Granted, I don’t live in a permanent state of bliss and my health can be dodgy at times but I don’t think my life is any better or worse than the rest of the population. I really don’t spend a lot of time discussing with my straight friends our differences and I certainly don’t waste time worrying what some small- minded bigot might say about my sexual identity.

My happiness comes with the knowledge that my friends, gay and straight, love me unconditionally and that, in the near future, surveys that attempt to place me and my gay friends in a separate box from my straight friends will be laughable.

Max Fischer, Scarborough

 Australian taxpayers seemed to have no problem with Bronwyn Bishop using nearly $100K on a European jaunt last year. So why are they getting their “knickers in a knot” over the lousy $5227 she spent on a helicopter joy flight?

 As Ms Bishop has explained, she is important to the proper functioning of the Parliament entitling her to certain privileges; i.e. helicopter hire.

Other factors may have caused Ms Bishop to take a helicopter rather than be driven in a Commonwealth limousine to the Victoria state Liberal Party fund-raiser. She may not have liked the colour of the limousine. Its ashtrays may  have been dirty. She may have tried to hitch-hike without success, or had left her cab charge dockets at the office.

 And Liberal Party knees-ups are essential to the national interest are they not?

Barry Swan, Balgownie

 So the Abbott government stops the boats and subsequently stops the drownings through the successful Operation Sovereign Borders and yet Don Kelly (Your Say, July 17) wants the Prime Minister and senior ministers and operations staff to be put on trial.

 Operation Sovereign Borders has been the most successful border policy in Australia. Asylum seekers have been treated well under the current policy with food and medical supplies given to them and boats towed back where safe to do so.

It should be noted that by stopping illegal asylum seekers, genuine refugees who have waited for years in camps with passport and papers have been allowed to enter this country. Clearly, refugees doing the right thing means nothing to people like Mr Kelly who just want to make trouble.

And why hasn’t any lawyer looked into putting the senior ministers of the Green-Labor government of Julia Gillard on trial for administering and defending a border policy that lured 1200 asylum seekers to their deaths?

Adrian Devlin, Fairy Meadow

 The headline of the Daily Telegraph (July 12), depicting Bill Shorten, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd as zombies was the worst front page  I have ever seen printed.

With this media trash backing the current government, plus  cost-cutting and media attacks on the ABC, we could see our country  becoming a sad totalitarian-run nation.

The opinion polls give Labor little chance of winning another election. But then again, you never know.

History shows that even dictators fall on their own swords in the end.

John Pronk, Wollongong