Your say: week beginning February 2

Every day, we publish a selection of your emails in our newsletter. We’d love to hear from you, you can email us at yoursay@theconversation.edu.au.

Monday February 2

The prospect of a rate rise

“Mortgage holders are again having to worry about an interest rate rise made likely by the government’s failings. I hope our media holds them to account for this and doesn’t simply let them slate it down to the independence of the Reserve Bank.”

Lynda Paterson, Eden

Keeping cool

“Elmira Jamei rightly calls for stronger government action to cool our cities. Meanwhile, individuals without air conditioning can take low-cost actions to cool themselves. Portable fans are cheap to purchase and operate. Although they cannot cool a room, they are effective at cooling people in temperatures up to about 35°C by facilitating the evaporation of sweat. (At higher temperatures, they can increase heat gain in people who do not sweat sufficiently.) Their effectiveness can be increased by wetting skin. Portable evaporative coolers are suitable for cooling rooms. Although more expensive than fans, they are much cheaper than air conditioners.”

Dr Mark Diesendorf, Berowra Heights

Summer migraines

“Interestingly, I used to have a severe migraine at least once in the December-January period. I often attended hospital due to the severity. Finally, I decided I have got to work it out. Thinking about what I did differently in this period, I realised the only thing was that I was drinking alcoholic beverages more often, because of the holiday season. So the next year I stopped drinking alcoholic beverages. No migraines!”

Jenni Reside

Tuesday February 3

Life as a principal

“A year as relieving principal in a large primary school with over 600 students on two sites convinced me I didn’t want the position. With verbal attacks from parents and children (being told to f— off by a 5-year-old is not pleasant) I decided that I wanted to enjoy retirement, I didn’t want my health broken by my job!”

Elaine Langshaw

Dingoes on K’gari

“Some years ago I spent a fortnight at a resort on K’gari island with my family. Nearly every tourist left uneaten food on plates as they left the pool area, which of course attracted dingoes. This led to many potentially dangerous interactions between people and dingoes. As we understood it, the problem was entirely one of poor human behaviour. As the authors explain, it is much the same as with sharks, of naive humans behaving poorly leading to calls for killing sharks that are just doing what is natural for them.”

Robert Bender, Ivanhoe VIC

The Voice in retrospect

“I always felt the fatal flaw with the Voice referendum was the failure to road-test the wording of the question. If the proposed text had been rigorously vetted in scores of diverse focus groups, I believe its inherent unacceptability would have been exposed and the government could have adopted a different approach. It’s one thing for the wording to suit the proponents, it’s another to secure widespread backing within the population at large.”

Richard Goodwin, Doubleview WA