When it comes to recruiting agents of influence China's Department of State Publicity is up there with the best. First the "independent" Chinese company Landbridge acquires Port of Darwin; then it recruits a former Coalition trade minister as a consultant despite the company's obscure track record in global logistics. Then come generous political donations from Chinese "property developers" whose property development activities remain very obscure. Almost every prefecture, city and province in China has set up property companies, making it difficult for our MPs to know which ones are state controlled and which are simply very obedient to the party.
NSW Labor is also fertile ground. Senator Sam Dastyari is still chattering away about national affairs. In return for a modest act of kindness, the good senator happily changed his party's position on the South China Sea, before nimbly back tracking and denying he'd said what he had. But best of all, a former premier and director of an institute funded by Chinese state-owned entities writes a column that says that a) other countries do similar things and that b) in this case nothing much has happened at all. True, this is a long way short of "capture" of the Aussie body politic, but it's still an A+ effort.
Illustration Matt Golding
Richard Campbell, Toorak
What drives the appraisal of former premier?
What could be the motive behind Bob Carr's attack on the findings by Fairfax and Four Corners that exposed the tentacles of entrenched and undesirable Chinese interference in Australian institutions? Surely as director of the Australia-China Relations Institute UTS, Carr would welcome an investigation that exposes potentially or actual corrupt "relations" between Chinese entities and Australian political, business and educational entities?
Deborah Morrison, Malvern East
All hail the dangers of liberal democracy
When the Dalai Lama addressed a large audience at the Melbourne Convention Centre in 2013, about 30 Chinese young people, red flags flying and cymbals clashing, stood outside repeatedly shouting, "Down with criminal Dalai Lama." The stage-managed demonstration was ignored, but it was offensive and cynical in that participants in any such demonstration in China would face jail or worse. It was clearly intended to warn off Chinese students who wanted to hear the Dalai Lama speak and make up their own minds about what he stands for. It is unacceptable that the Chinese Communist Party is free to carry out covert activities to control, propagandise and dictate to members of the Chinese diaspora and students in Australia. Education in a liberal democracy is an opportunity to develop independent, critical-thinking skills, unlike education in totalitarian regimes such as China. However, communist-controlled Chinese language media and student organisations co-ordinate strategies to keep students away from "dangerous" ideas based in liberal democracy. Fairfax, the ABC and honest academics such as University of Technology Sydney associate professor Chongyi Feng have opened the debate on what is going on. Hopefully our leaders will have the courage to follow suit.
Jill Sanguinetti, East Brunswick
THE FORUM
Sleepers, awake!
In the White House, a man looking like a dangerous megalomaniac straight from reality TV has his finger on the nuclear trigger. In 10 Downing Street, a woman calls an unnecessary election leaving her in the arms of Ulster Unionists to effect an escape from Europe. In the Lucky Country, successive governments try to outdo each other in trashing our values and selling off our natural assets in partnership with India, China et al. This is not some script from the Yes Minister cutting-room floor. Wake up, Australia, before it's too late.
Jenifer Nicholls, Armadale
Nice work if you get it
The Chinese got Andrew Robb, Gina Rinehart got Sophie Mirabella and the gambling industry got Stephen Conroy. The coal miners can have Tony Abbott. He's certainly putting alot of work into his CV.
Denis Hanrahan, Ivanhoe
Abbott does right thing
For once Tony Abbott is doing the right thing. His period as prime minister was so bad it is only appropriate that he should be the one to trash his legacy.
David Kerr, Geelong
From little things ...
The government's decision to pay out $70 million to asylum seekers could feature on an episode of MythBusters. The politically popular fantasy that Australia may avoid responsibility for detainee welfare and even oversee systematic abuse appears finally to have been debunked.
It seems we must actually behave as civilised custodians with a real duty of care towards asylum seekers, regardless of where we put them and why they came. It is early days, but the government may be showing signs of growing up.
Julia Sykes-Turner, Hampton
We are not mugs
Peter Dutton may wave the fig leaf of "no admissions" on the payout to the asylum seekers, but there is not one person in Australia who would believe him. According to the Parliamentary Library, this detention centre has cost $2 billion to run since 2012, and still counting. Does Mr Dutton truly think we would credit the $70 million payout to a desire to avoid going to court?
Ramesh Rajan, Camberwell
Cash for lives wasted
The $70 million payout reduces asylum seekers to a commodity. It suggests that their dignity, despite being consistently subjugated by our dehumanising immigration processes, can somehow be restored through monetary compensation. Further, it makes a mockery of our court system, which seeks to define and tackle the inadequacies of current law by creating a fair and independent precedent. This contrasts with the egotistical and unsympathetic "political" approach that spruiks "legality" while failing to consider the key human stakeholders of immigration policy.
Talia Braue, Melbourne
How it adds up
In addition to the $70 million payout, taxpayers also have to pay Slater and Gordon about $20million for legal fees. As a contributor to this payment I'd like to see the invoice detailing and justifying this exorbitant cost.
Rod Smyrk, Sunbury
Labor picks up keys
Bill Shorten last week picked up the keys to the Coalition's "Debt Truck". It has been well fuelled up by the LNP, with the reported debt now standing at $474 billion, almost double the amount of $274 billion when Tony Abbott took over from Labor in 2013.
Mr Shorten and his head mechanic, Chris Bowen, will be hoping to get a lot of mileage out of this old truck leading up to the next election. Debt is currently running at $126 million a day or $60 billion annually. Treasurer Scott Morrison is going to need more than a banking tax to halt this slide. And all coming from the party of responsible money managers.
Phillip Ross, Somerville
Serf riding
This generation is being conditioned to accept it will never be able to afford a home and that it will just have to get used to the idea of renting until death. Home ownership not only provides financial security, especially in the vulnerable senior years, it has also underpinned Australia's social and economic structure. It is largely responsible for the fact that thus far a fully fledged class system has not emerged.
But that much-envied feature of Australian life is imperilled as the country inches increasingly towards what amounts to a feudal system where the workers give almost all the earnings to non-working landlords or banks. At times, this appalling regression appears to be, in fact, the agenda of some, specifically neoliberals, who find a class system desirable.
Emma Borghesi, Mount Eliza
Read runes of war
Decryption of terror messages and the installation of bollards (News, 11/6) will not stop a suicide bomber from trying to kill people, although they will, for a time, give a false sense of security. Such tactics are therefore a waste of taxpayers' money.
If politicians want to make our streets safe, they should examine the causes for acts of terrorism. British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was the only politician who had the honesty and courage to talk about a link between terrorism and the war on terror led by the US and its allies in Muslim countries. The mainstream news media ignored him.
Bill Mathew, Parkville
The American way
When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, then US president George Bush was quick to help defend his Gulf State ally. But when Saudi Arabia does something resembling that – by endeavouring to starve Qataris – President Donald Trump only has praise for its actions. Forget that Osama bin Laden was connected with the Saudi royal family, or that the Saudis supported Saddam in his war against Iran, or that the Saudis are responsible for untold civilian casualties in their war against Yemen. The atrocities go on.
President Trump doesn't understand much, but he does understand that the US economy is dependent on (a) military expenditure and the profits of war, and (b) cheap oil. While war on North Korea could be dangerous for US interests, war with Iran would be much more palatable.
Nick Legge, Taggerty
Locked and loaded
We are constantly told that Saudi Arabia is a country with the worst human rights record in the world and that Qatar is sponsoring terrorism, yet the US just supplied both these countries with weapons worth billions of dollars. Can we really blame Islam for the endless violence in the world? If we are truly serious about uprooting terrorism, maybe, just maybe we should stop arming them.
Foad Munir, Berwick
They're still digging
Remember The Great Escape (Letters, 11/6)? How could I forget it. In the 1970s a regional NSW TV station mixed up the movie's reels, resulting in the Allied POWs escaping before the tunnel was completed.
Col Shephard, Yamba, NSW
Vulnerable on building
An ironclad rule of engineering and construction is: "you can only expect what you inspect". I'm sure our building codes are sound as written. But if they are to be useful the construction work needs to be checked by qualified and truly independent personnel to assure all that the codes have been properly followed. I don't think that happens much these days. The fashion for the outsourcing of public functions to private firms conflicted by their need to keep in with developers has left us all vulnerable to suspect building practices.
Colin Simmons, Woodend
A vociferous minority
Most Victorians don't know who Margaret Tighe is. She is not an elected representative. She is simply a person who presumes to know what's best for the rest of us ("Pro-lifers tell Andrews 'gloves are off"', 11/6). She continues to voice her minority views as if we, the majority, are incapable of making up our own minds. Her "war" against assisted dying has no legitimacy nor does it show compassion. She simply wants to ensure none of us is free to choose the manner of our deaths when life becomes terminal.
If Ms Tighe wants a painful, protracted death for herself then that is her choice and will remain so irrespective of proposed legislation. But why should she presume to influence how I choose to die? The lack of assisted dying laws simply means I would have to die furtively and alone. Bringing in more compassionate legislation would allow me to die peacefully and surrounded by family. When death is inevitable, what possible justification is there for prolonging suffering and forcing us to terminate our lives in such an abhorrent and lonely way.
Bob Thomas, Blackburn South