The Abbott and Turnbull governments have attacked us from both sides, not only cutting tens of billions of funding for public utilities like hospitals and schools making our families lives more expensive, now they have attacked the poorest of the working poor’s pay packets.

Apparently PM Turnbull has just given himself and his ilk a tax cut in the order of $6,000, a similar amount to what these desperate working poor families will lose, by having their pay packets reduced over a 12 month period.

One southern newspaper’s headline read 650,000 workers lose $77 per week or words to that effect.

This will push some families to the breaking point; we can expect a rise in the suicide rate, while other families will hold on by the skin of their teeth.

It was great to see companies like Lush Australia support its employees and ignore the (un) Fairwork Australia decision and assure their employees that their pay rates and penalty rates would continue unchanged.

The tens of billions of dollars saved by this government in ripping services off the needy should have produced a budget surplus, yet through their incompetence the budget deficit is continually growing?

Small businesses will be the big loser from this decision.

This LNP government has been cruel from the time it was elected in 2013.

They have now added evil to their description, please spare a thought for people you know who work as shop assistants (no matter their title) service station workers, gardeners, trades assistants, storemen, clerks, waitresses, waiters etc required to work on weekends in order to feed their families, the poorest of the poor in the Australian workforce, they are now even poorer.

This federal government is an absolute disgrace.

Shaun Newman, Deeragun

The nature of Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s denial of his earlier statement that Australia’s acceptance of South American refugees was contingent upon America’s acceptance of refugees from Manus Island and Nauru is typical of the ambivalence that we have come to expect from our politicians.

His comment that, “I am not going to get bogged down in nuance,” couldn’t be further from the truth.

For Mr Dutton and his ilk, nuance, ambiguity and evasion are their life­blood.

They have honed their political skills in avoiding questions they wish hadn’t been asked and instead have developed a high level of expertise in answering questions they would have preferred, usually preceded by, “What I will say is this.....”.

The words “yes” and “no” are anathema to them and” wriggle room,” is essential.

For Peter Dutton to conclude his back­flip with the words, “I’m a pretty frank speaker,” simply adds to my frustration with the absence of this quality in most of our politicians.

Please tell us what you really think, so that we’ll know whether or not to vote for you.

John Martin, Woonona

If has often been said that the Liberal Party use to be a "broad church", where contributions from all party sources are encouraged.

Not anymore.

The vitriolic attack on former PM Abbott last week was breathtaking in its intensity and a slam dunk for an “in denial” federal liberal.

D J Preece, Balgownie