Australian parallels with Ireland before its collapse disconcerting Too many people are on the take in Australia these days.
Australia today reminds me of the risks of following the path of the corrupt, dysfunctional Ireland of the mid-2000s, which caused such massive havoc for its people and economy.
While I am in no way suggesting we are on that path, I could be forgiven for thinking we have some similarities. 
We have a lot of crook politicians at all levels of government on the gravy train and more; we have a lot of crook businesspeople in local and foreign companies, large and small, which take advantage of the tax rules ; and we have a lot of crook union officials for similar reasons. Their crime; standing in the taxpayers' trough, rather than paying their fair share of tax, like most of us. And remembering why we elected them as equals in the first place.
The history of human frailty shows it does not take much for the ego to kick in and separate us from the rest of the community.Will Australia return to its historical compass of compassion and egalitarianism and focus on all the real needs of the community? Or has Australia changed so much, we have lost that compassion and it is a free-for-all.
It is not the people of Australia who have lost the moral compass; it is our pathetic leaders across these sectors.
Geoff Clark, Narrabundah Panel stacked The addition of three retired politicians to the panel of those selected to review federal politicians' entitlements, all of whom are probably receiving some of the lifetime benefits about which we mere mortals complain, hardly fills me with any confidence that the outcome of the review will actually produce any overall reduction in the depth of the trough into which many politicians' snouts are buried.
If the standard for "entitlements" is to be community expectations, then why can't News Ltd and Fairfax jointly give us a truly independent review against which the "approved" review panel's recommendations can be benchmarked.
After all, it is only thanks to our national media that we are finding out how the rest of us are being ripped off: please finish the job of keeping the bastards honest.
Roger Dace, Reid I am sorry, but all the people selected for the expenses review have absolutely no credibility.
They are all ex-pollies who know the system themselves and, over the years, retired into well-paying jobs to bolster their overinflated pensions.
Are we honestly expected to believe these people will have a bipartisan approach to the review?
They are so out of touch with what the taxpayer believes is a fair compensation for the pollies' entitlements that very little, if any at all, of the current entitlements will change.
If they included two Average Joe taxpayers to sit on the review committee to add their point of view of what is a fair entitlement, then I might be swayed into believing some form of genuine review has taken place. Until then, it is all just a stunt to enable the rorting to continue.
Ken Owers, Harrison Forget the pub test. Dump the root and branch review. Follow the Menzies mantra: be generous with your own money, and stingy with the public's.
If an event has any private or party political component - no public funding. If any public money is left over from a trip, it is repaid.
Travel on business by means that ordinary people would see as reasonable.
Roger Bacon, Cook Stop the rorts Tony Burke is yet another striking example of a politician caught with their snout deeply entrenched in the entitlements trough ("Burke to pay back $90 but defends $12k trip to Uluru", p7,   August). And, like the others, he shrieks and lashes out in defence, turning on the electorate when we dare to question.
Stop it. All of you. Stop defending this untenable position of because something is within the rules, it makes it right. You are the top public servants and you are to lead by example. Restore some honour to the position you hold in society.
Joe Murphy, Bonython Credibility gone Why should the Australian people believe anything Senator Eric Abetz (Letters,   August8) or his government has to say? The abolition of the carbon and mining tax has done little for our country, except put us further in debt by the lack of those taxes. The lack of any meaningful intent to attack climate change has made your government the pariah of the western world.
As for the rest of his letter, I would rather believe Sally Young's opinion piece ("Abbott's regime ineffective", Times2,   August5, p1) than your biased opinion. This government has not had a budget through in its two years of being in power. What kind of government is that?
A very poor one, I conclude, and quite possibly the worst in Australia's political history.
One that should also stop blaming the previous Rudd/Gillard government for all its woes.
Jan Gulliver, Lyneham Abbott's agenda It is not Prime Minister Tony Abbott who has missed the point, in that Indigenous people need to lead the process towards their own constitutional recognition, but Waleed Aly ("Whom does Abbott lead?",   August7, Times2, p1).
Abbott's sidelining of Indigenous Australians is part of his own deliberately calculated and ideologically driven political process aimed at instituting the untainted primacy of white European settlement.
Central to this process is the political mantra that Abbott keeps repeating due to its astounding electoral success, which is the government's turn-back policy on refugee boat arrivals.
With the federal Labor Party now officially adopting the same policy, Abbott is in the strongest position possible to rebut such esteemed Indigenous leaders as Noel Pearson and Patrick Dodson, who are worthy of this nation's greatest respect.
For as long as the Australian electorate supports the government's punitive approach to refugees, the granting of full constitutional recognition to Indigenous Australians will shamefully remain an anathema to Abbott's boyhood dream of a white Australia.
Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin, Rivett