River Eyesore
MIKE Oakley (The Examiner, October 31) says our rivers an eyesore, the old adage “one man’s rubbish is another’s treasure”, comes to mind. These “eyesores” are excellent photography opportunities and also gives one an interesting insight into the river’s history. What would you prefer Mr Oakley, more of the sterile display, similar to the Launceston Mall?
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Richard Cooke, Invermay.
Advertisements
CHANNEL Seven and Channel Nine are lobbying the government to increase the amount of ads they’re allowed to show you and currently by Australian law the networks cannot broadcast more than 15 minutes of ads every hour, but they do up to 28 minutes by such shows as The Voice to name but one.
Seven and Nine want to increase this to 20 minutes. Which means one in every three minutes on commercial TV would be spent schilling adverts, and the network’s never-ending line-up of reality fare, mostly crud much of which are actually ads in themselves.
If the networks are successful in their bid, which would require the approval of federal Communications Minister, then Australia would have the highest ratio of ads to content of any Western country.
What surprises this writer is that they are “breaking the law” at present and the powers that be are doing nothing to stop them. Why? The UK is limited to 12 minutes per hour while American TV hour-long programs are allowed 15/17 minutes an hour.
Don Davey, Launceston
Cricket Sanctions
SUDDENLY, it is more important to win games and keep the sponsors and the media onside, than to be seen to be to be remorseful about cheating. Offenders in other enterprises have longer sanctions automatically imposed by world controlling bodies.
For instance, cheats at the Olympics anticipate two years plus, horse or harness racing are in the worst cases warned off for life. In addition, all three agreed that the penalties were fair (Smith and Bancroft with transparent remorse, Warner by his body language, not so).
It could be said that riding out the penalties would be preferable to the sledging that will be forthcoming if these are reduced.
South Africa may agree to be gentlemanly in this regard, but it can be safely wagered that the Barmy Army wont miss them. The attack they would endure from this band will be ferocious and could conceivably shorten careers, so maybe the extra five and three months may be the lesser of the evils.
D Palmer, Newnham.
Star Theatre
LAUNCESTON your beauty is enhancde with the presence of the Star Theatre. On The Star’s screen I was thrilled among many other scences, with the wonders of the outstanding Bavarian Alps, etc. I have seen The Sound of Music many times.
Never before has it touched every nerve of my body, as that I experienced, as I watched it on the large screen in the Star Theatre. Over the past 50-odd years, I have seen this film on a theatre screen, on television and off tapes, etc, but the full orchestra sounds throughout the film filled every space of the Star Theatre.
The acoustics are phenomenal. Guy Crick, the architect knew what he was doing when he designed our Star Theatre. Launceston, we have a treasure.
Louise Lee-Archer, Youngtown.
No plan to erase gender
There has been a great deal of misinformation about proposed reforms easing the legal burdens faced by transgender, gender diverse and intersex Tasmanians. These reforms have not been secret.
Transgender advocates have been lobbying for them for a generation, and specific amendments have been on the state government’s desk since May.
They do not need further consultation because there was a thorough-going consultation by the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commission two years ago.
They are not radical. Two other states and many other countries have already removed the law forcing transgender people to have surgery before they can change their birth certificates.
The reforms will not “erase gender”. The objective of the birth certificate amendment is to give parents greater choice when it comes to if and how they identify the gender of their baby, as opposed to the current situation where the government tells everyone what to do.
In essence, these reforms reduce government interference in the lives of everyday Tasmanians, so I don’t understand why Liberals aren't jumping at the chance to support them. Whenever a stigmatised minority asks for equal treatment there will be those who spread misinformation and stir up fear for their own tawdry political purposes.
It happened when we decriminalised homosexuality and when we voted for same-sex marriage. But the sky didn’t fall in then and it won’t fall in now.
Instead of listening to the fear-mongering, heed the quiet voices of those transgender, gender diverse and intersex Tasmanians and their families who simply want to live their lives with greater dignity.
Rodney Croome, Equality Tasmania spokesperson.
Gender Records
IT’S a biological fact that we are born either male or female. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Tasmanian Labor Party and their cohorts the Greens would mess with gender on new born birth certificates.
If the 0.1 per cent of the population that may later in life consider themselves to not identify with the gender on their birth certificate then by all means the process to change should be made easier, but to confuse the 99.9 per cent that have no need to question their identity by having no gender recorded at birth is as Mary Bates (The Examiner, October 27) puts it, would be a disturbing society if any more credibility were given to such absurd demands.
