UTAS intentions
Media reports continue to indicate the intention of the University of Tasmania to further expand their interests into city centres in Launceston and Hobart.
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Many will regard this activity with serious concern.
Furthermore, this expansion is based upon the premise that although substantially dedicated campuses already exist in Newnham and Sandy Bay, it will be cheaper to rebuild on a new site rather than progressively update on the old.
Is this concept based upon sound economics?
The existing campuses are not new, but neither are many prestigious examples including Oxford and Harvard.
One also questions the unsubstantiated claims that this centralisation will result in financial bonanzas for the inner city businesses.
What does seem certain is that certain basic infrastructures such as parking areas, affordable accommodation and leisure spaces such as parks and gardens, will be severely impacted.
One may further question the key role of universities in the community.
Their cardinal responsibility is to provide quality affordable education to their students.
Current trends indicate that investment in land and buildings has distracted this public utility, which seems more intent in operating as a business than in meeting its educational imperatives.
The trend to cost cutting of face to face lectures and of laboratory and project work is already well underway for many of the more expensive programs.
This has been accomplished by excising subjects and by increasing the online component in targeted undergraduate degrees.
This practice does not serve the students or the community well.
The movement of UTAS away from its core responsibilities represents, in my opinion, a very dangerous trend and one that should be questioned by all thinking citizens.
Denis Lisson, Launceston.
Self-funded retirees
The so-called self-funded retirees and their respective lobby groups appear to assume to have a god-given right that their income should be subsidised by the ordinary taxpayer.
The amount some of them appear to lose once the measure is abandoned quite clearly shows what a terrible burden they are on the public purse.
There is no other group within our society that is given large amounts of income support without ever having to pay tax on it and there is no other comparable country in the world that has such an incomprehensible scheme for a select group that doesn't actually need it for their survival.
Just think what positive things could be done with that money if it wasn't thrown out of the window.
There could be a positive investment in renewable energy to put us on track of our Paris commitments, which the government claims unashamedly to be meeting, despite all the facts showing otherwise.
There could be a real plan to save our precious Murray Darling system as well as the Great Barrier Reef.
Since when has the interest of a few in our country be prioritised to the detriment of the majority as well as the environment and its just survival?
Ute Mueller, Lapoinya.
Pyne and border policy
Interviewed by Barry Cassidy on ABC TV, Christopher Pyne claimed that if humanitarian refugee medical evacuations were permitted from Nauru and Manus Island almost all of them would be allowed to come to Australia indicating the very poor health and sanitary conditions in which the refugees are held.
Pyne said that Australia’s tough treatment of desperate refugees works and that is all that matters; humane treatment of refugees would weaken Australian border policy.
Despotic regimes and criminals throughout history have embraced the philosophy that the end justifies the means.
Crime was never lower than under the Taliban in Afghanistan, kangaroo courts and public hangings worked.
Shouldn’t we have applauded their success?
Nazi Germany wiped out crime and cleared the country of the disabled, by executing them.
The Trains ran on time.
Morality comes at a price. Are we really so morally bankrupt that we are unable or unwilling to pay the price of common decency and basic humanity?
Robert Stonjek, Kings Meadows.
Dog Attacks
I am aware of seven dog attack incidents originating from one household. But only one was reported to the local council.
Consequently, when discussing the past events with the council dog catcher, a disparity resulted between what we knew and what the council computer said.
So, if readers experience dog attacks on people, other dogs or cats, please report the event to your relevant council so that they can accumulate more complete history on the dog.
Without this knowledge, the council is limited in what they can do to deal with a dangerous dog.