Last Post: Queen Mary of Hobart

I’m interested to know, had a Catholic cardinal or bishop (just imagine were it George Pell) or a Jewish rabbi stood at the lectern and used the same hate-filled terminology currently on show at Sydney’s largest mosques, would their venomous words have been ignored by officialdom (“Radical Sydney cleric labels Australia’s New Year’s Eve celebrations a ‘celebration of foreskin’ ”, 1/1)? Fair’s fair, and there’s nothing fair about these putrid sermons, so what’s the official line?

Rosemary O’Brien, Ashfield, NSW

El Nino turns into El No-no. Weather forecasting, protests the Bureau of Meteorology, isn’t an exact science, especially when it’s driven by ideology. Yet the same prognosticators can tell you the planet’s exact temperature 100 years hence.

Trevor Farrant, Hackney, SA

Alas for those Australians who proudly hail Mary of Hobart as Denmark’s new Queen, take a look at how the front page banner on Britain’s Daily Telegraph proclaimed “How a Scot became Queen of Denmark”.

Tina Faulk, Gladesville, NSW

Regarding the report on Xi Jinping’s corruption purges, a Chinese acquaintance told me some years ago: “Under Mao, only Mao was corrupt, now everyone is corrupt.”

Ian Collie, Aspley, Qld

Is the present-day Gazan war a historical symptom of Orientalism versus Occidentalism, whereby Orientalism is a Western reading of the East and Occidentalism is an Eastern reading of the West?

Kenneth Gregson, Swansea, Tas

I agree with Kerry MacDermott (Letters, 3/1), who urges the Taiwanese to start thinking like the Ukrainians or Israelis if they want to shake off the constant threat of Chinese invasion. I’d go one step further by urging us to do likewise because I’m beginning to feel the heat that boiled the frog. Or is that a bridge too far for this team?

Graham Barnett, Eagle Point, Vic

The Australian’s editorial on the broken power system is spot-on (“Broken power system still fuelled by calls for subsidy”, 3/1). Add another Band-Aid to the list: Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s turbocharged Capacity Investment Scheme for renewables. His department describes it as “a long-term safety net that decreases financial risk for investors”. How imaginative!

Jennie George, Mollymook, NSW

What does Australia’s Assistant Minister for the Republic actually do? Is it like the hospital with no patients?

Leo Oostveen, Murarrie, Qld