Why wait for a review to act on the nationwide shortage of GPs?

Come on, I thought, it is clear to everyone that there are not anything like enough GPs in this country, no matter how they are distributed.

I found an article by Jeremy Knibbs in Medical Republic (February 2) in which he points out that, despite recent increases in bulk-billing subsidies, "GPs in relative terms are still significantly behind where they would be if governments had only kept MBS reimbursements in line with CPI for the last 10 years, as they should have done".

From the perspective of someone who craves a healthy community, and who values GPs as the only people trained to help us make decisions about the interaction of our bodies, our personal lives, and that community, I am distressed to find they are choosing to work fewer days because of exhaustion, that none of the medical students I meet are choosing to be GPs because the work is too hard and not remunerated adequately, and also because, when I get to one, a specialist is charging inordinately large sums of money for increasingly specialised, technological and dehumanised services.

I propose that, alongside nurses and teachers, universities and students should be rewarded handsomely by governments for recognising and promoting the absolutely central role GPs play in our lives and that their potential for reasonable remuneration should be increased appropriately without delay.

John Connelly's claim Israel is acting the same as Hamas (Letters, February 26) is wrong. Hamas deliberately targeted civilians in Israel, murdering, torturing, raping and kidnapping them. Israel deliberately targets only fighters and military infrastructure. It tries to avoid killing civilians by warning them to evacuate.

Israel builds bomb shelters to protect its civilians from Hamas rockets. Hamas builds tunnels for its fighters, won't let non-combatants use them, and further endangers them by hiding tunnel entrances in their houses and the tunnels under them.

Hamas uses civilians as human shields for tactical advantage, but also because of the propaganda advantage of Israel killing civilians, even if it does so in hitting legitimate military targets. Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties. Hamas seeks to cause them.

To the extent that our politicians and media don't condemn Israel as they do Hamas, it's not because they lack courage, as John Connelly claims, it's because they understand the obvious difference.

I don't like the idea of foreign mercenaries (non-citizens) being recruited to serve in our military to make up for a shortfall in local recruitment. It is a bridge too far. Yet this proposition is being considered by the Albanese Labor government.

Where will the loyalties of mercenaries lie if "push comes to shove"? I suspect only to their hip pocket. To the highest bidder.

History is littered with stories about the negative impact of such an approach to the defence of sovereign states. What next? Fully "privatising" the defence of this country?

The ACT government has killed over 1200 kangaroos on Red Hill in the past two years. Overgrazing was the reason given and yet now the government mowers are cutting sections of the reserve.

We spend thousands of taxpayer dollars each year to cull these native and innocent animals and then we spend additional money to mow the grass and weeds that the kangaroos were helping us to keep under control in the first place!

This taxpayer money that we spend on shooting kangaroos should be re-directed to programs such as wildlife crossings where we learn to co-exist at peace with them.

Many sections of the media made much of the alleged gender pay gap report released recently by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA).

For some time the bureaucracy has fudged the income figures for men and women to prove that a "gender pay gap" exists.

In 2015, then senator David Leyonhjelm at a parliamentary inquiry into the gender pay gap, put some very pertinent questions to bureaucrats.

They were unable to answer in a straight forward manner.

Long story short, men work longer hours, and given most part-time work is performed by women, some difference in the annualised take-home pay of men and women is going to occur. The figures used in the WGEA report are misleading.

But why do the media just accept what it was given and not ask the hard questions regarding how these pay differences are arrived at?

By law in Australia, women must be paid "equal pay for work of equal value".

No employer today is going to pay a woman less for doing the same work as a man as this will attract heavy penalties.

Also a woman affected by such a policy regarding pay disparity could sue her employer for damages and compensation.

The WGEA report ignores the voluntary decision made by many women in wanting to regard married life and the raising of children as an important goal in life; and the great contribution this makes to the wellbeing of low-income Australian society.

Father Peter Day (Letters, February 28) is right.

We are in moral decline and, unless we heed his call, it won't be long before church officials are sexually abusing the children of their congregations, denying its occurrence and using every nasty trick to avoid liability.

There will be devious and unworthy politicians hosting prayer sessions in their Parliament offices and thanking God for the miracle of their success.

There will be religions claiming biblical approval of their money grubbing.

Tens of thousands will die in holy wars.

It's a terrible situation that the non-believers are leading us into.

I find it quite humorous when a Catholic priest (Letters, February 28) advises me what is deep within my conscience: a law inscribed by God which must be obeyed.

He believes, without his God, my "truth" will lead to moral confusion.

He quotes an Italian philosopher to point out new ideologies will triumph by infiltrating schools, universities, the church, and the media.

This is the same way Catholicism and other religions have operated for millennia, and these belief systems have caused quite a few moral dilemmas too.

Maybe it is time the Bible received another re-write so it is not so judgemental.

A 27-year-old man has been told he should never, ever again play his favourite sport because that sport has already been responsible for damage to his brain.

What can be done about concussion in sport? What about changing the game. Yes, keep going with the very skilful ball passing, goal kicking, accelerated running and dodging. Cut out deliberate collisions with a "one strike and the responsible player is out" rule for that season.

Violence in all sports is an abhorrent issue. It's horrible to watch and it's even worse to know that young otherwise fit people are having to stop playing the game because its rules permit very serious damage to their health and well-being, if not immediately after the incident, then possibly later in life.

Play safe and stay well.

Dr Douglas Mackenzie denies Hamas is a dictatorship (Letters, February 26). While the semantics might be argued, the adage "if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it probably is a duck" applies. Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007 and has ruled without elections ever since.

It silences all dissent (often brutally), prioritises the survival of the regime above the welfare of its people, steals international donations for its people, and cultivates an extensive ideological indoctrination system in the guise of "education".

While the figurehead at the top might change the regime has the absolute authority that characterises a dictatorship.

Doug Hurst (Letters, March 1), says: "non-[nuclear] cult members are sick of having their intelligence insulted". It is hard to insult the seeming non-intelligence (or is it something else) of those who refuse to accept the mass of scientific, engineering, economic and environmental evidence in favour of renewables.