FEDERAL ELECTION
LOOKING at the curious composition of our Canberra Senate one gains the impression that the great machinery of democracy has stalled.
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Minorities claim to represent the majority.
The great British statesman Benjamin Disraeli once said of the opposition ``like flies in amber one wonders how the devil they got there’’ and we should most certainly be asking ourselves the same question.
At the last federal election we voted for the Liberal Coalition, returning them with a thumping majority to replace the failed and pathetic economically incompetent reigning Labor-Green government.
Their failure was not slight but monumental and they deserved to be ousted.
Sadly a “jolly swag man’’ rich from the arts of prospecting, introduced a few curious oddball characters and paid for their curious campaigns, given them a decidedly unrepresentative and arguably undemocratic power to thwart the will of the people.
Labor has nothing to offer us at the next election. It has become a political leaner against the walls of government supported by a Green political dinosaur that is blissfully unaware that it has been extinct for more than a decade.
Len Langan, Longford.
Woolworths
I MUST congratulate Woolworths on their new store in the Launceston CBD as it is ideal for the elderly shoppers, but alas no toilets.
Like many shoppers I saw there, I am of pension age. On enquiring I was told I could use the toilets at a nearby hotel. Why weren’t they made by the council to include toilets in their plans? Is this the councils fault or Woolies? In closing I must note that toilets in Launceston are hard to find.
Ray Jensen, Beauty Point.
Politics
ALMOST three years ago, the then leader of the Liberal Party, Tony Abbott, promised me, the ``Dear Bass resident”, “Our Plan” which was described as a “detailed and fully costed plan for real action to build a strong, prosperous economy”.
It would deliver “two million more jobs” and by voting for the local candidate, I would be supporting “a change to a united government”, a truly united and stable government.
This year’s model, penned by the new leader, Malcolm Turnbull and addressed to “Dear Elector” also stresses a plan, seven times in fact. This time: “A strong, new economy with more than 200,000 jobs expected to be created in 2016-17 will be achieved by my teams plan”.
What happened to the two million jobs? What happened to Mr Abbott’s “stronger, diverse economy”?
Will Mr Turnbull’s “Plan for a Strong, New Economy” come any closer to fruition. Is Plan B simply a reconstituted, reheated serve of Plan A? In 2019, will the same chef deliver Plan C?
G L Willson, East Launceston.
Smoking
IT should concern many that a recent report has revealed the rate of smoking among Tasmanians aged 15-24 years has risen by almost 6-7 per cent in the last three years. Why is that so?
Don’t they get the message that smoking in many cases causes serious health problems and there is a very good reason that over the years cigarettes have been given the nick-name ``cancer sticks”.
Quit Tasmania is right in calling for a price increase on tobacco products to help further deter the young from taking up the habit.
I also agree with Tasmanian Council of Social Service chief executive Kym Goodes’ concern that successive governments `reliance’ on revenue from tobacco, alcohol and gambling has somewhat dimmed strong public policy decisions regarding these vices.