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

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