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What Thinking Australians Are Thinking..

What do HRC president Gillian Triggs, former solicitor-general Justin Gleeson and Tasmanian Governor Kate Warner have in common? Yes, they’re all lawyers. And they all seem to have the delusion, so common among lawyers, that they know better than everyone else on every issue.

Why else do they feel so free to misuse their unelected positions to denigrate our elected representatives? This superiority syndrome is what also saddles us with so many activist judges who, rather than interpret the law as it is written, prefer to reinterpret it in their own image. At least Gleeson has done the right thing and resigned. Triggs and Warner should both follow, the sooner the better.

Burt Bosma, Surrey Hills, Vic

Gillian Triggs complains that human rights activists face fear, censorship and retaliation because of the government’s “ideological objection to advocacy”. She says it’s “essentially a violation of the right to freedom of speech”. This is what she would deny Bill Leak.

Julian Smith, Melbourne, Vic

There has been surprise in some quarters that Kerry Stokes has spoken in support of Bill Leak (“Media baron warns Leak cartoon probe biggest threat to freedom”, 24/10). It is not surprising; Stokes is from an era in which the Left was in favour of free speech.

Ian Phillips, Port Macquarie, NSW

Malcolm Turnbull wasted no time condemning Donald Trump for comments he made in private 11 years ago, yet he’s had little to say regarding Bill Leak.

Colin Douglas, St Kilda, Vic

The Coalition had better give Australia’s revolving door of prime ministership one more full turn. There is no way Malcolm Turnbull will be PM after the next election. He will either be in opposition or will have been deposed by his peers. The Coalition must find a tigress/tiger who knows how to go for the throat.

Malcolm McMurray, St Ives, NSW

If Attorney-General George Brandis, didn’t push former solicitor-general Justin Gleeson to resign, then he jolly well should have; but at least he has gone.

This should be a lesson to all high-flying government-appointed public figures who become so full of their own importance they think they can say and do as they please.

With Gleeson gone, the government should target HRC president Gillian Triggs, who seems to think she is above everyone including the Prime Minister, and accountable to no one.

We can expect opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus to keep howling foul over Gleeson’s premature departure; after all, I seem to recall he was a Labor appointee, just like Triggs. But this should be water off a duck’s back to Brandis who, I would have thought, has bigger fish to fry right now.

John George, Terrigal, NSW

Tasmanian Governor Kate Warner, apart from overstepping her role by entering into political debate, has called those of us who have reservations about Muslim migration, intolerant racists. Islam is not a race. It is an ideology. I don’t give a damn about anyone’s race.

Anyone who wants to live in Australia according to our laws, with a desire to integrate, is welcome as far as I am concerned. But I have concerns about the beliefs and customs of some who are opposed to democratic, secular and Judeo-Christian values.

To call me an intolerant bigot because of this is an insult. I’ll think about the Governor’s description of me while I’m teaching my Muslim neighbours English for free, five days a week.

Phillip Turnbull, Cornelian Bay, Tas

Kate Warner has stepped into the political field to castigate Pauline Hanson’s warnings of the rapid increase in the Muslim population as alarmist. Is it such a real threat? At 2 per cent, maybe not. But a 2011 report by the US Pew Research Centre predicted that our Muslim population would grow to 700,000 in 2030 based on higher birth rates and immigration.

Given that there is little drive from anyone but Hanson to curb this trend, by about 2100 the Muslim population will have reached 12 million, 20 per cent of our predicted population of 60 million. Many would claim extremists do not represent the faith of the majority of Australian Muslims.

But the extremists quote the edicts of the Koran as justification for their actions; and it is undeniable that the Koran is the unequivocal source of every Muslim’s faith.

Peter Troy, Kingston, Tas