Container deposit
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
CONSIDERING that New South Wales, the Northern Territory and South Australia all have container deposit legislation there is now no excuse for Tasmania not to follow suit.
— ESTELLE ROSS, Riverside.
Resource sharing
IN the mid 1990s West Tamar Council and George Town Council resource shared for a period of time.
It was determined that there was no benefit to either organisation, financially or otherwise.
— ERNEST BENNETT, Beaconsfield.
Flu vaccines
I NOTICED an article in The Examiner (April 14) about the need to have a flu shot.
The Influenza Specialist Group is telling all eligible people to have their shots now.
If people go to their GPs at the moment they will be told to come back again in three weeks' time because there are no vaccines available in Tasmania until at least the end of April.
Too bad if you get the flu before then.
— JOHN FRANCIS DENNE, Longford.
Daylight savings
IN response to Mary Gillard’s letter in The Examiner (April 14), all I can say is that she needs to get out and enjoy the extended daylight after tea that six months of daylight savings offers.
We have six long months of cold, dark days where most people would prefer to spend indoors.
In this age of electronic gadgets, it’s hard enough to get young people outside being physical and enjoying the fresh air as it is.
So many people are upset that daylight savings has come to an end for this year until October as it mean the start of winter weather.
I and many others take the opportunity to enjoy life in the beautiful twilight that daylight savings offer.
— SANDRA LIVINGSTON, Mowbray.
Education
IT IS heartening to see our elected representatives understanding and promoting the links between early years, parental engagement and community support and our ability to retain young people through year 12.
Decisions made around education have far wider impact than just our community’s ability to read and write: education is strongly linked to income, employment and overall health.
A truly successful education policy is one that includes the whole child and the whole community in its values, vision and strategy.
TasCOSS commends Murchison Independent MLC Ruth Forrest, MLC, for her comments in the article and her ability to consider solutions that will provide real, meaningful outcomes for Tasmanian children.
— TONY REIDY, TasCOSS chief executive.
Nauru conditions
IT IS time to get refugees out of detention in Nauru and allow them to settle in Australia.
The government's own investigation, headed by former Integrity Commissioner Philip Moss found evidence of physical and sexual abuse against children and women in detention.
An open letter from 23 former staff members from Nauru states that the government has known of the abuse for more than a year.
The letter calls for the removal of asylum seekers from Nauru to Australia.
Despite this 107 children and their families remain in Nauru, potentially subject to abuse.
Meanwhile, refugees settled in the Nauru community live in fear as many have been the victims of violent attacks.
How can we justify forcing people to remain in such conditions?
Where is the Australian ideal of 'a fair go'?
— SARA STRONG, Launceston.
Playground vandals
IT WAS with great anticipation that I took my granddaughters out to their very favourite playground at Hadspen during Easter.
But when we got there the playground was bare, completely gone.
It was very hard explaining that people actually destroy such delightful spots, just because they can, and for the fun of it.
My heart goes out to the people who worked so hard to raise big funds to provide such a great spot for children.
The Lions Club of Hadspen, the PCYC and the Meander Valley Council must be hugely dissapointed and very, very angry.
I guess that even if they could afford to install security cameras, they too would be demolished just for the fun of it.
I told a group of very big, belligerent secondary school kids this Sunday, who were on play equipment, that it was made for little children, certainly not for adult size people.
They did not care.
These young people amaze us all with their desire to destroy.
If only we could catch these youths.
Would making them replace their destruction and maybe be made to wear “sorry” tops for one whole year help stop such mindless destruction?
— JULIE YATES, Launceston.
Ostomates Support Group
AFTER I was diagnosed with a second bout of cancer in 2010, which left me with a
permanent colostomy, I found there was a real need for ongoing support for people
living with a colostomy.
I decided to do something about this.
So with support from the Stomal Nurses at the Launceston General Hospital, I commenced two support groups, one in Launceston and one at Ulverstone.
The groups have been named Ostomates Support Groups.
I have been overwhelmed by the response from people needing support.
Not only from people who have had bowel cancer, but also from people with other bowel
conditions, for example Crohns or Colitis resulting in a person having a permanent
colostomy.
For any further information you may require, please don't hesitate to contact me on
0414 574 532.
— ADRIAN J. KOK, Ostomates Northern Tasmania volunteer.
Super trawler
TASMANIAN Liberal Senator Richard Colbeck is still leading the charge for supertrawlers.
It just doesn’t make sense, because Tasmania has little to gain from allowing floating factories to take our fish.
No Tasmanian jobs are identified, and nor has any positive economic impact been put forward.
The 95 metre Geelong Star will be home-ported in Geelong and at most have 58 Australians on the crew.
Perhaps a handful might be Tasmanian.
That’s a pretty poor return for a vessel that will hoover up 16,566 tonnes of local fish stocks for species that include the threatened bluefin tuna.
Senator Colbeck says science proves the quota is sustainable.
But science doesn’t say that quota is required, nor even desirable.
Recreational and traditional commercial fishing pump billions of dollars every year into Australia’s regions.
Recreational and local commercial fishers spend money in regional communities on boats, servicing, gear, bait, fuel and supplies.
This supports skilled jobs in our regions.
This money circulates throughout regional Tasmania and is not sent offshore, unlike the profits of overseas-owned supertrawlers.
Before an industrial scale vessel like this is allowed into Australia, a full cost-benefit analysis should be undertaken.
— BRIAN MITCHELL, Penna, Federal Lyons Labor candidate.
Economy
TREASURER Joe Hockey as he prepares the Federal Budget, I am sure, feels like the economist who looked at the economy and said, "God is dead, Marx is dead, Keynes is dead and I don’t feel too well myself”. Let’s face it, the economy is a mess.
I attended an excellent lecture by Saul Eslake on April 14.
Obviously two things have to be done and pronto.
The GST has to be increased, the base broadened and adequate compensation given at low economic levels, as it is regressive.
Something also has to be done about people who, excluding the family home, are millionaires and still receiving a part pension and fringe benefits.
It is totally against what the pension was established for.
— MALCOLM SCOTT, Newstead.
Woolworths
THE reverential response to the Woolworth’s misuse of the word Anzac left me bemused.
We as a nation blaspheme the name of Jesus daily with impunity, perhaps no more obviously than in the impious praying of the Lord’s Prayer in the Parliament.
It just seems a tad precious, our sanctimonious response to our misadventure on the shores of Gallipoli 100 years ago.
We even go on to call the battlefield sacred ground.
I always thought sacred referred in some way to God, not to the senseless scene of futile massacre.
— GREG MANSELL, West Ulverstone.