Letters to the editor | March 2, 2019

From my six years on the World Heritage Area Consultative Council to 2012, I was distressed that important principles relating to wilderness values appeared to be disregarded in the earlier government decision.

The proponent Daniel Hackett referred to "wilderness and huts as being a non-sequitur".

However, to compare a small hut built in 1955 with the massive footprint of the helipad, standing camp etc covering almost half of the island is disingenuous bordering on deceptive.

As I understand it, the National Parks and Wildlife Advisory Council, (replacing WHACC ) advising both state and federal government assessment of wilderness and World Heritage values, recommended against the approval yet somehow the proposal was fast-tracked.

This proposed development contrasts with the wonderfully conceived and designed Thousand Lakes Lodge at Lake Augusta, which was voted by Lonely Planet in October 2017 as one of the three best wilderness retreats in the world.

Thousand Lakes Lodge is a World Heritage Area development of which its owners and employees can be justly proud.

Hackett has previously operated acceptable fishing tours at the south end of Lake Ina.

However to move the operation into the core of the WHA wilderness would threaten water quality, nearby significant Aboriginal art sites and the wonderful relict rainforest on the island.

The noisy helicopter over-flights would also severely compromise the peace of other people visiting this beautiful wilderness.

Pursuance of the proposal would have represented the first major travesty in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area’s 36-year history.

In response to Kieran Brown (The Examiner, February 9), the real solution to dog problems is not to impose the leash everywhere but to encourage/force dog owners to take responsibility for their dogs and train them. Not to do tricks, but to behave properly, to teach them manners in the same way you would children.

I have two dogs and they are fully trained (they don’t jump, don’t rush other animals or people, respond to recall, and don’t bark for no reason), yet they do not enjoy the same freedom as a lot of untrained dogs. 

We avoid off-leash parks at peak times for fear of being jumped on. We are effectively bullied out of those places because people don’t take responsibility and control their dogs. We avoid other dogs on-leashes also as many people do not know how to control their dogs on-leash either. Trained dogs are happier and safer. They are a pleasure to be around whether you are a dog lover or not. 

Instead of laws imposing the leash, I would rather laws that make it illegal for dogs to rush at others, for example. And if the dogs can’t be controlled off-leash effectively, then they must remain tethered.

Another issue, of course, is that a lot of training methods do not properly equip those who do try to educate their dogs, but that’s another problem. It would make a huge difference if people were more aware, accepted responsibility and respected other people or dogs’ personal space.

THE comments by Labor’s member for Lyons are scurrilous and misleading (The Examiner, February 19). Being a self-funded retiree myself my shares are well short of $1 million let alone the millions he implies. But more importantly, he refers to the refund of dividend imputation credits as a government hand out. It is not.

The Australian Tax Office collects company tax at the company tax rate, and this incidentally is at two levels being slightly lower for small business than large companies.

If an investor’s marginal tax rate is lower than the company tax rate then he, or she, will receive a tax refund from the ATO.

If the investor’s marginal tax rate is higher then the share investor pays more.

It is not a free government handout.

It is double taxation. Now a company chief executive and or its directors can be prosecuted for making a false and misleading statement and in extreme cases can be jailed. Maybe Brian Mitchell should put up a private members bill to this effect.

He’s lost my vote.

I AM not a Catholic, but a traditional Anglican and conservative, but, the Catholic Church needs another Pope John XXIII who breathed new life into a decaying church.

I was blessed by him in Rome in 1962.

Saying about paedophilia in the church that Satan is responsible for it, is just nonsense. The Catholic Church needs to abolish compulsory celibacy for priests, it was only introduced in 1139, ordain married men as priests and introduce women into the Diaconate. The confessional should be used only for grave sin and replaced by the General Confession or Third Rite. I am saying what needed to be proclaimed after that rather pointless conference in Rome on the cancer that is killing the church paedophilia.