Also, why they do it when I am behind a slow vehicle when there is no chance at all  that anyone can overtake?

And the drivers of vehicles who stick on 40, 50, 60 in a 100kmh zone, when there is an opportunity for the driver following to overtake, that these drivers want to put their foot down making it hard for the overtaking car to do so in safety.

Is it macho thing? Because as soon as they do overtake, they go back to the slow speed they were doing beforehand.

So in the interest of myself and other drivers, please back off, because the life you save might just be your own.

MY QUESTION is for the West Tamar Council:  how can you have long grass, which is now a fire hazard on the roadside between Exeter through to Launceston?

If a ratepayer let their property get to that stage I'm sure they would receive a letter from you telling them to get it cut. What are you going to do if there is a fire and it ends up burning someone's house down, are you going to pay them compensation?

I would hate to think what our tourists think of the eyesore of long grass.

CAN WE learn to live with paradox? For too long it seems we have literally lived with black and white.

Your version, my version. Your Australian, my Australia. Is it not time we embraced the whole truth?

The grit and persistence of the early settlers alongside their hunger for land and the atrocities committed against our first people.

No, they did not invade with an army and mount a military conquest - but when push came to shove - the colonists pushed and the first people were sidelined; sometimes with good intentions but often with violence.

That marginalisation has continued because we refuse to acknowledge the whole history - the good and the bad.

And before any of us chooses to judge - would you or I have acted any differently under the circumstances?

We will not be a whole nation until we acknowledge our past, learn from our mistakes, accept what is good and understand that for all of our progress the first people still have something to teach us about respect for the land and all creatures including us who are dependent upon it.

I REFER to the editorial from Thursday, January 5, in which the editor calls for a National Firearms Registry.

Each state of Australia has its own registry.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has recently claimed that a national registry would reduce the impact of gun violence on our society.

However, neither the editor nor the AMA have demonstrated how a new registry would reduce that impact or how it might reduce the supposed six million illegal firearms.

Claims without substance are worthless; I and others now await the answers to these questions.

The community would support sensible systems, but how would they work?

ORIGINALLY, all members of the first parliament in 1901 were granted the privilege by the king to use the title “honourable” for life.

I think the time has come to change this. One cannot become 'honourable" simply by being voted into office, one must earn the title.