Put families before foreign buyers
No wonder young families are having trouble buying a home of any kind in Sydney when real estate agents are actively wooing overseas Chinese property buyers ("Agents ready for Chinese buyer influx", January 22). It must be very profitable to do so if Australian agents are organising airport pick-ups, tours and accommodation for foreign purchasers.
How many of those properties, once bought, remain empty and are purely investment speculation? Perhaps Gladys Berejiklian, who appears to be concerned about affordable housing, might suggest the government make it less attractive to favour imported buyers over local families.
Nola Tucker Kiama
Capitalise on resources boom
Why are we considering slugging taxpayers with a Medicare levy increase when we have an easy answer to the deficit problem that is being overlooked ("Medicare levy increase on the table as Turnbull budget speculation begins", January 22)? We are on track to beat Qatar to the title of No.1 LNG exporter, however, Australia collects the lowest revenue percentage of LNG profits of any sizeable LNG-producing nation.
While Australia collected $7 billion in revenue from LNG in 2014, Malaysia collected more than $20 billion, even though it produced 70 per cent less LNG than we did.
If we were to adopt a similar level of taxation, we would be looking at revenue around of $60 billion. This dwarfs the $4 billion that could be raised by increasing the Medicare levy by 0.5 per cent.
It's time Australia stopped squandering its resources boom and started setting Australia up for the future – as Norway did with its sovereign wealth fund.
Alex Harrington Darlinghurst
On song with the media
Peter Martin forgets a key factor in why some musicians make it big: the media ("Not born to run. Why Bruce was lucky", January 22). With Bruce Springsteen, the media continually gave him free publicity by touting him as the next Bob Dylan during his early career, fortunately he was not another Dylan and was able to bring his great original talent to the fore.
As for Peter Allen, again the Australian media focused on his marriage to Liza Minelli, which gave him unlimited press coverage and made people take notice of him although more as a nightclub-type performer.
It was the media via the ABC pop show Countdown that continually flogged what was one of the most boring bands ever, Abba. As a result, they became a household name throughout the world.
Con Vaitsas Ashbury
Trump out of step
Michael Idato's brilliant take on the Trump inauguration ball ran the risk of a tweet from @realDonaldTrump, labelling it real news the great man considered fake ("DC partying like it's 1974", January 22). I bet Idato's comment about the "first dance" – "he might have all the money in the world, but the man can't dance to save himself" – prompted an urgent call: "Get Arthur Murray over to the Oval Office!"
Allan Gibson Cherrybrook
New day for Australia
I disagree with Aravind Krishnan ("Australia Day: let's get it right", January 22). January 1 is the day to celebrate Australia. It is, after all, Federation day, the day we became a nation. January 26 is the day a penal colony was set up in NSW, hardly a day for national celebration.
January 1 would combine two great events into one, eliminate the need for the extravagant duplication of the fireworks displays, allow the elimination of the expensive Australia Day Council and the now divisive Australian of the Year award.
A January 1 celebration would also remove invasion day from the calendar, thereby assisting reconciliation with the first Australians.
Laurie Eyes Wyong Creek