IT was with interest I read the article (The Sunday Examiner, April 13) titled "Interest groups not speaking for majority".
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Mark Baker's premise is that a loud minority speak for the quieter majority and he uses the example of a Victorian town in the picturesque Dandenong Ranges in the outer east of Melbourne and their quest to fight the McDonald's giant.
Perhaps Mark Baker erroneously believed that he could get away with only a few scant details to substantiate his argument, thinking that no one in Tasmania will know the true story.
In fact, the "leftist lentil lovers" that Baker says tried to block McDonald's believed that the fact that McDonald's was only a few metres away from a kindergarten and primary school, was situated in a problematic traffic bottleneck, was visually in a prime location and situated in a sensitive environmental area were enough reason to put their heart and soul into fighting for what they loved and believed in.
The Dandenong Ranges is in a prime tourist precinct which attracts thousands of visitors and residents who value the pristine environment, wildlife and way of life.
Yes, there are take-away outlets in the Dandenong Ranges villages, but rightly the "hill's residents" value small businesses and reject the over-commercialism of their hamlet.
Baker cites the fact that the McDonald's franchisee was a "former ward of the state who worked his way up from mopping the floors".
This has no bearing on the issue.
This was not about a fight between a poor worker trying to make a dollar but a people trying to protect their environment.
Of course, when McDonald's opened the doors there were people lined up to buy hamburgers - this is a tourist area, but the locals were right to fight the commercialism they were faced with.
This is why people come to the hills.
How would you feel, standing on top of Brady's Lookout, overlooking Rosevears and the Tamar River and seeing the golden arches and a traffic bottleneck.
Mark Baker you have every right to your opinion about the pulp mill and Forestry Tasmania, but if you want to draw an analogy from another context, please make sure you have all the facts before you try to add weight to your argument.
- CHRIS HUETT, Deloraine.