Ed,

Wars in the future will be electronically driven. Even the small glimpses we have had of drones and the threat of nuclear warfare tell us that. Nuclear submarines will not make Australia safe, they will only make Australia a target.

Nerds are now able to cripple countries by hacking into their bank and defence forces security codes.

If clever people can make up algorithms to stop others from accessing information, then cleverer people are able to decode the algorithms and access the information. It is the 2022 version of the 1940’s code breakers.

Much has been evoked lately of Hitler’s evil. But the true evil genius was Pol Pot. By murdering all the educated people he removed all the oppositional thinking. If you have never been taught to question, you don’t.

Australia is in an educational crisis. It underpays and undervalues its teachers. Teachers in many cases are little more than behavioural managers, forced to spend valuable teaching time tying to defuse temper tantrums. University courses are so expensive we are losing fine minds to financial hardship.

My university education was free, lecturers being paid by the Govt like any other Govt trained teacher.

Before the Taliban, Iran had the greatest number of women university graduates in the world. We need educated people to understand what happens to societies ruled by men with their heads screwed on backwards looking over their shoulders at the past.

Learning from overseas experiences of educating their citizens to cope with future needs, means we will have qualified medicos, scientists, mathematicians, tradesmen, architects, teachers and everyone necessary for a thriving community.

If the defence of your country is one of your top priorities then vote for the person with the best education reforms. Knowledge is power. Education is knowledge.

Jocelyn Wrench, Iluka