Finance Minister not in control of his own accounts

If we accept that Mathias Cormann did no wrong in only paying last week for a family holiday over 12 months ago, then we are at least entitled to wonder how he can keep on top of the finances for a nation if he can't keep a grip on his personal finances? If nothing else, not noticing that a payment of $2780.82 did not go through his personal account for a personal expense shows just how out of touch he is with the lives and expenses of "ordinary Australians".

Margaret Callinan, Balwyn

Explanations are too far-fetched for the real world

Hello, in what world does someone not know whether or not they paid over $2800 for air fights? In what world does someone ask a friend and party donor, who is in line for a billion-dollar contract, to "organise" some flights for them, who then accidentally forgets to charge for them? Cormann must go.

Graeme Henchel, Yarra Glen

Doesn't add up, whichever way you look at it

Mathias Cormann may not have known who paid his family's airfares, but surely he must have been aware that he hadn't!

Les Aisen, Elsternwick

Minister's efficiency leaves a lot to be desired

If Cormann's best excuse is that he had no idea of the link between the Liberal Party and the travel company that gave him free tickets, then I don't think we need a finance minister who has "no idea".

Ian Hudson, Yarrambat

So many questions, so few answers

Mathias Cormann's wife and family do not work for the government. Why was someone in the government making a booking for them for a family holiday? And then why was the booking paid for by the company? And why was Cormann paying for the holiday only when the holiday booking was discovered by The Age 20 months later? How could Cormann not be aware of the fairly substantial cost item of a family holiday being missing from his credit card for all those months?

Jacki Burgess, Port Melbourne

How much lower can our political standards go?

Just when you thought the standing of politicians in Australia couldn't get any lower, it has, with Finance Minister Mathias Cormann found out for receiving free family flights from a company recently awarded a large government contract. The CEO of the company is of course Liberal Party Treasurer Andrew Burnes.

All perfectly above board and the result of a simple administrative error where someone forgot to charge Cormann's credit card, we are meant to believe.

Stephen Dinham, Surrey Hills

Sorry minister, but we just can't buy that explanation

Mathias Cormann takes the family to Singapore and yet has no idea he has not been charged on his credit card – and this is the man in charge of our finances. It beggars belief.

Alan Inchley, Frankston

FORUM

Evidence of fiscal jerks

The government frequently tells us that it is far better at managing spending than the Labor Party. Well, if allocating $150 million to reopen the detention centre on Christmas Island and awarding a security contract, also for offshore detention centres, to a company whose registered office is a small shed on Kangaroo Island you would have to question their budgetary credentials. Reminds me of Malcolm Turnbull awarding a multimillion-dollar contract to a company with little experience in the field, and without calling for tenders, to help protect the Great Barrier Reef. Whose money are they spending anyhow?

Tony Healy, Balwyn North

Reasons to be cheerless

Other things Mathias Cormann may not have noticed: No policy on climate change. No policy on renewable energy. No quotas for Liberal women in the Parliament. No idea what to do if fear doesn't work. No understanding we have left the 1950s and are soon to enter the third decade of the 21st century.

Alan Whittaker, Kew East

Tanking on franking

How long is it going to take us, as a people, to realise and admit that trust in politics or politicians is a false trust – we get "dudded" every time?

What many people are conveniently forgetting is that the franking credits received by SMSF holders were given to them under the Howard government. They didn't ask for it, they weren't holding their hand out for it. Sure, many have come to rely upon it, but you could also say that for other middle-class welfare recipients of the Howard government's largesse. This was money that should never have been handed out to a sector of the community who didn't need it in the first place. I haven't come across one person who isn't willing to give up their franking credits, so long as the money is well spent in areas of great need. And that's where the sticking point is.

Catherine Gerardson, Watsonia North

At a key stroke

Surely, Amanda Vanstone (Comment, 18/2), you must have made a typo "the naive think we can believe everything we are told by doctors". You must have meant to type "the naive think we can believe everything we are told by politicians". And another thing, better the refugees are tucking into food in hospitals than politicians are tucking into the trough of public money.

Steve Pickering, Beaumaris

Thinking beyond reason

Amanda Vanstone's articles are often surprising, but this latest one suggesting that many doctors would compromise their medical findings for self-serving or career-enhancing reasons is extreme. A few may, but most would base the health assessment of their patients according to a duty-of-care ethos, combining professional skills and compassion, the latter sadly missing in politicians.

Mary Cole, Richmond

Naive, not nuts

I may be naive to believe what my doctor tells me; foolish me, I trust his professionalism. I am, however, not so naive as to trust medical advice from an inflexible, political doctrinaire, such as Amanda Vanstone.

Terry Malone, Warburton

Body of disbelief

I have just learnt that the government has ruled to remove cover for most natural therapies from health insurance companies. Many are long-established therapies that have been used for hundreds of years with great effect in health maintenance and prevention of illness. And this is apparently to keep the cost of our premiums down. So doctors' surgeries can now be overrun by crisis management appointments.

I thought we lived in a civilised country where complementary medicine was respected and maintenance of good health was the aim. This hit list includes yoga, Pilates, homeopathy, Feldenkrais – well-researched and well-regarded therapies that consider the whole body – not quackery and snake oil.

Kate Redfern, Elsternwick

Scanning bleak horizon

Here I am, up in the crow's nest, scouring the horizon for rapists, paedophiles and murderers. All I can see is unsubstantiated claims, dodgy deals and dead fish.

Andrew Raivars, Fitzroy North

An empty confidence

The ABC's Q&A this week highlighted the pill-testing controversy at music festivals. A theme expressed was: I want my child to come home from a festival alive.

It is estimated that the combined audience at festivals in NSW alone is around 750,000

Drug taking is a complex issue that deserves urgent, comprehensive studies to better understand its use/abuse.

Without doubt, pill testing is an exercise in harm minimisation at festivals at a time when the criminal codes have become blurred (for example, legislation associated with medically supervised injection rooms).

But in reality how many festival attendees, given the time available, can receive an analysis of their pills and the follow-up professional advice regarding the possible consequences of their proposed drug taking. The logistics may result in a superficial attempt to minimise harm, by testing a few festival attendees and leave loved ones wrongly confident of their children's safety.

Brian McGuinness, Richmond

Durham anthem excels

Kudos to John Handley (Letters, 17/2) for highlighting the paucity of some of the words in our national anthem. The Judith Durham YouTube version gives us a glimpse of the greatness this song can achieve.

Annabelle Byrne, Edithvale

Working together

Dear Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition,

It would not be in the national interest of Australia for there to be a resumption of asylum seeker boat arrivals to Australia. It neither serves the interests of the asylum seekers, nor of the government, nor of the opposition, nor of the rest of the community. It therefore seems to me that if videos and other material featuring the Prime Minister are to be created and circulated in our region for the purpose of deterring asylum seekers from contemplating getting onto a boat, the strength and effectiveness of such messages would be multiplied if both of you featured in that material.

A bipartisan approach on the issue of boat arrivals, regardless of other policy differences between your respective parties, would serve our national interest.

Harold Zwier, Elsternwick

Full steam ahead, sir

Australia has in my judgment become the absolute beneficiary of last year's Liberal leadership turmoil. Instead of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull coasting to defeat, we now have a prime minister with a backbone of steel and a heart of compassion. In regard to border security, Australians know through his proven record that Scott Morrison will never vacate his responsibilities and give up the fight with people smugglers. His support for our farmers doing it tough and people with disabilities also show his compassionate nature. The other major leadership aspirant, Peter Dutton, also continues to do the nation proud with his stand on security and willingness to evict criminals from Australia. The ship of state is now being steered by a visionary captain with a good crew behind him.

Peter Curtis, Werribee South

Beware the bogyman

The organisation GetUp! has been branded by Peter Dutton and Eric Abetz as "an extremist group" and "extreme left-wing". GetUp! has campaigned for issues including the humane treatment of asylum seekers, marriage equality, government accountability, stopping the world's biggest coal mine Adani, independent journalism and economic justice.

Through demonising GetUp!, the Liberal Party continues its scare campaign to frighten voters into voting Liberal. In the notable absence of policies for the future, dealing with the consequences of Australia's population explosion, wealth inequality, corruption and addressing climate change, fear appears to the major campaign tool the Liberal Party can wield.

Leigh Ackland, Deepdene

Turnabout fair play

I was concerned when I read that a foreign power had hacked our Parliament, but then I remembered how Australia had bugged the cabinet room of the independent sovereign state of East Timor in order to cheat that impoverished nation out of its fair share of oil and gas royalties.

Bruce King, Malvern East

Can anyone remember?

Remember the good old days when ministerial responsibility still existed?

Malcolm I. Fraser, Oakleigh South

Under lock and key

The solution to hacking challenges from foreign powers is to do what was once done, write everything on a piece of paper and lock it in a safe.

Ray Brown, Seymour

Discard the iron ring

Several years ago the Coalition government spent millions on a fence around Parliament House on the pretext of security to keep out the public, the very people who paid for and own the building. Now it appears that a security threat to the seat of government is actually not from outside, but inside the House from illegal cyber activity.

One might hope that later this year a Shorten government will dismantle the iron ring, sell it for scrap and both return the building as a whole for access to the people and enable the building to be seen as it was so designed and built in the first place.

Robert Saunders, Box Hill North

Dutton's own goal

Will Peter Dutton's department pay Hakeem al-Araibi compensation for the time he spent in a Thai jail because someone in the department forgot to send an email to the Federal Police?

Brian Glass, Montrose

AND ANOTHER THING

Politics

If the Finance Minister can't manage his own finances why on earth have we put him in charge of Australia's.

Ian Gray, Benalla

We have a Finance Minister who pays scant attention to his own finances!

Phil Lipshut, Elsternwick

Medivaced to Christmas Island. Well that's the nail in the coffin.

Kelly Reed, Kew

I'm looking for a cheap overseas flight so I just rang the CEOs of a few travel booking companies and none of them would accept my call.

Dennis Richards, Cockatoo

Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton should consider building a wall around Australia. Could divert money from health, education and other non-essential human services.

Keith Robinson, Glen Waverley

From now on I'll be using Helloworld as my travel agent on the off chance they will forget to charge my credit card.

Tony O'Brien, South Melbourne

I wish I could book my travel through the CEO. It must be so much easier to go to the top.

Julie Carrick, Leopold

Labor's chicken border strategy has come home to roost.

Tony Lenten, Glen Waverley

Imagine the potential threat to our democracy if we ever adopted online voting, following the recent hacking of political party websites.

Andrew Trezise, Greensborough

Hi Scott. How much will you pay me to paddle my rowing boat out of some Indonesian port?

Mick O'Mara, Winchelsea

Furthermore

Why don't dairy farmers get together and set a fair price for their product themselves?

Christine Weatherhead, Glen Waverley

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. We all know how that ended. Does Donald Trump?

Thomas Blackburn, Croydon