Paul Bosman claims that “a large proportion of Australians” agree with him (Pauline And The Burqa, letters 25 Aug).

How does he know?

Talking to a few like-minded people isn’t enough to extrapolate to the whole country.

He thinks that some members of the house “clapped to support the wearing of the burqa.”

No Paul, they were clapping George’s comments.

We need to wonder why the other side of the house didn’t.

His twisted interpretation continues with his assertion that in liberal Muslim countries the burqa is banned.

If it was liberal, there would be no need to ban it. 

How he concludes that Ms Hanson’s actions were designed to “stand up for women’s rights and dignity” is a mystery, given what we know about her attitude to Islam.

A farmer is "reeling" after 170 lambs were stolen from his property. (Rural crime in spotlight as Marrar farmer robbed of 170 lambs, 25/8) But don't the majority of us steal every day of our lives?

If we consume cows milk, we steal the milk that a mother cow produced solely for the nourishment of her newborn calf. We also steal her calf and kill him.

Most of us steal hens eggs but it's not the stealing that makes this theft so abhorrent, it's the cruel manner in which we treat hens in order to obtain their eggs.

We burn off their sensitive beaks with lasers or red hot blades and we imprison them in small, uncomfortable wire cages in which they are constantly feather pecked by their half-crazed "cell mates." We also rob them of sunshine, fresh air and all semblance of a natural life and force them to breathe ammonia laden air that burns their eyes and lungs.

We steal wool from sheep. A sheep's fleece is actually there for a reason. It protects sheep from the elements and in the first month after shearing thousands of sheep quite literally freeze to death. 

We steal from ducks and geese too. We pluck out their feathers and down, which is an incredibly painful process. 

We steal the fur from foxes, mink, chinchilla, rabbits and many more animals, which costs them their lives. We steal honey from bees and silk from silkworms. To obtain the latter the silkworm is boiled to death. Finally, of course, we rob all farmed animals of their precious lives.

Before condemning those who steal from us isn't it time we stopped stealing from others?

What a sour and cynical thinking and comment by Jaqueline Maley concerning the Royal House and the Windsors (August 5). A lot of negative whingeing and harping back at Australia becoming a republic. It’s all in the mind, fruitless wishful thinking. It will not improve our economy, our standard of living, our independence , our democracy.

It would require a change of our constitution, a great danger in itself. It is merely a fiction of the mind. We have overwhelmingly voted no and yet some stubborn people refuse to take no for an answer.

Sorry, the greater majority has spoken.