A $10 billion reduction in company tax would not only wipe out the payment of tax completely for Australian and multi-national businesses but weaken finances to the extent that the Turnbull government will no longer be able to support welfare recipients.

Do not reply Ann, all was revealed. Scott Morrison is proposing to raise taxes. The government is intending to increase, direct and indirect taxes for all Australians to foster the indulgence of a tax free existence for big business. These actions are a betrayal of the policies the government stood for at the last election. The Turnbull government has to go.

John Macleod, Berry

Now the council amalgamation issue is truly over, isnt it time that we the residents of Shellharbour City were given the right to elect our own mayor and not one voted in by their cronies, thrust upon us.  What sort of a democracy do we live in?

John Jamieson,  Shellharbour

ED’S REPLY: Shellharbour councillors have previously voted to conduct a plebiscite at the next election which will ask residents if they want to elect their own mayor. If this is supported, the mayor will be elected by the public at the 2020 council election.

Pope’s View (Illawarra Mercury, Friday February 17, 2017) depicted brilliantly, the farcical antics of Queensland LNP senator Ian Macdonald during abolition of the Life Gold Pass debate in the Senate on the previous day.

Senator Macdonald “was at the barricades” for all the wrong reasons –  attempting to defend what is obviously indefensible.

In that process, the deputy president of the Senate allowed Senator Macdonald, a known misogynist, to repeatedly and deliberately mispronounce the name of former  Prime Minister Julia Gillard in an attempt to discount her many achievements while PM.

Is it any wonder the Australian political class is seen as both parasitical and completely out of touch with the norms of Australian society; when dinosaurs like senator Ian Macdonald can demand Australian taxpayers should continue to pay millions of dollars to maintain the excessive lurks and perks of former politicians?   

Barry Swan, Balgownie

In reply to the letter by Barry Swan ( "An Inconvenient Truth, Illawarra Mercury, Saturday, February 11, 2017), come on Barry, wake up and stop abusing people who think for themselves and fail to conform with your climate propaganda.

Al Gore's environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth contains nine key scientific errors, a judge in the British High Court found in 2007. Judge Michael Burton ruled that errors had arisen "in the context of alarmism and exaggeration" in order to support Mr Gore's thesis on global warming. Al Gore has proven himself to be the real snake oil salesman by travelling around the world in fossil fueled planes leaving a carbon foot print, while also telling everyone how the sea level will rise and then like a true hypocrite goes and buys a multi-million dollar home on the waterfront.

Mr Swan's claim President Donald Trump is "an irrational individual" is based on the fact Trump is not following the United Nations agenda as did climate activist Barrack Obama. As for Trump having the capacity to turn our beautiful planet into nothing more that a "cloud of super-heated nuclear dust" just demonstrates how global warming scaremongers lack any understanding or commonsense on this matter.

Adrian Devlin, Fairy Meadow