Launceston running race
WHY ARE running races held in the city?
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It is chaotic for traffic when roads are closed and every street you drive down is a dead end and you end up going in circles.
And that's after you spend 10 minutes lined up with all the other vehicles on that one major street, waiting to get through too many light changes.
On June 3 for the Tasmanian Running Festival, I spent 45 minutes with my children in the car going around in very slow circles trying to find a way back to Riverside.
When I finally thought I had found a way (along with many other cars) it turns out it was another dead end near McDonalds at Invermay.
Many drivers doing a U-turn in the middle of the road, many shaking their heads with frustration.
One rude girl said to me "it's not hard" but little does this ignorant young lady know of what I had just been through trying to get home? I wasn't happy with her comment.
I am all for the running race and fitness, I love community events, but the city is not the place for it and needs to be moved to where traffic is not going to be massively congested. Even an ambulance had trouble getting through at one point.
Another thing the girl said was that "it's broadcast on the radio" but I don't listen so that's no help to me. Please consider moving the event.
M. Morrison, Riverside.
World Diplomacy
WORLD diplomacy has established engagement and dialogue as being the best way to deal with rogue, breakaway and separatist groups.
Isolationism, discrimination and vilification never work and simply push movements underground and inevitably result in a violent backlash.
And yet confrontation, isolation and vilification is exactly the method the Queensland government takes with bikie groups as is proposed for Tasmania.
The Queensland government made meeting, the wearing of certain apparel and even mateship, that which the likes of Bob Hawke, Malcolm Turnbull and other luminaries say is what makes us Australian, is made illegal for bikies.
In a raid, which was legal only for bikers, Queensland Police raided a workshop and seized a number of items which are only illegal for bikers and no one else.
Bikers were arrested for simply being together, echoing Nazi Germany’s laws against Jewish gatherings.
Such unconscionable behaviour should not be tolerated in this country. An identical ‘men’s shed’ meeting would have been legal and unraidable.
Robert Karl Stonjek, Kings Meadows.
Women’s representation
IN HIS letter to the editor (The Examiner, June 1) Senator Jonathon Duniam claims real progress is being made with regards to female representation.
The article in question by Rob Inglis was about the Federal Liberals in Tasmania, and the numbers tell the story. Out of 11 Liberal candidates in 2016 there was one female candidate.
In the federal parliament there is a stark contrast, and this is reflective at a policy level. In a week where Labor put forward a policy to remove GST from women’s sanitary products, a member of the Liberal government unfortunately complained that GST should be removed from super yacht charters.
While it is unlikely that change to the GST will see the light of day under the Liberals, under the Liberals’ new Private Health Insurance Legislation, breast cancer treatment could require the highest level of insurance coverage while prostate cancer treatment the lowest.
I’m proud to be part of a Labor team that actively promotes women to the highest levels of government, we make real progress happen, not pay lip service to it.
Ross Hart, Bass Labor MHR.
Gravy train
Tasmanian politicians are entitled to claim expenses for travel, cars, office administration and various other so called entitlements, yet the gravy train seems to be rolling on.
The recent Examiner story stating Liberal Senator David Bushby claimed $18,000 for domestic travel in the first three months of this year (averaging over $1100 a week) and Labor Senator Lisa Singh not far behind with an average of just over $1000 per week for the same period tells that at least for some politicians there is no sign of it slowing down - much to the detriment of the states coffers.
Robert Lee, Summerhill
Selling Churches
WHO is going to buy a church?
Some will almost have to be given away.
The former church at Waratah is held up as an example, now a museum, but it is the exception rather the rule.
St George's Invermay is now Chinese Methodist, but most churches are not really suited to anything new.
The restaurant for the former Presbyterian Church at Campbell Town ran into real problems.
I would not like to live in a converted church surrounded by a graveyard.
A winery, a dance hall, social centre and a market are about the only other uses I can think of.
Malcolm Scott Newstead.
Sheep
With sheep contributing to a sensational amount of greenhouse gas each year it is great a country with a greater sheep population than humans has taken the initiative to make sheeps fart and burp less.
New Zealand scientist have created this new type of sheep in an attempt to lower harmful methane emissions.
Australia could jump on board and start a new species of cow. If only the CSIRO had more scientists… maybe the government could reinstate those who lost their jobs not so long ago?
Initiatives like these are helping save the planet. May there be many more.
Collin G. Wood, Newstead