The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), relying on the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 to be an effective enforcement agency of unconscionable conduct and false advertising as examples, must recommend to government to legislate against the excessive profiteering activities of the resale website as it currently exists.

THIS year marks the 140th anniversary of the Stringybark Creek police murders, and in December Victorian Chief Commissioner of Police Graham Ashton, and descendants of the murdered policemen, will gather at Stringybark Creek to dedicate the site as a police memorial.

Finally, changing the narrative from worshipping thieves and murderers, to the policemen who were murdered doing their duty.

Ned Kelly claims he acted in self-defence, ambushing and murdering three policemen and holding a fourth hostage.

Constables Thomas Lonigan and Michael Scanlan were gunned down without a gun in their hand.

Sergeant Michael Kennedy was pursued through the bush for a quarter of a mile and interrogated for two hours, before Ned killed him with a shotgun blast to the chest.

Constable Thomas McIntyre managed to escape the carnage and raised the alarm.

Finally, Ned Kelly – a thief, bank robber and murderer – will no longer be the focus of the Stringybark Creek Remembrance.

Like today, we shouldn’t idealise the likes of Lawrence, “Chopper” or Cousins, but honourable individuals like Elizabeth Blackburn, Richard Harris, Anita Heiss and Peter Sculthorpe, as we have much more to learn from them.

TASMANIA has many very special places to visit and appreciate.

Wilderness areas hold much for the heart and soul.

To fully appreciate these areas, one must engage with the environment.

In order to achieve this grace, one must spend the time walking through, and engaging with, the environment.

The practice of walking into these special areas with provisions on your back serves to condition you to the majesty of the experience.

The proposal to airlift “patrons” into our precious areas is a result of a government who does not understand the value of our natural heritage.

THE lodge and helicopter rides will not benefit the old or infirmed.

It is designed for the well heeled overseas tourist, and will only benefit the operators.

WHAT is the thought process of the changing of birth certificates to show male or female? For hundreds of years genders have been inscribed on certificates.

Ten per cent of the voting population vote Green and, yet, with Labor they go hand-in-hand in changing the other 90 per cent of voters’ rights.

Transforming Tasmania group are also a miniscule part of the weird voting populous, and yet get interviews and media coverage for their weird (and they think wonderful) policies every second day. Transforming Tasmania is opening up a state to be ridiculed, instead of a state to be proud of.

ONE can only express astonishment over the manner in which the proposed transgender legislation has been rushed through the lower house. I refer not especially to the content, problematic as it may be for some, but rather to the arrogant assumption of a handful of self-centred politicians who believe they have the unassailable right to speak on behalf of all Tasmanians on an issue such as this. They have no such right.

It is to be hoped the true independents in the upper house will have the foresight and the wisdom to defer decision making on this matter until the lower house affords the electorate the common courtesy of broader consultation, advice and information relating to the desirability and validity of such legislation and to advance adequate evidence that an act such as this will not impinge on the rights of a child to choose how they wish to conduct their evolving lives.

WHILE the example being debated is surrounding birth certificate reform, it represents a much larger picture of equality, which which was shown to have the majority support amongst Tasmanians during the same-sex marriage debate last year.

Permitting same-sex marriage has had negligible impact on anyone in the community, other than those it is intended to benefit, in the same way that these proposed changes are only set to provide opportunities to those who have too-long been discriminated against.

You need only look at comments being shared online and through the media to see the lack of understanding around minority groups, and the sooner these amendments are passed the sooner we, as a community, can provide what most take for granted: the chance to live life without fear of prejudice.