Letters to the editor | August 28, 2019

Throughout the history of cricket, there have been plenty of fast bowlers who used the short delivery/bouncer as part of their armoury.

Fred Spofforth, Harold Larwood, Fred Trueman, Wes Hall, Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thomson, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts and Brett Lee are just a few quickies that hurried up the very best of batsmen down the ages.

It's up to the batsmen facing these fast bowlers to use their skill and technique to both score runs and avoid being struck.

The emergence of helmets, sundry neck guards and other protective equipment is available to be utilised.

IT was with great bemusement, mixed with some bewilderment when I read Richard Hill's letter (The Examiner, August 21) accusing debutant English fast bowler Jofra Archer of using bodyline tactics.

I wonder where Mr Hill has been as Archer's tactics are not only legal and within the spirit of the game but a far cry from when Australian fast bowlers Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee were striking fear, and often the batsmen, during their heyday in the mid-1970s.

Such was the ferocity of their attack West Indian captain Clive Lloyd vowed to comb the Caribbean to find bowlers of the same pace and quality.

And he did and the West Indies pace quartet was so dangerously effective over two decades that the rules were changed to allow only two short-pitched deliveries per batsman per over.

In more recent times Australian bowlers Mitchell Johnson and Mitchell Starc used bouncers to terrorise the English.

It isn't bodyline; it is simply Test cricket.

THE selling of Nazi memorabilia at a Launceston auction house must not go without comment.

Here is a potent hypothetical to consider:

Imagine if you were on the train platform in WWII where Nazi occupiers were transporting Jews to concentration camps to be gassed, could you justify to the people you saw, that 75 years or so on items associated to The Third Reich would be sold for profit?

They say time heals all wounds; I'm telling you now, not this one.

NOW that this no-policy government has settled into its no-direction leather seats in Canberra, they have done their threat analysis and decided to attack any source of criticism.

The Morrison Government is hellbent on silencing its critics, be it journalists, whistleblowers or everyday people who are just trying to participate in our democratic process.

They are lashing out at everyone from journalists trying to do their doing to school children who care about the future of their planet.

They are criminalising journalism, threatening to lock up whistleblowers, and now it's launching attacks on everyday people who speak up on issues they care about.

When Scott Morrison attacks GetUp, he doesn't understand he's attacking grandparents, nurses, students and people from all walks of life, all across the country, having conversations with neighbours about issues like climate change, human rights and building an economy that means nobody is forced to live in poverty.

Got to have a budget surplus before we help the most desperate in our society on the Newstart pittance. Every single one of us has a right to know and to speak up.

Democracy is for everyone. Mr Morrison needs to get used to that.

IS it desirable to facilitate the growth of religious entities by favoured taxation status, government handouts and exemptions from some anti-discrimination laws? If there isn't a God or Gods, then government policy and largesse may be promoting delusional ideas.

There might be less terrorism and less conflict attributable to religious differences if religions faded away.

HERE is a suggestion to reduce traffic within the Invermay area.

Ban Toll and all the other car carriers from entering Landale and Holbrook streets.

These streets were not designed for the size and weight of these huge trucks, nor their noise at all hours of the day and night.

MADELEINE Ogilvie should bear in mind that her only success in elections for the Tasmanian parliament has been as Labor candidate, and without the party's endorsement her political career would never have eventuated.

Her lack of success as an independent candidate for the Legislative Council tends to underscore that point.

If she is successful and refuses to sit as a Labor member, such would amount to the theft of a seat and go against people's verdict at the 2018 state election.