” rule in the book.

Firstly, it did not stand on its own feet — anyone who had missed Paul Sheehan’s article in a previous edition of the Herald would have had no idea what they were banging on about.

Secondly, it was too clever by half.

Thirdly, it was not brief — quite the opposite, in fact.

Fourthly, it was not correctly structured for the letters page — seven paragraphs doesn’t work.

Fifthly, it was neither bold nor humorous — in fact  it was turgid and boring.

Finally, they aren’t blokes.

Asylum seekers:

Jenny Ejlak writes: Re. “Porous borders would save millions in terms of people smuggling” (yesterday, item 15). It’s an interesting angle to look at asylum seekers as mobile workers. What Greg Barns neglects to mention is that most of these people are fleeing persecution, repression, violence and trauma.

Many of them need intensive physical and psychological treatment and support on arrival into Australia and in many cases ongoing support for post-traumatic stress.  They do not just rock up ready to work.

To disregard the suffering many asylum seekers have gone through and to regard them as just human pawns on the chessboard of the global economy is quite heartless.  I would have expected a more nuanced understanding from someone who writes extensively on human rights.

What I also find disturbing is the notion that funny-speaking brown people from another country can be used to do all the crap jobs that nice white people don’t want to do.  I don’t want Australia to become like the USA with Mexican workers doing all its cleaning jobs, or like cruise ships where the country you come from dictates what job you do and how much you earn (e.g. shiny white people get customer service roles, Hispanics get the housekeeping and kitchenhand  jobs — the two categories of staff even have separate staff lounges).  The whole idea is perpetuating racism, classism and the worst exploitation of vulnerable people that capitalism has to offer.

I agree we don’t handle the asylum seeker issue well in Australia (particularly the tabloid media) but reducing people to economic units is not the answer.  We need more humanity, not less.

Electoral reform:

Niall Clugston writes: Re. “Richardson: the time has come for a debate on electoral reform” (yesterday, item 14). Charles Richardson is spot on with his support for proportional representation.

Unfortunately, however, most people involved in politics are mathematically ignorant, as shown by the frequent claim that the Senate is “unrepresentative”? The other problem is vested interests.

Proportional representation gives more seats to minor parties. I don’t the major parties backing this.

Stern Hu:

John Goldbaum writes: Jean Webster (yesterday, comments) needs to pay closer attention to the actual words printed on the page.  Stern Hu and his colleagues were sacked from Rio Tinto because they received bribes. Rio Tinto shareholders are well-served by our directors.