The worst election ever:

Martin Gordon writes: Re. “Yes, that was the worst election campaign we’ve seen” (Friday, item 2). Michael Moore had a point to make. Unfortunately he went a bit overboard. I imagine that the effort involved in producing theses figures was substantial. But the listing tends to be dominated by more recent elections and elections where there were heavy defeats near the end, whilst older elections and large wins dominated the first part of the list.

This reflects the decline in the vote obtained by the major parties (Coalition and Labor) which has declined from the 90% plus range to the mid 70% to mid 80%. As well it is unconventional to use enrolment figures as the base, which fails to take account of the number of uncontested seats in the earlier post war years.

The use of the lately maligned two party preferred vote shows much less volatility from 1949 to current period. It shows that elections are generally close in Australia, which the 2010 would be a good example.

As for lessons Abbott lost respectably, whatever Michael’s views are of him, and for Julia she is rock bottom last on Michael’s figuring, and whilst she continues to be PM, relying on five votes, four of whom used to belong to Liberal or National Parties to keep you in power, it will be testing time.

Joe Hockey:

John Kotsopoulos writes: Re. “Joe cut and pastes on commodity prices” (Friday, item 9). Why should we be surprised that the alternative Treasurer is resorting to plagiarism,  and dodgy plagiarism at that,  to get a run in the media.

This is the guy who has made such a mess of his shadow portfolio that he was excluded from the Coalition’s pre-election costings by his party’s leader and its finance spokesman.  The latter topped things off after the election by seeking to top him and even the deputy leader to achieve his goal.

What is war good for?:

Elizabeth Moen writes: Re. “Support the Afghanistan troops by bringing them home” (30 September, item 2). My father was a member of the famous 453 Spitfire squadron. Before he died, his words were: “how old does a man need to be before he realizes that wars are useless”.

My husband spent a year in Vietnam in the hospital as a pharmacist. He also came to the same conclusion.

Why does any thinking person not want to divert the wasted resources of war into education, health and supporting new members of the country. Killing achieves nothing positive.

Election funding:

Keith Perkins writes: Neil Hunt (Friday, comments)  appears to be suggesting that Labor and the coalition receive all election funding. This is not so! The electoral act requires candidates to receive a minimum of 4% of the electorate’s first preference votes to be eligible for funding. Less than 4% and they gain experience only, and many do!

A paradigm too far:

Nathan Scholz writes: David Adler (Friday, comments) wrote: “Occasional use perhaps but its continual use to describe the current Federal Parliament is getting more than tiresome! I just put the phrase ‘new paradigm Julia Gillard’ into my Google search engine and there were 19,000 result. Point made, enough already.”

I agree the phrase new paradigm could quickly get tiresome. Similarly, could we stop having people punching random words into Google and having the raw results used as some sort of qualitative summary of use? It isn’t, it’s a waste of time.

I just put the phrase “David Adler it’s a waste of time” into my Google search engine and there were 422,000 results. Point made, enough already.

Steel the right name?:

Matthew Brennan writes: Re. “My Cup of Tea: culture in the Steel City” (Friday, item 17). As the BHP steel-works at Mayfield was shutdown last century and primary iron and steel making facilities now only exist in Australia at Port Kembla and Whyalla, why is Newcastle still referred to as “Steel City”? Seems to me that this title is, um, a bit rusty…

Climate change:

Coralie Le Nevez writes: Matt Andrews’ rebuttal (Friday, comments) of Tamas Calderwood and others was a masterly précis of the issues surrounding climate change.  Who is he?  Can we ask him for more please?

Multiculturalism:

John Craig writes: Re. “Howard attacks multi-culturalism, apologises for nothing” (29 September, item 3). Your coverage of what Austalia’s former PM, John Howard, said about cultural issues while in US was useful reporting, and did not deserve the abusive headline ultimately attached to it (ie that Mr Howard should apologize for attacking multi-culturalism).

While Mr Howard’s critical view of multiculturalism is superficial, there is a clear and defensible need to re-evaluate Australia’s approach to the subject, as suggested in Moving Australia Beyond Traditional Multiculturalism

In brief the latter suggests that: (a) culture appears to be a major determinant of a community’s ability to be materially successful; (b) unless the practical consequences of cultural assumptions are considered, it can be impossible to help those disadvantaged by dysfunctional cultural assumptions and practices; and (c) many current domestic and international difficulties might be reduced if those dealing with diverse cultures systematically evaluated cultures’ practical consequences.