Has the Safe Schools program been mandated for publicly funded Islamic schools in Victoria?
Clive Arnold, Chelmer, Qld
Hillary Clinton claims her nomination for the Democratic Party candidate is a landmark for women. I was too young and born in the wrong country to vote for Margaret Thatcher.
Vernon Higgins, Alderley, Qld
First female president of the US? Great idea, long overdue. However, Hillary Clinton, a warhawk and chronic liar completely lacking in core principles and not trusted by many Americans and under investigation by the FBI, may not be the ideal choice to advance the feminist cause.
Richard Sallie, Nedlands, WA
The average voter could appreciate the effects of cutting company taxes by looking at the example of Ireland where taxes for companies are low.
Many people in Australia with Irish connections will know that Ireland has been hugely successful in attracting foreign business including Apple, Google, Dell, Alcon and Allergan, a pharmaceutical giant. These companies could have chosen Britain with its lower rainfall but higher taxes.
Ireland is now proposing to cut tax by a further half for companies who base their R&D there. Does Labor think Australian voters are too ill-informed to know this? The geographical position of Ireland is different, of course, but many overseas companies would come here rather than other parts of the region if the conditions were favourable, and thus add to the Australian economy. Local business, for the same reasons, would also be better able to thrive and employ more people.
W. Leslie Alexander, Newstead, Qld
It is not surprising that most Australian Defence Force troops believe Islam promotes violence (9/5). Islam does promote violence as per the calls in the Koran for death to infidels, apostates, homosexuals and heretics.
ADF personnel are more perceptive than some of their generals and our politicians who apparently believe that “sensitivity training” can change facts. Islam was spread by the sword and shortly after the death of Mohammed an internal civil war erupted between Sunni and Shia factions which persists to this day, 14 centuries later, and is now being played out in the Middle East.
The violence inherent in Islam is also apparent in Pakistan and Bangladesh with the killing of liberals, Christians, and Muslim women who are perceived to have broken some archaic rule.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has called for a reformation of Islam, so why can’t our political and military leaders do the same instead of accusing those who have legitimate concerns of Islamophobia?
Babette Francis, Toorak, Vic
A famous, if fictitious, public servant once said that one should never commission an inquiry without first knowing the outcome. The army, in conducting a survey that found a significant number of personnel resist the concept of Islam as a religion of peace, seems to have overlooked the Sir Humphrey Appleby dictum.
For a soldier, I guess it’s pretty hard to be objective if someone is trying to shoot you or blow you up while shouting God is great and waving the shahada flag.
John McHarg, Maylands, WA
Defence might be better off spending its “cultural sensitivity training” funds on our Islamo-fascist enemies, rather than on our troops. Such training might help them understand that a diversity of opinion is actually a wonderful thing, and that genocide, religious cleansing, suicide bombings and beheadings, and so forth, are not very nice.
Geoff O’Brien, Eltham, Vic
Siege inquest off track
Marxist misconception
It’s a misconception to argue that because Marxist studies don’t refer to gender and LGBTI issues, or that Marx was silent on gender fluidity, Marxism can’t be the driving force behind activists such as Safe Schools founder Roz Ward.
Revolutionary sexual politics in 1917 proved so destructive to the social order of the Soviet Union that they were scrapped in 1926. What better reason then, to introduce those ideas to undermine the capitalist West?
Harold Howard, Daisy Hill, Qld