Letter of the week

"What a quaint notion of democracy John Howard has. Elected representatives owe their primary loyalty not to their constituents but to the Coalition party room. It makes you wonder why we bother paying all those members and senators when their only obligation is to do the bidding of the Prime Minister, who controls the party room.

"Then we have the Senate's role as a house of review being destroyed by the castration of the committee system.

"It seems that we must rely on Barnaby Joyce and a few of his braver and more principled Coalition colleagues if we are to retain a semblance of democracy under this increasingly autocratic Prime Minister."

Agnes Mack, Chatswood

Sydney Morning Herald, August 11 2005