Letters to the editor | February 2, 2021

Most of the activities appear to be funded by the Launceston City Deal. When that program expires, where are the funds to continue the remedial work? Do we run the risk of most of the money being spent elsewhere and little on the river itself? The Tamar Estuary Management Taskforce focuses on sedimentation, and water quality is too narrow. To quote from the current exhibition "Estuary Below the Surface" at QVMAG, "Today kanamaluka/Tamar Estuary faces big challenges from climate change, population growth pollution, and invasive plant and animal species." Invasion of rice grass into Muddy Creek at Legana and at Gravelly Beach is an environmental disgrace. Efforts to control or eradicate the voracious fish pest, Gambusia sp., appear to have lapsed. This approach is in sharp contrast to the state's response to eradicating carp.

Is it selfish to try to protect your own quiet historic village from becoming a prison town? Is it selfish to care more about your own community, especially upset and worried older people, than prisoners and their families who you don't even know?

Is it selfish to care more about the eagles and devils and other endangered species whose habitat is threatened, than to care about upsetting politicians who don't even answer your emails?

If that is selfish, so be it.

It may surprise some that as a member of the LGBTIQ community, that while I oppose the granting of additional Honours to Margaret Court, I am not overly concerned with her homophobic and transphobic statements based on her religious beliefs. As a follower of a much older and more accepting tradition, I simply view them as nonsensical.

What I do find offensive is that in a year when a number of members of the indigenous community, and those who work within it, have been rightly recognised, Margaret Court's support for South Africa's odious, inhuman, racist Apartheid system has not received more attention. As far as I have been able to ascertain, she has never resiled from her statements supporting that racist regime, and as such should have never have been considered for any such Honour.

Karen Glover, Launceston.

Peter Doddy's letter about the value of the Indue Card cannot go unchallenged. The card was proposed originally as a way of assisting people with addiction issues and has been trialled in regions with indigenous issues. The problem is that the Morrison Government has signalled its intention to spread the card out to all welfare recipients across the nation, regardless of the addiction or non-addiction. Aged pensions will be included in this dragnet. Stigma will be huge.