Abbott
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I CONGRATULATE Don Davey (The Examiner, September 28) on his perceptiveness regarding the character of Tony Abbott.
He has been able to find virtues in the former Prime Minister not readily apparent to most of us.
— RALPH MARSHALL, West Launceston.
Taxes
IF YOU want to encourage people to have children; you don't introduce a consumption tax.
Now they want to raise the GST, but they want people to have more children.
Only politicians could deal in such contradictions.
— WAYNE NATTRASS, Ravenswood.
Syria
UNLIKE despots of “Robert Mugabe’s” ilk , Syria’s “President Assad” was hardly known to world leaders, and only became so, with “Muslim” uprising's against his rule, creating a knee jerk reaction by the West in taking their side against who was then little known as a despotic ruler, and it is only now that the entire world are on the receiving end of “Muslim” excesses, that their appears to be softening towards the “Assad” regime, and not before time.
Australia would do well in ceasing all warlike action in the area , and own up to the fact they “ got it wrong.
— DON DAVEY, Launceston.
I AM stunned and disgusted by the amount of rubbish that’s being dumped outside charities, on footpaths that make is impossible to walk there.
Those who dump these things know full well they are not fit for human or animal use and should be ashamed of themselves.
Filthy soiled mattresses, broken unusable chairs, stained clothing, broken beyond repair appliances that’s been pulled from bags and boxes just covering walkways.
This is not an occasional incident but an almost daily one, always dumped at night, the biggest piles on Sunday nights
The only one this is helping is those dumping it. It’s helping them save tip costs.
I don’t know what’s worse, those that dump it, or those that rifle through it and spread it even further.
— SUSAN GOEBEL, Invermay.
Refugees
ANYONE who imagines the people now arriving in Europe are refugees is seriously deluded.
Almost all are young men of military age who are paying to escape the Middle East and Africa’s failed states (even Pakistani’s and Afghans).
Just how are we to defeat ISIS, the Taliban and Assad?
Where would the world be today if all the young men in Britain in 1939 absconded to the neutral Irish Republic or Sweden?
Every male or female of military age should be trained, armed and returned to the country they deserted.
There is a constant expectation that Nato, Britain and America can solve their problems with their soldiers, while they’re sunbathing in Europe. It’s clearly ludicrous.
— STEVE WRIGHT, Norwood.
Football
DON Millwood was beyond all doubt one of the best footballers the Magpies have produced since its inception in 1948 to the NTFA.
Don was a ready made footballer who was admired by friend or foe and who always seemed to play on the best player.
His marking and kicking was second to none.
A good thinker and spoiler, he twice won the best and fairest award. The number (12) will never be forgotten.
Above all, Don played for his guernsey and the love of the game.
— RON JOHNSTONE,
Disaster
DICKY White’s Lane can now be added to Tatler Parade Arcade as one of Launceston’s eyesores or though less obvious to the visitor.
This is in-spite of thousands of dollars being spent on it.
Take a walk through it from the Brisbane Street end.
The entrance is the ``jailhouse” grey white high walls and all the windows with bars.
Next is the awful graffiti section, next comes the backyard mess of a Quadrant restaurant and finally then a few tables from a cafe surrounded by awful tawdry, tacky dark brown walls.
Now ``they” are starting on the Quadrant Mall, which I thought was great and had real atmosphere like Double Bay in Sydney.
What is happening to my beloved city?
— MALCOLM SCOTT, Newstead.
Tourism
WHEN will this talk of Tasmania’s tourism through the roof stop?
In the north it’s through the floor - more like it.
Shops still closed everywhere, discounted rates on goods , accommodation and travel and the slashing of
our workforce almost indiscriminate. It’s tough out there!
I see the last forum (The Examiner, September 23), Earth Checks address as keynote points were
No 1 - The Tamar Lake proposal. That is to 99 percent of Tasmanians a dream, nothing less.
No funding no way.
No 2 - Improving public transport. Well It’s all about cars, vans ferries and planes, not public transport when it comes to tourism because the state markets three things: A - Cradle Mt, B - Mona and Hobart C - Port Arthur and perhaps West Coast because the government’s dumped so much money in there they have to.
No 3 - The Gorge. Well unless I'm not reading our history correctly, William Barnes jnr (1832-98) gave the Gorge to the people of Launceston, not an individual.
He was a brewery owner, lived at Kelso in "Plaisance House ". He owned a 2-1/2 mile frontage of the Gorge and in all 6,300 acres to be kept as a natural place of serenity and peace.
He did not think of it as a place for one person to get richer just because they can.
The allowance of his land holding at Trevallyn did that, all 6,000 acres of it.
My advice is to spend all your time working on how not have this state be so Hobart centric.
— ROD STONE, Greens Beach.
Homelessness
APPROXIMATELY 35 per cent of all state housing stock has been transferred to NGO's Australia wide under strategy’s agreed to by all major parties, State and Federal, but the devil is in the detail in what is one of the greatest handovers of public assets in Australia’s history.
Rental and bond assistance for the disadvantaged was not necessary when entering public housing but, the transfer allows NGO’s to apply for rental assistance for properties, but excludes renters to apply for bond assistance or two weeks rent in advance to enter them as they are housing stock.
Who put this policy together?
If the federal member for Bass cared less about what was under his right wing and put the homeless under his left wing and lobbied his government to forgive the $185 million housing debt, then the state government could double their efforts to tackle homelessness and meet our future needs.
— DAVID BRIMBLE, Scottsdale.
Unemployed
YES, Australia’s homeless and unemployed need all the help they can get, but, unlike Syrian refugees, they are not in immediate danger or being shot, beheaded or tortured, so it seems heartless to deny assistance to the Syrians until every homeless Australian is homed and every unemployed Australian has a job.
It’s hard not to see repeated calls to ``help Australians first” as racist or xenophobic or both.
— W. J. GREER, Beauty Point.
Crisis
FOR a while when Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, announced Bashar al-Assad should be involved in a political process to end the conflict, I thought that we had an original idea but now realise that once again we echo the Americans foreign policy.
After four years of misery inflicted because of the West’s desire to oust the Assad regime, the confronting images of refugees which has now become Europe’s problem and not hidden away in the Middle East countries has thankfully brought about urgent attempts to resolve this crisis.
Let’s hope rapid progress is made.
— A. CARTER, Mowbray.