Morrison anti corruption CIC integrity commission
Image credit: Chris Pavlich/AAP

The year may be ending, but the takes are still going strong. Readers came in loud on the issue of Morrison’s extraordinarily underwhelming anti-corruption body, which readers saw as simply the next step in a long line of underwhelming policy; and the Ruddock review into religious freedom, which the government released without fanfare.

On Morrison’s weak anti-corruption body

MJM writes: Our present PM may not be the sharpest shovel in the shed but even he must notice how many comments and questions there have been about his 26 refusals to support a banking RC. So he tries to show some support for a CIC because he grasps that that’s what we want. But an open commission, able to accept referrals, with some powers and a reasonable opportunity to range widely over topics of public concern? We’re dreamin’.

Rich Hurford writes: Whatever the constitution and powers of the national anti-corruption body end up being, it deserves a better name than the CIC.  Surely, it should be the Independent Commission Against Corruption of the Commonwealth (ICACC), pronounced in the Italian style, “I Catch”.

Bref writes: Come on Labour, here’s something else you can successfully campaign on. Instead of caving in to Liberal’s fetid policies, show some guts and determination for a change.

Lee Tinson writes: He sees that a federal ICAC is a popular idea, and because it is anathema to him he cooks up a thing that looks like a duck but doesn’t quack, then claims (and worse, expects us to accept) that the NSW model was cooked up to catch out Liberal pollies. Never mind that it was implemented by Libs and got Labor pollies as well.

On the Ruddock religious freedom review

Wayne Robinson writes: The West Australian published a page-one story trumpeting the proposed religious freedom laws as if they’re the best thing since the invention of sliced bread. I don’t know what the story was because the headlines were giant taking up most of the page, leaving very little space for rational discussion. Something the West has been not guilty of since Kerry Stokes took control of it.

Richard Shortt writes: A bill of rights should help clarify and then leave it to the High Court to determine what to do when one right appears to clash with another (for instance, when right to freely practice ones religion, clashes with right not to be discriminated against, or the right not to have medical or pseudo-medical procedures with without your informed consent).

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