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OPEN letter to all politicians, whether they be state or national governments in Australia.

I am a community elder approaching 77 years of age.

I served this nation for over 20 years in the Army with operation combat experience in Malaysia 1961-3 and Vietnam (1966-7). In Vietnam, my platoon suffered the greatest number of those killed and wounded in action – one officer and 34 other ranks in a year.

I believe I have a right to vent my spleen at all the federal and state politicians to how they govern this nation.

Since the 1980s, governance in this country, at both levels, is the worst I have experienced, and as I see it they are not interested in Australia’s future or its people, preferring only to gain and retain political power. All political parties are flawed in their policies and there are no statesman or natural leader in any government nationwide.

There is presently a bar-room brawl in Canberra over citizenship qualification, with Labor hanging desperately off last-century qualities while the government is trying to modernise the criteria for future citizens.

I have news for them – we’re living in the 21st century! The world has changed! There are no longer refugees as was witnessed postWWII, only a few persecute religious and cultural ethnic minorities. Therefore, Australia must concentrate on these minorities for priority resettlement and not the orchestrated mass Islamic migration based on individual economic wants.

There must also be a concentration on those seeking asylum who want to become Australia citizens. We need those who desperately want to be Australians willing to complete the qualifying criteria as promoted by the government today. The ALP and those who oppose these new citizen eligibility levels do not have the nation’s interests at heart. ROBERT S BUICK, MOUNTAIN CREEK

IF the Gold Coast group pressuring MP Karen Andrews on refugees needs something to do to fill their time, why don’t they get out on to the streets and do something to help the homeless and handicapped people in their own back yard.

Or did they miss the news that refugees granted entrance to this country because if they were sent back to their own they would be killed, are now returning to that country with Australian passports on holiday, and not being killed but welcomed for having managed to talk people like you here into believing them.

If they had stayed in their own country and fought as our fathers and grandfathers did through two world wars, they would not be in this position.

Instead every man ran for his life and is now demanding that the western world house and feed them.

If 820 signatures were all you could collect, that should tell you how the people of this country think of your ideas. MAUREEN BEACH, TWEED HEADS