We expect all these for other remote-work categories, why should pickers, processers, packers be treateddifferently? Hasn't coronavirus convinced us that locally-grown, farm-fresh food is best for our health *and* oureconomy? Haven't we yet grasped that farm workers are "critical employees" like teachers, garbagecollectors, shop clerks, medical professionals? Don't we realise that these conditions must be addressed,or: Our food will continue to rot? Many farmers will go out-of-business? We'll become a food-importingnation? Our economy will shrink?

Let's invest in our growers and workers! Provide the incentives above, and count me in !!! I know it's hard work; I've harvested many times before and am willing to do it again, even though I'm a little old lady !!!

Judy Bamberger, O'Connor ACT

The disqualification of Novak Djokovic from the US Open, for hitting a line umpire with the ball is symbolic of a number of the problems the world faces. It was a simple act of frustration and a lack of self-control that led to someone being hurt, although fortunately not seriously, and it is obvious that there was no intention to cause any harm. His apology included a realization that he needed to consider his actions more carefully.

The point about this is that it is becoming a common approach around the world in relation to the COVID pandemic. There are too many people doing what ever they feel like and it is not only hurting people but killing them. Those that refuse to wear a mask, even when it is required by law, would surely not want to kill anyone but that can happen. A heavy financial cost for Djokovic for a mistake in a tennis match does not compare to the cost of the death of people when an unmasked person spreads the pandemic.

We all need to show the maturity and try to protect everyone by fighting this horrible disease in every way possible.

Dennis Fitzgerald, Melbourne

Barbara Finch's reasonable letter ("Incarceration Rates" August 20) prompts the observation that there is a strengthening alternative narrative. She draws a conclusion of prejudice, on the part of the police. But if as she says by prejudice she means prejudgment, something we all do every time we go to a movie or order coffee, the question is whether it's reasonable.

Prejudice we know about from views like Hitler's. The German people may in some proportion have fallen for it. Yet no political party with a whiff of that thinking could ever be elected to government of any State or of Australia.

Why would the police be so different from government, and indeed from the people, commonly called "racist"? Are black police - in Australia and the United States - prejudiced against blacks? Are white police prejudiced against black police?

Then in Tamworth, there's the poor reputation of some of our suburbs. I'm sure it's exaggerated and increasingly undeserved, but why would these impressions have arisen? Why the prejudice there? Tamworth people want to talk down their own town?

If you think that was just prejudice, look at the media and talk to Aboriginal people about their treatment of each other. (eg The Australian August 15-16)

Why, in all the dozens of media reports I've ever seen of Aboriginal remote communities have the overwhelming majority suggested reasons why Aboriginals are disproportionately gaoled?

Isn't it significant that practical policies, like the West Australian Grant government's getting kids - all kids - off the streets and home, as opposed to ideological rhetoric, is finally getting Aboriginal incarceration rates down from their double-digits times the Australian average?

Why the suspicion about Aboriginal incarceration rates considering what Aboriginal people are regularly told and understandably brought up to believe? Who would doubt that a group told they own all Australia, as if Eddie Mabo, Paul Keating, and Native Title never existed, were disproportionately bound for gaol? How would a group taught that the police were prejudiced against them, or that Australians generally were, not be disproportionately gaoled?

This is a very incomplete consideration of the complex social and justice system to which Ms Finch refers, but I worry that the traditional narrative has let Aboriginals down.

Stan Heuston, Oxley Vale