Political party donations should be outlawed altogether

What's needed is to outlaw them altogether.

Political donations are the single most significant source of corruption of the democratic process. An individual donating a few dollars may have little effect on the political process but large donations, particularly by corporate entities, are made in the sure and certain hope of favourable treatment.

It's even been suggested that significant government handouts to business partially find their way back into party coffers through donations.

The cost of promulgating policies and positions through the internet is negligible; grassroots activity in communities costs little, and politicians are already funded for travel to speak in their communities.

All this can be, or already is, publicly funded at minor cost without any loss of information available to voters.

Media can, and will, as always, editorialise and publicise stories in favour of their preferred parties and candidates. The payoff for the country of a total ban would be a dramatic reduction in the malign influence of political donations.

I C Dillon and Roger Bacon (Letters, May 27) are right: the Morrison government does not take climate change seriously. On April 23, Prime Minister Morrison told President Biden's virtual climate summit Australia was "on the pathway to net zero (and) our goal is to get there as soon as we possibly can, through technology that enables and transforms our industries, not taxes that eliminate them and the jobs and livelihoods they create".

I find it hard to imagine an undertaking more vague. Mr Morrison seems content to kick the can down the road, expecting a future government to take the necessary action. In the meantime, it may be too late to avoid at least some of the devastating reality of runaway global heating.

RE "Climate action urged even if it comes at significant cost" (May 26, p6).

Do 30 per cent of people in this country really still believe government should subsidise the construction of more coal-fired power stations?

I don't believe 30 per cent of Australians are so dismissive of apocalyptic dangers such as the collapse of civilisation and an uninhabitable Australia.

I can only see this as proof of misinformation being spread by some politicians and in the media. There's probably some identity politics thrown in as well.

That would be better but we remain in a mess.

Mokhles k Sidden (Letters, May 25) vents on care flights and so on. He should Google Hansard and read where a former PM once said the Australian government would determine who could come here and the manner in which they came. Albeit the immigration queue might be a bit shorter. Contrary to Mokhles' assertion, it is a privilege to enter Australia, not a right.

A parliamentary inquiry set up and controlled by Labor and the Greens has recommended the PM formally apologise to Christine Holgate, and for the chair of Australia Post Lucio Di Bartolomeo to step down, saying Ms Holgate was denied natural justice. It also said many of Australia Post's board members had strong ties to the Liberal Party. Is the pot calling the kettle black?

Approximately 61 percent of Republicans still believe the 2020 election was "stolen" from Trump and he is the "true president". This explains why "alternative facts" gained such currency in his administration. Never mind the facts or the evidence. Some Americans clearly believe only what they want to believe. It's hard to believe you have that perverse outlook among so many in the world's leading democracy.