Upper House
I WAS quite surprised to hear Ivan Dean and other commentators offer the opinion that it would be prudent to eliminate the Legislative Council, in this case because there are too many left-leaning members on it. I would have thought that the checks and balances afforded by the house of review were an integral part of the democratic process. Without the capacity to review legislation the door is open to the worst excesses of majority government.
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If a party wins government by 5 per cent it’s considered a landslide and it considers itself to have a mandate to ignore the wishes of 45-49 per cent of the populace. The Legislative Council is the only brake on the “winner take all” nature of politics in this state and it would be a retrograde move to eliminate it.
Ed Tuleja, Meander.
Asylum seekers
CARMEN Frelek (Letters, March 8) makes some very wrong assertions.
Firstly, it is not illegal to seek asylum from persecution or danger. She asks why they have not demonstrated against their own government. Had they done so, they would have most certainly have been brutally arrested or executed and not achieved change. Fleeing their country was in many, if not most, cases their only recourse to staying alive. We in Australia have so many wonderful benefits we should show compassion to those seeking asylum from persecution instead of locking them up indefinitely with inadequate opportunities for activity or the medical treatment they need.
Sara Strong, Launceston.
Glover Art exhibition
ONCE AGAIN I visited the Glover Art exhibition this year, and I have to say how disappointed I was in this event.
While, in no way do I way want to slight any artist who had their work shown I do have to question the Glover selection committee.
In their own promotion of this event they say it is “Australia’s most prestigious landscape art award “.
If this is true why then was 95 per cent of the exhibition either abstract, digital or political, that didn’t resemble landscapes in anyway. The Glover committee can’t have it both ways, they use the name and images of an extraordinary talented landscape artist in John Glover to promote this exhibition and yet it now no longer resembles a landscape painting exhibit.
In order to stop misleading the public any longer, the Glover committee should remove any further reference to John Glover and landscapes, and rename this event the “Evandale art show”.
R.Linnett, Launceston.
Outages
IN RECENT weeks we have experienced disruptions from AURORA and the NBN.
With Aurora the problem arose from storm damage.
For information I rang the advertised number, followed the prompts, keyed in my postcode and the relevant information was provided and proved to be correct. The NBN, not so.
I learnt from the morning news the there were problems with the network. Again I rang the advertised number and was advised to check their website (not possible). I was eventually put through to a call centre.
I told them there was a problem in Tasmania, could they provide details.
Eventually the young woman suggested I turn off the modem for two minutes, switch it back on and it will reboot, I said that I had already done that ( I’ve been through this before) again it failed to function.
Twenty minutes later and many stupid suggestions and questions, I was told there maybe a problem in Tasmania.
I had already told her that. NBN, upgrade your fault reporting process, one that is local, functions efficiently, preferably with operators that are readily understood.
