Who is actually looking after these spaces and advocating for their greater cultural and health benefits? It shouldn’t be left to well-intentioned politicians and prominent individuals to advocate for their preservation. We need a city design team, independent of short-term political agendas, who can guide our city’s public realm and the evolving life of our cultural buildings, for generations to come . Without such a public resource, savvy private developers with their considerable resources, risk calling the shots to benefit their own commercial interests above that of the city’s. – Cleveland Rose, Dee Why “Hear, hear” to the criticism of NSW government destruction and sale of public assets by Councillor Thalis during the National Trust Heritage awards.

The carnage began when Barry O’Farrell became premier in 2011 with the covert planning and award of contracts for the demolition of the Darling Harbour Convention and Exhibition Centre. Since then, the NSW government has paid little heed to the wishes of NSW citizens, selling heritage buildings, removing countless magnificent trees, selling public land, demolishing public buildings and facilities and signing porous contracts that leave the NSW people exposed to the possibility of massive compensation payouts to disgruntled contractors. That the state government has been able to get away with this leaves me breathless with rage. – Julian Bowditch, Croydon You have to laugh at insurance companies’ wariness towards “heritage properties” for “being more challenging [and expensive] to insure”. Houses, that is, crafted to last, almost invariably built of proper materials and long before building skills disappeared from construction sites.

Our insurers no doubt prefer all the ephemeral Opal Towers and combustibly clad apartment buildings that are ever more being built to no standards at all this century. “Throwaway ... junk buildings”, in other words, as leading architect and Councillor Thalis has just described them. You have to conclude that insurers too have an axe to grind in joining developers to fight and discourage heritage conservation in favour of overdevelopment. There’s an awful lot more money to be made insuring dozens of new apartments and their large structure, rather than one heritage house. – Alex Mattea, Sydney Put health before religion Ex-cricketer Shahid Afridi has forbidden his four daughters to play any outdoor sport for “social and religious reasons” (“Cricket? Not for my girls, says former Test captain”, May 12).

Curtailing women’s activities can lead to lack of fitness and vitamin D deficiency, with weight gain, diabetes and osteoporosis possible outcomes. Surely female health should be a priority over social and religious concerns. – Stephanie Edwards Roseville Young deserve more of our wealth McDonald’s, one of Australia's largest employers, paying less than the fast food award to most of its workers is symptomatic of Australia’s widening gap between the rich and poor (“Wage boost for McDonald’s staff” , May 12). We are a nation of financially established middle-agers living off the back of young low-paid workers. Wage casualisation, education fees, the housing market disappearing from sight, health outcomes, are all areas causing loss of confidence and depression in young people from families who cannot afford education and do not get a “lift” from the family into house ownership. Look at who owns all these discredited franchises, effectively creating a slave economy. All the middle-age welfare heaped upon the established in the Howard/Costello years have widened the gap and will destabilise our society if we continue to deny the young the wealth the nation should distribute fairly. – Steve Johnson, Elizabeth Beach

Judd far from supermum I woke on Mother’s Day and my husband and children dutifully gave me a coffee and croissant and we chatted while I enjoyed the Sun-Herald, finishing with Sunday Life. Mid-coffee sip I paused as I took in the headline story – was this a joke (“Rebecca Judd: the ‘supermum’ of four juggling it all”, May 12)? I was disgusted – here was a“celebrity” lauded as a mum who is juggling it all. From the information gleaned in the article and from my experience as a busy mum, I would suggest that “juggling” needs a certain perspective here. Judd’s life as described by the article would not reflect the reality for many working mothers who are actually juggling it all. I encourage any mother reading that article to dismiss the definition of supermum that was portrayed. – Amber Carter, Bolwarra