On Ahmed Fahour

Laurie Patton writes: Re. “Eight ridiculous reasons for paying Ahmed Fahour an obscene amount of money” (Tuesday)

It’s worth noting that direct reports usually get around 60-70 percent of the CEO’s salary. 10 people report to the boss of Australia Post. On, say, around $3 million each, this would really add up. The total executive remuneration bill must just about equal net profit. Might even beat it.

On the Greens record

Colin Smith writes: Re. “Preferences dominate Parliament on who dealt with Hanson and how” (Monday)

Bernard Keane – the Greens didn’t “cave in” on Senate voting reform, backpacker tax and tax transparency. On the first we seized an opportunity to achieve an urgent reform we had advocated for 12 years; on the second, we ended a stupid impasse in an acceptable manner; and on the third we got something that was better than nothing.

And if our Senators hadn’t done these things they would have been accused of making the perfect the enemy of the good.

On Pi.O

Alan Wearne writes: Re. “Remembering the smell of lamb stew in Fitzroy’s badlands” (Friday)

The substantial recent Guy Rundle review of leading Australian poet Pi O’s homage to his Fitzroy  stamping ground is to be applauded . That this review comes from a ‘civilian’ outside of the poetry circus only adds to my applause. Rundle’s belief in Pi O and his work contrasts solidly with that of the editors of the recent contemporary Australian poetry anthology which, while bloated with over 200 contributors, shamefully omitted Pi O.

On the omnibus bill

Joe Boswell writes: Re. “Government’s omnibus turns into a flaming wreck” (Tuesday)

The nation will not have been greatly surprised that Scott Morrison and his pals tried to blackmail the Senate by threatening to harm the disabled if the Senate did not roll over and pass his rotten bill. Who could forget his 2014 effort, when the Senate’s hand was forced by his threat that children imprisoned in his ghastly offshore concentration camps would not be released unless he was given unprecedented powers over refugees? As Senator Ricky Muir said then, he was “forced into a corner to decide between a bad decision and a worse decision, a position I do not wish on my worst enemies”. Sadly, Muir and other cross-bench senators chose the worse decision, so of course Morrison is using blackmail again; but now it seems the Senate might have learned its lesson.