After a number of kilometres, I came across a gentleman who was picking up all of the roadside rubbish that thoughtless tossers had been throwing out of their vehicles.

I take my hat off to this person for performing a selfless and altruistic task in trying to keep our bushland in its natural and unpolluted state. He was using his car to pick up and remove a very large number of bags of rubbish.

Surely it is time that all states in Australia have a plastic bottle and aluminium can collection scheme in place.

The South Australian government has a scheme in place and there is noticeably less roadside rubbish in the places I have travelled. I would love our politicians to legislate for a bottle and can refund scheme and help "Make Australia clean again".

Why is such a simple thing so hard to achieve? Please explain.

As I stood with the faithful at Arden Street on Sunday watching North Melbourne do battle with Hawthorn, it was a reminder of how we used to watch AFL games.

A game in splendid sunshine and a natural environment; gums a plenty; kids kicking while the game was in motion; and real grass under foot for the supporter.

No flashing lights with crazy advertisements; and no blaring from loud speakers. Footy in its natural state for the people.   

Your paper of February 28 had an article about the City of Greater Bendigo, through its CEO Craig Niemann,  considering a staffing revamp. It reminds me of the 2000-year-old quote from Petronius Arbiter.

“We trained hard – but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we were reorganised.

“I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising, and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while actually producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralisation.”

No doubt the end result of the revamp will be across the board pay increases to staff and management.

The work to change individuals’ attitudes and perceptions is underway, but we need more than words to address ingrained gender inequality which still exists in Australian society. For example, the national gender pay gap.

The difference between women’s and men’s average weekly pay is currently 16 per cent and, alarmingly, closing that gap globally is estimated to take as long as 170 years. Sadly, all too often the only thing holding a talented, intelligent and capable woman back is the fear of how she’ll be perceived by her boss, her colleagues, her family, her friends; or the fear of challenging traditional ideas of the work women and men “should” do. I am one of only 17 per cent of Australian CEOs who are women.

I strongly believe in gender equality, and I put this to practice every day at VicHealth. The good news is, I’m not alone.

In a recent VicHealth survey, 85 per cent of Victorians thought it was very important that employers provide “an environment in which women and men are respected equally”.

Everyone can make a contribution to building gender equality.

We’re all responsible for taking action to help women advance, in Victoria and across the world.

Join VicHealth and get behind International Women’s Day 2017 - #BeBoldForChange.