The people’s swill

Niall Clugston writes: Re. “Crikey says: welcome to the unrepresentative swill” (yesterday). Crikey‘s editorial can echo Paul Keating and brand the PUP senators and others as “unrepresentative swill”, but Keating’s smear covered all the Senate, including the Greens. This doesn’t, however, cover Clive Palmer himself. Changing the Senate’s voting rules will not prevent him from holding a House of Representatives seat.

The fact is these new parliamentarians may be unpleasant, but they are not unrepresentative. They represent the people’s swill. Tinkering with the barometer will not change the weather.

Think of the footy tippers

Brendan Linnane writes: Re. “Footy fail: the AFL has lost its way” (yesterday). I help run an AFL tipping comp on the north shore of Sydney (took advantage of the demise of North Sydney).

We have 65 tipsters paying $50 in, with half returned in prizes with the other half going to a major grand final party (the NRL comp in same pub has about 25 members).

The Thursday night games are an absolute disaster, as we’ve had many guys miss out on getting the Thursday night game tipped.

Unbelievable arrogance from AFL.