Surely, in return for our offers of military hospitality, not to mention the secret archipelago of US intelligence facilities on Australian soil, our great and powerful friend would be happy to share its remote killing facilities with us.

Those who fear a loss of Australia's moral authority need not worry. It's already gone.

Peter Grabosky, Forrest

There is a fairly simple way of dealing with Australians who choose to travel to Iraq or Syria to help Islamic State, and of discouraging anyone thinking along those lines.

The government should announce that anyone suspected of these activities will be detained on return to Australia and closely investigated. We have the intelligence apparatus to do it. If there emerges any evidence of participation in terrorist-related acts, the person will be escorted straight back and handed over to the authorities in Baghdad or Damascus to be dealt with according to the law in the countries where the offence(s) took place.

This is what we would do with Australians suspected of terrorist activities in Europe or the US, for example. I would be surprised if the government had not at least considered such a course of action; the fact that it has not been adopted speaks volumes about official hypocrisy.

Bernard Davis, O'Connor

Thank-you to the few people in federal cabinet who reportedly challenged the apparently knee-jerk plan to further destroy the rule of law by stripping terrorism suspects of their citizenship. The recently introduced anti-terror laws have put an end to the concept of being innocent until proved guilty, and now we are trying to say that if you hang with terrorists, we close our eyes to you and you disappear and become the rest of the world's problem.

It speaks very poorly of our health as a society and as a part of the world.

Alison Coster, Karabar, NSW

Your editorial "We can't palm off terrorists" (Forum, June 6, p5) makes the point that whilst there are many attractions to denying those who have joined the IS militants from returning to Australia, the problem arises when an individual with only an Australian passport is rendered stateless.

Perhaps the government and the opposition should stop disagreeing over what action needs to be taken on this issue, and let the court of law be the decider.

Frankly, I would not be surprised if what emerges is that these misguided people were driven to join IS out of sheer boredom, having failed to take advantage of the opportunities this country has made available to them.

I am afraid that much the same may be said of those who wish to be propelled into a different world through the intake of drugs.

Sam Nona, Burradoo, NSW

The real threat to an open democratic society comes not from would-be terrorists but what Australian politicians are doing in response to their perceptions of that threat.

The struggle to achieve a government that is accountable and whose decisions are subject to judicial review has been a long hard one from the Magna Carta on. The trend of legislation over the past decade in Australia has been to thoughtlessly and carelessly trash that achievement under the impulse of what often appears to be the pursuit of short-term political gain.

I am not hopeful about the prospect for turning around these trends any time soon. The strand of opinion within the Liberal Party that was concerned on good conservative grounds about the need for restraint on executive power has almost disappeared over recent decades. The Labor Party continues to display a lack of internal fortitude in standing for any matter of principle and an unwillingness to take its case to the population.

Instead, it lets itself be spooked by the government into automatic support for their latest proposal, no matter how poorly thought out or dangerous it may be in its longer-term consequences. Under these circumstances, I am deeply thankful to Professor Gillian Triggs for her recent forthright sounding of the alarm on these matters ("Triggs warns that democracy is under threat", June6, p1).

Doug Hynd, Stirling

Ross Fitzgerald alleges ("Weighing party support on a different scale", Times2, June1, p5) the Australian Electoral Commission based its decision to deregister the Australian Sex Party on the foundation that more than two people out of 26 who they phoned said they were not members of the party.

My question to the AEC is: how do you know that a major party has not signed up a number of fake members to a minor party? What if a major party, say the Greens, had seeded their list by signing up 100 people on line over the past year and two of them were selected at random only then to deny being a member of the minor party in question? It would be easy to do.

Obviously, the only accurate methodology of gauging whether a party has 500 genuine members or not is to consider the entire list submitted. It's not rocket science. Australians expect the AEC to imbue the best qualities of our democratic system; the decision to deregister the Australian Sex Party was to abandon that responsibility.

Steven Bailey, Australian Sex Party, Hackett

Lately, there has been a lot of stigma attached to Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Bruce Jenner. But is it really bad that she has finally come out, and can live as herself? Is it bad that the 2 to 5per cent of people who also have body dysmorphia finally have a mainstream role model?

Nobody gets to choose the body they're born into.

Tara Swanton, Nicholls

It is nauseating that many who spoke of the death of Alan Bond last week put his bankrolling of the fabled winged keel, which advanced the fortunes of a few well-heeled Australian boaties to prevail against privileged people of their own ilk, as being more worthy of comment than the plight of countless people who lost their savings at the hands of this crooked narcissist. Our moral compass seems to have well and truly slipped. Doubtless, he will soon be as "famous" as Ned Kelly.

Adrien Whiddett, Yarralumla

Ross Fitzgerald ("Weighing party support on a different scale", Times2, June 1, p5) does readers a service by going through the illogicality of the procedures used by the Australian Electoral Commission when assessing whether non-parliamentary political parties are eligible for federal registration.

These procedures are not specified in legislation or regulations, but have become the practice relied upon to establish whether such parties have the requisite 500 members set out in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. The moment the AEC requests from a political party a list of no more than 550 claimed members from possibly many thousands, it is principally examining how well electors and parties update enrolment and membership records and, quite likely, trying to extrapolate on the basis of limited and inconclusive evidence, rather than accurately homing in on the number of actual members. It is open to parties aggrieved by particular decisions to deregister them to argue persuasively in the Federal Court under the terms of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 that no reasonable person would jump to quick negative conclusions about their membership numbers in those circumstances.

Bogey Musidlak, convener, Proportional Representation Society of Australia (ACT branch)

TO THE POINT

The Canberra Times wants to hear from you in short bursts. Email views in 50 words or fewer to letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au

TAXING TIMES

I thought conservatives were for lower taxes and less government ("Australians to miss out on tax cuts as Labor backs Abbott plan", canberratimes.com.au, June 6).

There are many things I could say about Tony Abbott: foreign interventionist, deficit spender, debt increaser, expander of government power and expander of the police and surveillance state. We can now add tax raiser.

Victor Diskordia, McKellar

FUTURE PROOF

Nobody believed Zed Seselja when he predicted our rates would double ("Rates surging in leafy suburbs", June 5, p1). That was a couple of years ago when he was opposition leader. How true was that prediction?

Barbara Mecham, Melba

A WATERTIGHT POINT?

I may be missing something, but why is it assumed that one of the six ministers reported as speaking against the grotesque Abbott-Dutton citizenship-removal policy is a leaker? Having watched the serial floundering of this government for the past 18 months, I can think of reasons why other members of the cabinet would leak.

Peter Moran, Watson

A TWIST ON A FLIP

We keep hearing from politicians and reporters describing people as doing back-flips. It would have to be one of the most overused terms to describe when someone does an about-face in relation to the issue at hand. The analogy is totally wrong. Do a back flip, you are still facing the original direction you were facing. Let's start a campaign: "Do a back flip, with half twist" is what is needed to be said!

Kim Fitzgerald, Deakin

PAYING THE PRICE

Waldis Jirgens (Letters, June 6) is correct. My colleague could indeed have caught the bus from Fairbairn to Woden for her 9am meeting. The bus ride of 80 minutes, however cheap, suffers in comparison to the 20 minutes by car. Unfortunately this is a legacy of the airport precinct.

Joe Murphy, Bonython

HELP THEM TO HELP US

Lonely, tormented Martin Bryant killed people at Port Arthur. Lonely, tormented Julian Knight perpetrated the Hoddle Street massacre. Lonely, tormented Man Haron Monis killed people in the Lindt cafe. Lost, gullible people sign up for IS.

We need better mental health services, not politicians gaining political traction through talk of terrorism, thus dividing the community in a waythat increases loneliness and torment.

Rosemary Walters, Palmerston

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