Is the only reason Bill Shorten behind in the polls that he is not "Rupert Murdoch's" preferred prime minister and consequently the Murdoch press empire has told us he's so awful so often that people have come to believe it despite the lack of substance to that claim?

Margaret Callinan, Balwyn

This is what you get

If you vote for Scott Morrison you get "ScoMo" flying solo. If you vote for Bill Shorten you also get a formidable team of young, modern-thinking women like Tanya Plibersek, Penny Wong and Kristina Keneally. Sounds like the future to me.

Chris Palfreyman, Malvern

Who you're really voting for

I am very tired of claims by many that somehow the people of Australia vote for senior parliamentary positions, especially the prime ministership. During this election campaign, in articles and every letter that refer to "voting for" the prime minister or the leader of the opposition, could you add the following note: the only people entitled to vote for Mr Morrison and Mr Shorten are the voters of Cook and Maribyrnong, respectively.

Graeme Lindsay, Deloraine, Tas.

He'll grow into the job

Gareth Evans states factually that, if elected, "Shorten's frontbench has the intellect and character" to be "the Australian gold standard" in politics (Letters, 13/4). This is high and well-deserved praise from an authoritative, admittedly slightly biased, source. Doubtful voters may well see the strongly united Labor team more favourably now.

Besides, Bill Shorten will look more prime ministerial when he is the Prime Minister.

Barbara Fraser, Burwood

What's Winx got to do with it?

Mr Morrison has taken his sloganeering to new heights of absurdity. The Age (13/4) quotes him saying that Winx's fairytale story epitomises the notion of a fair go for those who have a go.

What is he talking about? Doesn't the Liberal Party have anything to offer other than inept slogans, scaremongering, profligate tax cuts and disruption by its reactionary right wing of any glimmer of a progressive policy? Tony Ralston, Balwyn North

What a vote for Shorten means

Tony Lenten (And Another Thing, 13/4), you claim that a vote for Scott Morrison is a vote for PM Dutton? I'd say anyone wanting Bill Shorten to be prime minister should prepare for a John Setka-led recession.

Michael Doyle, Ashburton

All this and more

When Scott Morrison declares when you vote Shorten you get Shorten, I respond yes, and we get a highly intelligent, articulate Labor frontbench in Tanya Plibersek, Penny Wong, Anthony Albanese, Chris Bowen, Tony Burke, Mark Butler, the list goes on and on. I totally support Gareth Evans' evaluation of the calibre of a potential Labor ministry irrespective of his allegiances (Letters, 13/4).

The Coalition equivalent is dismal. If you vote Morrison, you get Peter Dutton plus a group of untested MPs replacing the experience of Christopher Pyne, Julie Bishop, Kelly O'Dwyer, Michael Keenan, et al on the frontbench.

Diana Yallop, Surrey Hills

THE FORUM

A valuable perspective ...

Peter Greste ("Assange arrest not about free press", Comment, 13/4) provides a valuable corrective to the notion of the now-detained Australian expatriate being a symbol of journalistic integrity in the pursuit of objective truth.

Assange's closeness to Russia over a number of years, for example, was for too long underplayed. At a time when the IT expert was being feted in the West as a paragon of transparency, he was, in 2012, employed as an interviewer on the Putin government's main propaganda TV outlet, Russia Today. Significantly, a couple of years before that, WikiLeaks' promised disclosures about corruption in Russia never materialised. An unrelenting leak of material damaging to the US instead became the focus.

Significantly, in 2019, the US Senate intelligence committee chairmen, the Republican Richard Burr and Democrat Mark Warner, are of the view that Assange and WikiLeaks have, as the former puts it, "acted as an arm of the Russian intelligence services for years".

At the very least, Assange has been, to use the term attributed to Lenin, a "useful idiot" serving Russia's cause. He has been no high-minded journalist.

Jon McMillan, Mount Eliza

... but the risks are still real

Peter Greste makes a persuasive argument that Julian Assange is not a journalist, nor WikiLeaks a news organisation.

Unfortunately, this distinction is not germane to the risks posed to actual journalists and news organisations by the actions of the United States. The US is not seeking Assange's extradition because of sloppy journalism but because he allegedly encouraged (then) Bradley Manning to leak confidential information.

Any legitimate journalist or news organisation could be pursued by the US on similar grounds as there is no blanket exemption for journalists under the US constitution or its laws. Assange's fate should be of great concern to "real" journalists, even if Assange is not one himself.

David Francis, Ivanhoe

Dutton's disturbing pattern

There's a pattern emerging with Peter Dutton's provocative discriminatory outbursts.

It was others telling him that it was not safe to go to Melbourne restaurants at night because of African gangs, and now it's others (supposedly his constituents) who are telling him they don't accept Ali France's reason for not living in the electorate of Dickson.

Mr Dutton doesn't even have the guts to own his own bigotry.

Denny Meadows, Hawthorn

Open up the ramps

I read with interest, but without surprise, the article "Southern Cross can't catch a break" (The Age, 13/4). For many years most new stations have been built to designs that mean some or all platforms are only accessible via electrical/mechanical means – either lifts or escalators. It is inevitable that these will fail from time to time.

Before the total makeover of the old Spencer Street Station, access to the platforms was via wide, well-graded ramps that could be used by everyone, including those with wheels. I believe that the ramps still exist and suggest that, in the light of the current disastrous situation, serious consideration should be given to reopening them.

Flinders Street Station still has ramps at the western end, and at the eastern end there are stairs between the escalators. If this station is given a major makeover these ever-reliable means of access to the platforms should be retained.

New stations should be built with ramp access to all platforms. Better still, they could be built with underpasses. Werribee station provides an example of how practical such underpasses are, as does the much more recently constructed Cardinia Road station on the Pakenham line.

Julia Blunden, Hawthorn

Selective outrage displayed

Melissa Parke may have erred in using an apocryphal story about Israeli soldiers forcing Palestinian women to drink bleach at the Gaza border. That, and her views on Palestinian rights, are unacceptable to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, who find her views offensive, even anti-Semitic.

She has to resign.

Yet there is ample Israeli documentation, even convictions, for abuse, harassment and thefts from women at Israeli border crossings, not to speak of holding up medical emergencies. No outrage there from the lobby.

Thus questions arise. Is the eligibility for election to the Australian Parliament to be determined by single-issue lobbyists on a foreign policy issue? Is the ballot box now irrelevant?

Larry Stillman, Elwood

Parke has form

Melissa Parke's shocking comment that she remembers " ... vividly a pregnant refugee woman was ordered (by Israeli border guards) at a checkpoint in Gaza to drink a bottle of bleach" — is as outrageous as it is false on so many levels.

Parker has previous form for crude Israel-bashing and while she personally may not feel ashamed of her hatred, the ALP is rightly ashamed of her ongoing untruths and has acted accordingly in urging her withdrawal as the candidate for Curtin.

George Greenberg, Malvern

Already over it

Boy, are we reaching a new low with Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton criticising the Labor candidate for Dickson, Ali France, saying that even if she wins the seat she won't move into the electorate.

Personally, I'd be cutting her some slack given her personal circumstances, and don't we desperately need more diversity in our Parliament anyway?

I suppose we really shouldn't be surprised – there's a level of desperation and whatever-it-takes about this election campaign, and it's barely begun. Honestly, I'm sick of it already; it feels like we've been in an election campaign for years.

Kate McCaig, Surrey Hills

Wait for it ...

Michaelia Cash should be popped back behind her whiteboard, or at least made to wait until all tradies queuing for electric HiLuxes have been served.

Bill Wilkinson, Capel Sound

Rushed assumptions

Julie Szego (Comment, 13/4) analyses the reasoning of Justice Wigney in the Rush defamation case and claims to be "not second-guessing his findings", but then goes on to do just that. She is struck by "the naivety of his assumptions" but then goes on to list many of her own.

I put it to Szego that this experienced jurist has carefully weighed up facts and evidence from many witnesses to come to considered and careful conclusions, not assumptions. I suspect that Szego's kind of thinking is one of the unintended consequences of the #MeToo movement. The idea that complainants are to be automatically believed necessarily leads to assumptions that may not always be correct, because assumptions are not evidence. Complainants must always be listened to with a genuinely open mind, that includes the possibility they may have gotten it wrong.

Paul Zebrowski, Watsonia North

Look at the source

Israel Folau did not dream up the homophobic messages that he tweeted last week. While rightly rebuking him, let's not forget his source, which is otherwise casually accepted into life's other arenas.

Josh Maher, Castlemaine

Keep it to yourself

To Eugene Ahern and others who are opposed to "assisted suicide", (Letters 13/4), can I make just one request? Hold firm to your beliefs, if that is what you want, but please don't ask, instruct, or "encourage" me and everyone else to follow your view. It is not going to happen.

Actually, I have another request: that people opposed to assisted suicide do not stand in my way if and when I may need to avail myself of this service.

Mandy Morgan, Malvern

This is what I fear

H.L. Mencken once observed: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Tony Wright (The Age, 13/4) lampooned Scott Morrison's recent ham-fisted, desperate and ineffective scare campaign. What a tragedy that, if fear is to be an acceptable political tool, it is not being used to address real fears.

For example, it seems clear that failure to address inequality at home and abroad more diligently might lead to a nasty, dangerous, unstable world. If fear drove a return to traditional social democratic principles and policies, we might sleep easier.

In any event the Coalition model of "trickle-down economics", defended recently by Josh Frydenberg, is increasingly being revealed for what it always was – a con from the better off with an aversion to an equitable taxation system – and a brake on economic growth.

I, for one, am very afraid of the possible return of the Coalition, led by an individual whose values appear to be so out of step with Australians' traditional self-image.

Norman Huon, Port Melbourne

Labor seeks to divide

I realise that Australians like to cut down tall poppies, but the Labor Party seems intent on making the poor hate the rich, public schools distrust the private, and cardiovascular patients compete with those suffering from cancer.

Small business owners are portrayed as evil exploiters of their staff. Investors wanting to buy a house and rent it out are apparently destroying the dreams of young couples desperate to set up home. And Millennials are encouraged to consider elderly people who are taking responsibility for their own retirement as being selfish.

I thought a government was supposed to unite the nation, not cause division and distrust?

Michael Doyle, Ashburton

Evans got this right

Gareth Evans (Letters, 13/4) is certainly correct in that he is obviously biased in his assessment of Labor's frontbench. Let's not forget that most of them were principal players in the disasters that characterised the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments.

As to his comparison with the Hawke-Keating governments, Bowen and Shorten are no Keating and Hawke in either intellect or an ability to connect with the Australian people.

Harry Kinread, Brighton

AND ANOTHER THING

Be afraid ...

ScoMo is now ScareMo.

Peng Ee, Castle Cove, NSW

Politics

Not sure if I'll cast my vote. I might elect a government.

David Price, Camberwell

Michaelia Cash wants to "save the utes". Sad that there are no Australian-made utes to save.

Garry Brannan, Spring Gully

Haven't heard anything about a high-speed rail link for Melbourne/Sydney in this election lead-up. Come on ... don't disappoint!

Greg Whitehouse, Kew East

Are countless images of Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten pressing the flesh somewhere in Australia really newsworthy?

Phil Lipshut, Elsternwick

Whatever the Coalition promise you, remember they could've already done it. They've had more than five years.

Tim Durbridge, Brunswick

Peter Dutton

I agree with every word Kristina Keneally has said in her description of Peter Dutton. The only employment I would give him is to haunt a house, but isn't he already doing that?

Debb Schmetzer, W Tree

Once again, it's Peter Dutton who hasn't got a leg to stand on.

Monty Arnhold, Melbourne

Winx

Some of us have been hoping for 40Winx; I guess we'll just have to settle for 33.

Tony O'Brien, South Melbourne

Having lived her life as a celebrity – cosseted, admired and adored, Winx now finds herself destined to be a stay-at-home mum producing children. Is she OK with this? Has she been asked?

Harriet Farnaby, Geelong West

Finally

Michaelia Cash, isn't the flooding up north another reason why we shouldn't be buying electric vehicles? I mean, water and electricity don't mix, right?

Mark Kennedy, Sebastopol