Paul Sheehan accuses the media of being intolerant and treating Tony Abbott's policy change on same-sex marriage as Machiavellian and undemocratic ("Abbott is right: plebiscite a circuit breaker for debate with intolerance on both sides", August 12). Yet members of Abbott's own cabinet have likened his behaviour to branch stacking in order to defeat the party members' traditional right to a conscience vote on such matters. If members of his own party are deeply unhappy with his behaviour, why should the media try to defend him?
Poll after poll has shown that the majority of the Australian electorate favours changing the law to allow same-sex marriage. A plebiscite costing millions of dollars just to confirm what politicians already know would be yet another shameful waste of taxpayers' money.
Lynette Chamas Burradoo
If Tony Abbott wants the people to decide, why aren't we having a plebiscite now ("Coalition marriage tensions linger", August 13)?
Illustration: Cathy Wilcox.
Ian Bradley Balgowlah Heights
Surely the amount of space devoted to this issue is in inverse proportion to its importance as a national issue. Paul Sheehan is right about a plebiscite but wrong about marriage being a matter for the states. Your editorial of the same day is spot on and sound advice to our short-sighted politicians ("We need an election-time plebiscite on marriage", August 13).
David Scarlett Killara
I think more people would support same-sex unions if they weren't called "marriage". The same-sex community has rejected the term "civil unions" but there must be another word or phrase that would suit them and distinguish it from traditional marriage. That union would have all the rights of marriage, just as current de-facto relationships (including same-sex) have.
Margaret Nelson Double Bay
Tony Abbott merely strengthened his authority within the Coalition ranks, Nan Howard (Letters, August 13), not with the Australian public. In 2013, an Australia Institute survey of people aged between 17 and 25 found marriage equality was one of the top five issues likely to sway their vote. At the time this represented about 2 million people eligible to vote. By next year another 500,000 or so young people will be eligible to vote and some older voters who oppose marriage equality will be dead. The Coalition now represents a small minority of Australians on a very significant social issue.
Rodney Crute Hunters Hill
It is ironic that freedom of speech has been attacked by those who most support equality. The term bigotry and ignorance has been thrown like barbs at those who choose to support their beliefs for traditional marriage. Furthermore, the decision by the Coalition for a plebiscite should be welcomed. The decision to take this important vote away from the politicians and hand it over to the public (where, thankfully, it seems to have overwhelming support) should be heralded as a great move. Instead Tony Abbott has been maligned as an archaic bigot.
You would think individuals would exercise some empathy towards those who do hold different views from the majority. It seems both sides are as bad as each other when it comes to understanding and acceptance.
James Platt-Hepworth Potts Point
How sad, and a bit scary to know that Australia is being governed by so many petty Flat Earthers. Reading that two-thirds of the Coalition members do not support a free vote on same sex marriage is disappointing ("Free vote refusal peculiar to Menzies' Libs", August 13). However, much more concerning is the fact that many of those two-thirds were more concerned about doing Malcolm Turnbull one in the eye than the subject of allowing same-sex marriage. This is really no better than a form of bullying.
As a result, we can now look forward to being bombarded by the new government mantra that "the people will decide" the issue by holding an expensive plebicite, wasting more taxpayers' money.
Lorna Denham Cardiff Heights
Why is it that the people must decide on equality in marriage but not on matters such as changes to the goods and services tax, sustainable energy, cuts to pensions, Medicare co-payments? They're all important social issues aren't they?
Patrick McMahon Beverley Park
A simple question will be answered at the next election: Are we voting for the future of Australia, or for its past?
Ted Keating Tallai
Location, location - just stay out of shark territory
What is all the fuss about sharks ("Town battles reputation for shark attacks", August 13)? If you want to swim in their dinner bowl, expect to be eaten. Don't kill the sharks – stay out of the water.
Ken Thompson Lithgow
Calls for a shark cull in response to unfortunate but predictable consequences of large numbers of humans entering the warm coastal waters that sharks inhabit exhibit the same logic as the statement, published in a leading conservative journal in 2009, that "Victoria has to replace a major portion of its eucalypt forests with exotic trees such as English oaks, poplars, plane trees, and other non-flammable exotic species" in response to the Black Saturday bushfires. Both calls are on a par with calling for a change to the gravitational constant in response to fatal skydiving or bungy-jumping accidents.
Paul Norton Nerang (Qld)
The explanation as to why the north coast is afflicted with an increasing number of sharks requires no need to look into global warming or sunspot cycles. The Sydney real estate market has finally slowed, so naturally the sharks have headed up the coast. Location, location! Beachside properties. With ocean views. Where else would sharks be at this point in the property cycle?
Garry Dalrymple Earlwood
Social housing belongs in every neighbourhood
It is refreshing to see one group of developers willing to support government-mandated housing targets for low and modest-income households in residential developments ("Developers want social quota", August 13). The only genuine approach to generate social mix in the various urban growth centres across greater Sydney must include so called inclusionary zoning. Several other global cities have adopted social and affordable housing targets close to transport centres, job precincts and services, and it works. So why can't Sydney?
Gary Moore Leichhardt
Tim Williams is spot on with his comments on the seriousness of the housing affordability crisis ("Five steps for tackling housing affordability", August 13). However, his suggested solutions do not cut the mustard. With the large population increase that Sydney has to manage, the only practical solution is to increase housing supply. Development should be allowed for any rural land not excluded for environmental or other good reason. This is how Sydney successfully coped in the past. The rest is mere tinkering around the edges.
Tony Recsei Warrawee
Marital failure final coal on Ashes pyre
From my perspective, one of the problems of our Ashes team was not the presence of the WAGs but rather the absence of a tail that wagged ("Change of tour policy could end in divorces, warns Marsh", August 13).
Garth Clarke North Sydney
Maybe the Australian women's cricket team should move right on to the Oval ("Blame players not the WAGs for Australia's Ashes defeat", August 13).
David Warren Palm Beach
Citizens play blind man's bluff
Despite the millions spent on "national security upgrades", and the curtailment of our civil liberties by so-called "anti-terrorist laws", the eight Australians whose details have been hacked by Islamic State only found out that their names were on the "hit-list" when contacted by Fairfax Media ("Islamic State issues Australian hit-list", August 13). Is this a further example of incompetence by the security authorities or just another example of stirring up community fears about terrorist attacks to distract us from the muddles that the Federal Government is in over same-sex marriage and inadequate emissions targets?
Rob Phillips North Epping
Face up to refugee issue
Imagine, while sunbaking or having a coffee at a beachside cafe in Bondi or Manly, dozens of refugees arriving by boat every hour. That is the reality not here but on some of Greece's Aegean islands right in that country's peak tourist season (" 'Blood will be shed': refugees on Kos reach breaking point", August 13). Tourists are jostling with refugees for space on the beach. This might seem like a Greek problem but in reality it is an international concern that needs urgent attention.
More than a 100,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Greece, a depressed economy whose many citizens live on meagre amounts of money and cannot support people who are fleeing from war-torn countries such as Syria and Afghanistan. We, as a wealthy nation and who see ourselves as believing in the concept of a fair go, should be contributing to helping with this humanitarian disaster before Greece sinks into a dark abyss and it engulfs surrounding nations.
Con Vaitsas Ashbury
Commission becomes conservative witch hunt
How impartial can the head of a Royal Commission be if he was invited to speak at a party-political fundraising event ("Union royal commission 'a farce' ", smh.com.au, August 13)? Did the Liberals nominate one of their own for this high office? A great number of Australian's view the Royal Commission into unions as nothing more than a publicly funded witch-hunt on the behalf of the conservative parties. Can the eventual findings of the Commission be spotlessly impartial after this latest revelation?
Bob Barnes Wedderburn
So Commissioner Dyson Heydon was slated to attend a Liberal Party fundraiser. Any word on the planned mode of transport and who is paying for it?
John Maley Greenwich
Steely job focus needed
On page 8 in Thursday's Herald it was reported that BlueScope Steel needs a "game changing approach" to cut costs ("George, man of steel, fears axe hanging over jobs", August 13). The Australian Workers Union is understandably concerned. On page 23, we see that the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union has called a seven-day strike at the mine that supplies coking coal to BlueScope. You would think that the two unions, the employer and the umpire could resolve this rather than wait for job losses at both enterprises.
John Redding Forestville
Economy will be early casualty of climate change
Tony Abbott forgets that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment ("Emissions targets on the table: UN expert", August 13).
Simon Chance Richmond Hill
Tony Abbott argues that the proof that his emissions target will be great for the country and the world is that it will see the largest per capita emissions reduction in the developed world. Considering that we are the world's largest per capita emitter of carbon dioxide pollution, to achieve the largest reduction is actually pretty easy.
Kevin Farrell Beelbangera
Using 'wiles' not ploy confined to women
I would like to ask Dr Randolf Williams just what exactly are these "feminine wiles" of which he speaks ("Women also harass men: senior doctors", August 13)? Are they, for instance, different to masculine wiles? Could they include red lipstick? Cleavage? Killer heels? A meeting of the eyes? Both genders using sexuality to gain advantage in the workplace may well occur. But those feminine wiles sound dangerous.
Sue Morgan Menai
CBA takes the double
Did this help the Commonwealth Bank of Australia report a record profit ("Commonwealth Bank customers say double charges still not refunded", smh.com.au, August 13)?
Thos Puckett Ashgrove
Truth stranger than the fictional names
Ken Knight (Letters, August 13) reminds us of far away and misty haunts, Woop Woop and co. In The Adventures of Smoky Dawson, the almost ghost mining town of Windywallop was notorious and possibly not far from Bullamakanka, somewhere close to the truth.
Doug McLaughlin Bonnet Bay
Who needs made-up Australian place names when we have magical names such as Stockinbingal, Wallendbeen, Bethungra and Muttama – all beautiful, and real, villages within 25 kilometres of here.
Bob Guy Cootamundra