I happen to think that the 1100 lives lost in the last year on our roads, the 80 plus women who have died at the hands of their partners in domestic violence in the same period have a much greater claim to the dollars being spent on terrorist counter-measures by Tony Abbott. The absurdity of over 800 officers raiding homes and other locations to come up with one legal charge against a suspect can only be explained as the desperate attempt of an unpopular PM and his failed government to gain some gravitas in the polls, and even that failed.

Yes, 38 Australians died in the plane disaster over The Ukraine, but appart from some noise from the sidelines, Abbott was never going to go to war against Russia. Coward that he is, he is much more comfortable using weasel words and the actions of some psychopaths in the Middle East to set one section of the community against another and enact legislation that takes away some of our long held freedoms.

I am not threatened by these IS terrorists , except that Abbott's rhetoric and moronic excursion back into Irag and Syria, will expose ordinary Australians to the attention of these people. I'm reminded of a child poking an ants nest with a stick.

A government that only uses fear to govern will cause a great deal of damage to the social fabric of the nation and exposes the lie that we had a budget emergency as it pours billions down the drain when the road toll, domestic violence and any number of worthy causes are neglected.

Philip Armour

Yass