Climate Protesters
"WE can't agree to good behaviour," XR protesters tell court (The Examiner, November 27). Thank you for your article covering the Extinction Rebellion court case. As an arrestee, there is just one thing I wanted to clear up in relation to the article.
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We do actually all guarantee good behaviour. We care about you and your children and we will not give up trying to do what we can to reduce man-made climate change. We believe this is good behaviour. As a child, I believed I could do my bit and the adults would work hard to fix this problem.
I did my best and waited. Now I am one of the adults and I don't want to leave the kids after me waiting. They need us to act now. We are at the beginning of the sixth mass extinction.
This is an emergency and we are on your side.
Whether or not our behaviour fits within legal bounds for the next year is yet to be seen, but we strongly believe, and have made clear to the courts that protesting climate change is good behaviour and we have promised to be good for at least the next year.
Wendy Miller, East Launceston.
In defence of bikies
ANTHONY Hanaveer's piece on bikies (The Examiner, November 30) was misleading. Is the public to believe that all patch-wearing members of motorcycle clubs are criminals or associated with criminals. The ban on the insignia of five Tasmanian motorcycle clubs is not the end of the Australia wide anti motorcycle campaign.
More organisations, some have nothing to do with motorcycles, can be named. Linking patch clubs to Nazis then saying they "are not comparable to the Nazis" was low propaganda indeed.
Telling readers that "raising funds for sick kids doesn't change reality" a week before the Tasmanian toy run was despicable. Toy runs are run by unpaid volunteers who are law abiding citizens who choose to ride motorcycles.
What Hanaveer left out is significant. He did not list convictions of patch club members under existing laws, perhaps because those laws are under-enforced.
Damien Codognotto, Howrah.
Ready to listen
IT is pleasing to see that Minister Elise Archer is soon to be sojourning to Westbury to personally consult with our community. I hope that her listening ears won't be ready to rebut and justify, but ready to listen to understand and respond.
As a dyed-in-the wool, baptised-at-birth Liberal voter I feel hopeful Come election day I may not change my spots after all.
The overwhelming lack of local support for the state government's preferred site for the Northern prison will surely deem it unsuitable as per their expression of interest criteria.
I hope that at the next election there will be some fresh faces on the Liberal Lyons how-to-vote card. The current Lyons Liberal guys appear to be empty shells who are tuckered out.
A Lillico, Westbury.
Guilt by association
ANTHONY Haneveer (The Examiner, November 30) shows just why the bikies have been unfairly treated.
He mentions crimes such as gang wars all of which took place outside Tasmania and between gangs that are not resident here. Are all bikies bad because of what unrelated gangs do in other cities?
Guilt by association? Police officers Jamie Flanagan and Kumanjayi Walker face murder charges, Northern Territory's Zachary Rolfe and NSW's Roger Rogerson were convicted of murder. What does this tell us about Tasmanian Police?
Nothing whatsoever. Guilt by association doesn't work. Haneveer expresses discrimination, pure and simple, against a culture he doesn't like.
He offers no evidence or examples of wrongdoing by any Tasmanian based club and suggested that we should clamp down on them in case they are secretly like some of the worst mainland examples but offered no supporting evidence.
Against this we have 50-plus years of peaceful coexistence with Tasmanian bikies.
Robert Karl Stonjek, Kings Meadows.
Gender questioning
WHAT on earth is this world coming to? I know I am playing an old harp here with all this political correctness regarding the new rules re gender questioning.
But my daughter with a five-year-old son at preschool was actually asked if the child care workers could call him a boy.
She asked why? Because he is a little boy. They answered that they do not wish to get into trouble by mis-genderering him. Is there even such a word invented?
I feel really sorry for their work/love and dedication to the beautiful children that they are caring for. Their job has now become so much harder and for what reason?
Felicity O'Neill, Westbury.
Burial and Cremation Act
I'D like to say a huge thank you to the Tasmanian Government for listening to the concerns of people such as myself in your passing of the Burial and Cremation Act amendments this week.
Changes made to this act in December last year were making our family's attempts to sell our precious converted church (and cemetery) incredibly difficult, causing enormous stress as our family needed to relocate to the other end of the state.
Now, due to the recent amendments passing through Parliament, we can proceed and sell to the lovely couple who have fallen in love with our home.
Just a reminder to everyone to put your voice out there about anything and everything. Call your local politician about your concerns, it's what they are there for.
Lucy Poulton, Bracknell.
