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THE Coalition and state Liberal governments brag about the thousands of jobs they have created over the past few years.
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How many new jobs have been created for the unemployed and unskilled. How many new jobs are taken up by the already employed?
A lot of jobs advertised these days you have to be qualified have experience, plus be multi-skilled.
There are a lot of young and older unemployed that are unskilled.
When are the politicians going to understand that jobs are not out there for the unskilled unemployed?
Even the Prime Minister would find it hard to be employed as a cleaner at a nursing home.
All the thousands of jobs that have been created why do we still have unemployment.
Figures do not add up. Even the unemployment rate does not add up.
K. Nunn, Newnham.
Football
J.D.ORCHARD laments the decline of football in Tasmania (The Examiner, March 15). I feel the time has come, for us all, to appeal for some divine intervention.
I suggest we start by offering sacrifices to our own Tasmanian god of football, Darrell Baldock, at his “shrine”, at Latrobe.
I suggest monthly supplications, at full moon, of drink offerings, (beer), food offerings (pies), and mass communal worship of the Sherrin.
We could parade effigies of Him, with burning incense, vestal virgins and rose petals, before every game (twice before Hawthorn play).
We could even introduce another public holiday (holy day), in His honour.
I welcome any other sensible suggestions, as to how we may appease him, and return our football games, once again, to their rightful prominence in our weekly worship.
I do however draw the line at sacrificing chooks at the start of the season and absolutely rule out sacrificing losing coaches on AFL grand final day.
Peter Carroll, East Devonport.
State Election
I AM writing in an ‘a-political’ manner to respond to the critical analysis being applied to the results by the unsuccessful parties.
I note that in general, the respective leaders and representatives appear to be avoiding scrutiny and analysis of their respective losses by using bitter and twisted language, even to the point of insulting the very citizens that they purport to seek to represent.
If I may suggest that the decline in the respective votes to both the Labor and Greens’ parties is not necessarily due to the now commonly used excuse that these parties were outspent.
It is both demeaning and insulting to the electorate to witness the gratuitously intolerant and petty language used by the Greens senator, Nick McKim on election night and the lack of grace shown by the Labor leader Rebecca White in her concession speech.
The condescending proposal to phase out the pokies would appear to have been erroneously based on a vocal minority, rather than the majority - the results clearly support such an argument.
The Greens appears to have lost its reason for being without a fight concerning some sort of environmental degradation needing warriors to save it, despite the attempts to escalate the fish-farming concerns through the media over the past months.
No doubt there will be some issue discovered prior to the next election.
I would suggest the result be accepted with some grace and acceptance that the policies of the losing parties were not accepted by the electorate and that we, the electorate, are not mugs that can be bought with slogans or advertising.
Please show us some respect and move on to develop relevant policies to the majority and not single-issue fanatics.
Tim Baker, East Launceston.
Parliament size
IN RESPONSE to a letter from Bruce Lindsay, commenting on my opinion piece of February 26, 2018, the cost of parliament actually increased substantially in the years following the reduction in numbers.
There were no lasting savings, because expenditure on bureaucrats and unelected political staff ballooned to offset the shortfall in parliamentary oversight of taxpayers money.
Over many years there has been over-spending on the recurrent expenditure required to run the bureaucracy.
Mr Lindsay supports an action in 1998 that actually reduced community access to parliament because of fewer MPs to act on behalf of the community.
A minimal critical mass is necessary to run a state government.
There must be an adequate number of competent, elected representatives to oversee large, complicated departments, as well as a sufficient membership to service the needs of the constituencies.
In the Lower House, ministers are overworked. In a 25-seat House of Assembly, where governments usually have 15 members or less, filling ministerial positions exhausts almost all the government membership, leaving little or no reserve for committee activity, constituency service, or to cope with ministerial changes.
Supporters of the smaller parliament can’t have it both ways.
They can’t complain about poor ministerial decision-making while at the same time supporting a system that cobbles together ministries with minimal access to talent.
Greg Hall, MLC Legislative Council.
US Tariff exemption
WITH Napoleonic negotiations by Prime Minister Turnbull, a tariff exemption extracted from the latest “self-manufactured” crisis by the Trump administration re: steel and aluminium, history may reveal a future paradigm where Australian military lives may be sacrificed at the behest of presidential self-indulgence and hedonism for disputed domestic populism?
Is this short-term tariff exemption, a predecessor for yet another Australian obligated, appeasement for allied United States military aggression?