Australian Public Service: where women are more equal than men Women outnumber men overall in the public service.
Your article "Women falling back in PS roles" (  April 11, p1) is mind-boggling. Until the feminists (or the Public Service Commission) find a way for men to bear children and until they convince large numbers of women to put their careers before their families, women are likely to remain in a minority in the SES. I am amazed that so many men want those jobs, spending half their weekends at work, crawling to the Minister and sucking up to the Secretary. Perhaps women just have more sense.
The article also talks about women being disproportionately hit by recent redundancies. 
Given that most of them were voluntary, that seems to have been their choice.
Equally interesting is the point that women outnumber men overall in ongoing positions in the public service by 22,132 positions. I don't see a campaign to get the number of men overall in the public service up to equal the number of women.
Perhaps because gender equality policies and legislation is about equality only in the Orwellian sense that some people are more equal than others, and women are more equal than men.
J. J. Marr, Hawker ABA a union too You could say that the Greens/ ALP are in fact calling for an extension of the Royal Commission into corrupt union practices. For what is the Australian Banker's Association but a union?
No matter how Steven Munchenberg, dressed in his fancy suit, tries to spin the issue, the purpose of his organisation is to act collectively for the common good of its members.
If his fellow unionists engage in dodgy practices, they should be brought to book, just as any other shonky unionists should be treated.
Mike Puleston, Brunswick, NSW Thanks to Murdoch Apparently Rupert Murdoch's Newspoll has found the main political parties to be neck and neck in the race to win the 2016 election - whether it be held in   July or later.
Oh pleeease spare me!
In the last umpteen pre- election surveys, Newspoll has reported inexplicable surges in the popularity of one party or the other as ballot day approaches, and in all but the Julia Gillard fiasco of 2010 it's been well wide of the mark.
The rival political parties must be so thankful, however, that the same Mr Murdoch has been there to help them out every time, offering access to his other business - an extensive (and soon-to-be even more extensive) media network - only too willing and able to help them advertise their socks off to win the unexpectedly close people's vote.
What was that they said about "Vote 1: Self-interest?"
John Clarke, Pearce Left, right ...
I am intrigued by how often Mikayla Novak's diatribes against government intervention are followed by a story on the BusinessDay page of the latest rip-off of customers by business. I realise, Dear Editor, that you are obliged to "balance" Richard Denniss' columns, but surely there are right-wing writers out there who can produce more nuanced and internally consistent arguments.
Kevin Rattigan, Berremangra, NSW Beating corruption Congratulations and thanks to Jack Waterford for his article, "We need a war against corrupt conduct" (Forum,   April 9, p1). It was a powerful reminder of the escalating disclosures of entrenched, systemic corruption throughout society.
Certainly, the establishment of a standing "federal commission" against corruption would keep the ball rolling.
That would be useless unless we address the "mysteriously unfinished prosecution business which has been allowed to wither".
Contrary to the standard political justification for preserving the status quo, "That will not drive corporations overseas. We need rather more directors and executives behind bars." It's a big ask but that's up to the coppers and the prosecutors and yes, the judges and juries too.
Don't hang the whistleblowers and the hackers and the journos out to dry.
Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor Climate obsession As someone who once scribbled the odd strategic document I chuckled when I read the importance Michael Thomas placed on the solemn reference to climate change in the Defence White Paper ("Why CSIRO climate cuts could threaten security", Times2,   April 8, p5).
Trust me, the authors put that in not because they really believe there is a pressing security risk from climate change, but because it is one of those things that must go in these days, tick it off and senior management is happy, never to be seriously considered again.
I would have been far more convinced had Thomas raised the genuinely important problem of the lack of strategic fuel supplies that threatens not only Defence capability, but our ability to function as a nation.
Another casualty of the obsession with climate change?
H. Ronald, Jerrabomberra, NSW Inferior buildings In the attempt to give the Australian steel industry a competitive fighting chance, our politicians could do a lot worse than actually to reintroduce and enforce severe sanctions for all private or public, residential, commercial or industrial construction projects which - in our unique regulation-free environment - continue to treat engineering standards (formerly known as "Australian Standards", or AS) with contempt, whether in design, construction or both.
We have recently had brand new bridges which have had to be rebuilt on the public purse because they were bendy, owing to the inappropriate quality of the foreign steel employed.
And brand-new residential complexes around Australia which are feeding a remarkable, globally unique contemporary Australian industry in "building rectification" because they were wholly (minus the water for the concrete) shipped in from China to a price, and not to any standard.
God forbid one should interest any politician in the scandal of increasingly condemnable Australian building standards in the past 20 years.
But since there is now so much talk about the survival of the Australian steel industry, here is a way our politicians might kill a second bird - however disinterestedly - with the one stone.
Alex Mattea, Kingston