the modern thinker modern insights in a world going backwards

Bitter?… NAH

Nursing a grudge
THERE'S never any money for nurses, but there's always extra money for teachers. Considering their performance in the classroom is appalling, why are they always in line for more money?

Teachers are entitled to four weeks' annual leave, so why do they take another eight weeks' annual leave, as well as curriculum days?

They should have all their student-free days on the holidays, as well as run catch-up classes for underachieving students, without being paid any extra money. I think taxpayers, parents and students are being ripped off.

For a change, wouldn't it be nice if the hardworking nurses in this country were given some credit in the form of money, not the pat on the back that the Government believes will pay our bills. We, along with doctors, do many hours of unpaid overtime to prop up an ailing health system, yet our wages and working conditions have been going backwards for years.

Not one government has ever considered rewarding nurses, but they will bend over backwards for teachers.
Ann Lowe, Malvern East

Listen honey, going the biff on teachers isn't going to redirect the money to you poor nurses. It might be a little hard to understand but that's just not the way things work.

You can't state as fact, "their performance in the classroom is appalling". While some from the right do like to get out and go teacher bashing, the great majority of people know that this is simply hyperbole and lies.

If you weren't aware, teachers and nurses are very much in the same basket when it comes to funding from governments. Teachers have been just as screwed over as you nurses in recent times. The unfortunate thing for nurses, as you've pointed out, is that you are basically emotionally blackmailed into working more for no money because the health system isn't properly funded. If you really wanted to be heard and maybe effect some change, try a work to rule campaign or refusing overtime. If everyone does it, you'll shortly have some attention.

Maybe you're just a bit jealous that the federal government has been focusing on teachers, with Julie Bishop and John Howard talking about bonus pay for exceptional teachers so as to provide incentive for teachers to better themselves. This isn't actually because they want to give more money to the better teachers. While they suggest they will give with one hand, what it actually does is take away more power for the federal government with the other hand, by attaching requirements such as what history curriculum is taught to high school students. (It's actually just a big ploy to stop people thinking for themselves and learning about some of the disgraceful events in this nation's history but Shhhh, don't tell anyone.)

If your letter is really an indication of where you're coming from, I'm surprised you got into nursing. You didn't really do it for the money did you? Where did you get the impression you were going to be raking it in? I hope that's not how the tertiary institutions are selling it. And I hope not too many other people are falling for it.

Tell you what, it's not too late to salvage this. Just quickly find yourself a nice bloke - ooh, you could probably snare yourself a rich doctor! - put your legs up and start counting the bonus coming to you in 9 months time. That way you'll be able to just stay at home living a life of leisure on handouts and not have to put up with any more of that crap from your patients.

When you’re done raping the earth…

Forest friendly
THE article by Tracee Hutchison "They don't get it" (Opinion, 12/5) and subsequent letters by Don Stokes and Karina Kanepe (14/5) display a disturbing ignorance about forests, wood and climate change.

Deforestation in Indonesia is disastrous because it permanently removes forest cover. But this is vastly different from Australian (and Tasmanian) forestry practices under which harvested areas are regenerated with replacement trees. Where this is sustainable — the annually harvested wood volume equals the rate of growth over the whole forest — there should be no net loss of carbon.

Using wood is one of the most positive things we can do to combat climate change. It is natural and renewable whereas substitutes such as concrete involve large emissions of greenhouse gases in their manufacture.

Similarly, using firewood from a sustainable source is one of the most environmentally friendly forms of home heating if it reduces electricity use.
Mark Poynter, Victorian spokesman, the Institute of Foresters of Australia

If logging practices in Australia are so sustainable why is there a need to increase the area logged into water catchments where the amount of water in our reservoirs is greatly affected by logging?

I'm not sure how happy Tasmania will be to find that they're not a part of Australia but maybe they're used to it. As for Mark's claim that 'there should be no net loss of carbon', does he realise that trees aren't made of carbon? That the carbon is released when the wood is burned? Or maybe he's talking about the amount of carbon dioxide in the environment process by the trees.

As for wood being 'one of the most environmentally friendly forms of home heating', is he insane? Slow combustion wood burners are incredibly polluting with the amount of smoke that is released. If all home heating was powered by wood burners, the skies would be permanently hazy and asthmatics and others with respiratory problems would be dropping all over the place.

This is a naive or deliberately deceptive missive from an industry that should face environmental realities and start to think about getting some new skills. And stop wasting everyone's time by trying to convince us you're all touchy-feelie warriors for the environment.