Super Gender Gap
SENATOR Helen Polley's opinion piece (The Examiner, July 3) was well researched.
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Probably workable solutions, that is to abolish $450 threshold, increase mandatory contributions. When Senator Polley uses the word enduring to describe women earning less pay, I hope she isn't slipping in a coded meaning implying that it is simply gratingly unfair. Yes it can be sexist and unfair.
And there is now abundant evidence demonstrating that there are many more variables leading to this gap, and they have to do with choices, not male domination.
Not my opinion, social science research.
And, something not often pointed out in this sort of discussion, specifically relating to a male/female pattern of family life that is father/mother/child. Whoever earns the super does not independently own it.
A very usual pattern, based on average age of death goes like this: long relationship, he dies, she gets the whole super.
And for divorce in long term-relationships, all super is in the kitty for division under family law rules of equal inputs.
David Hunnerup, Launceston.
War and hindsight
SO many precious hours as a child I sat listening to mum's parents Elsie and DIck reminisce about family and friends, two world wars and the hardships they faced back in Mother England.
As a teenager, nan worked in service as a between maid. At 18, she met my grandfather (a farmer) at a dance and it was love at first sight. Mum was born in 1935 and her brother Tony on Friday the 13th during an air raid, a few years later. Uncle Tony, still the kindest person I've ever known.
In 1949 Elsie and Dick came to Tasmania, with Mum and Tony as the hardships of post-war England continued to take their toll. I came along in June of 1961, less than 20 years after WWII and between Korea and Vietnam, so sadly among the reminiscing came the prejudices of war. The "bloody Germans", "Reds under the beds" etc.
With the recent 2019 re-election of the 1940-60s Menzies/Morrison government, to compare the only tortures recognisable to 1940s to '60s Australia, for example German Stalag - Chinese water torture etc, to some way describe the whole truth of the archaic British tortures we Australians continue to endure is so unfair, as the uniquely British-Australian forms of torture are arguably more brutal than those of any other country in the world.
I will forever hold dear the beauty that exists within the British soul, but I will fight to my last breath against the British Australian Christian regime that continues to create such torture within our beloved.
Aboriginal multicultural Australia.
Deb Johnston-Andrews, Newnham.
Senator Jacqui Lambie
I WAS pleased to see you returned to the Senate but bitterly disappointed at your support of the Liberals' tax bill in exchange for a maybe deal on Tasmania's housing debt.
They're keeping quiet about it, you seem to be keeping quiet about it and we are left as the mugs. This is not unfamiliar territory.
I'd like to believe I'm wrong but somehow the infection has spread through both houses and it would seem you're no different to the others. You've lost my vote as you seem to be cut from the same cloth as the others - deeply disappointing.
Peter O'Malley, Fingal.
Drug, Alcohol Rehab
GOOD to hear of the impending establishment of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre in the South. But why isn't consideration being given to the North and North-West? The problem is not only a Southern problem but unfortunately statewide.
Trevor Stewart, Newnham.
Forces of Fear
CIVIL Liberties Australia director Richard Griggs and Australian Lawyers Alliance Tasmanian president Fabiano Cangelosi (The Examiner, July 2) are correct in pointing out how Tasmania police are acting as a force of fear.
Not as a service to help protect our community, but in their own words, as a weapon of intimidation and a law unto themselves.
If Mr Griggs is right in saying the lockdowns are in fact illegal, then it is the latest in a long list of examples where law enforcement has done the wrong thing and tried to get away with it.
How can we feel safe when the people we are supposed to trust act so untrustworthy?
Davis Seecamp, Trevallyn.
Cultural Divide
MY heart is breaking for my palawa people. For so long, we have had the government dictate our lives, and now they're trying to take control over decades of work done by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre to revive our language under palawa kani.
Instead of commemorating the hard work and dedication, the government has created a community divide to undermine the hard work of true grassroots people.
Instead encouraging cultural theft and praising bullying tactics. I fear we will never have true self determination because whatever achievements we make are stripped away from us. I mourn for my ancestors who have died fighting for the rights of my people, for the government to continue to try and make it all in vain.
Bianca Templar, Mayfield.
Humble Australians
WHAT a great article Jo Palmer wrote in (The Sunday Examiner, June 30) about two beautiful humble human beings, Ash Barty and Sam Kerr. Let's hope their success and humility rubs off on the not so humble ones.
Edward Larsen, Kings Meadows.
Hawke's House
DIDN'T Bob Hawke receive a pension of about $400,000 per year? Wouldn't it be a much better idea for his estate instead of the hapless taxpayer to spend the $700,000 renovating his old house on a homeless or sex assault shelter and name it after him?