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Wednesday, 04 May 2005 09:03 |
Written by Graham Young
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I've summarised the email feedback that we've received from listeners. There is a wide range in interests, but we do consider what you say, and as you'll see, some of the ideas will be executed.
C Gilbert suggests we discuss the "rash of high-rise developments that is increasingly blighting Brisbane" and hooning in suburban streets.
Ross is concerned that the federal government will sign up to any free trade agreement going, and that it is deliberately creating an impression of a shortage of people in the trades to justify importation of foreign workers.
Chris Cutler is interested in roads, and in particular a Western ring road. Darryl Campbell would probably share that interest as he expresses concern that infrastructure expenditure has decreased from 4.5% of GDP to 1.5%.
Anne Edwards wants to discuss the failure of the SEQ Regional Strategy to discourage car use and encourage people to grow their own food.
Doris has four issues. She wants to talk about Enterprise Bargainaing "Can the people of Australia, the people who pay taxes negotiate with the Politicians. I would love to see their wages and "lurks and perks" trimmed to the bone. I can not understand how they can just give themselves a pay rise and not a merger one like we achieve in EB of 3.5%, theirs is in double digits, what for ??"
She also wants lower taxes and a less complicated national superannuation system. Finally she would like teachers to be at school longer so that they could supervise children doing their "homework" at school. On the tax issue she is in general agreement with an email from Richard Ward saying tax is important. He would like to raise the tax-free threshold to $20,000 to help the welfare to work transition.
Rosina Gordon wanted abortion discussed as an issue, as well as the work/family balance. (We haven't obliged yet on either on the show, but On Line Opinion's current feature takes up her suggestion about work and family. Marylin is also interested in work/family balance and wonders whether parents "would rather work or not work provided they received a real value Family Allowance/Parenting Allowance?"
Politicians should have more passion, according to Grant Carrey.
Older listeners with children, or younger listeners with older parents, could be interested in an issue that Thomas Logan raises - the relationship between elderly parents and their offspring.
"Why run large surpluses when services are running down?" is the proposition put by Michelle Piele. Sounds like a budget question, and On Line Opinion will be running a budget questionnaire with Springboard Australia immediately after the treasurer delivers his statement.
Fred Scholten wants a concentration on health, and with this week's questionnaire, we agree with him. We received some really interesting proposals from Amanda Tyler who had a number of ideas for quantitative polling on education issues.
Meanwhile Leiv Bornecrantz has major concerns with the whole WTPW process, and presumably the analysts. He writes: "Dear Graham Young, in my opinion, these type of surveys are meaningless unless performed by someone trained in the methodology and with some mathemathical education. Questions should have 1-10 responses and be analysed with reference to the standard deviation and a +- error rate. As the sample is not random, it is heavily skewed to start with.
kind of regards."
Ouch!
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