READ MORE: Labor candidate resigns over 'inappropriate' texts

THANK YOU for the lovely picture of the endangered forty-spotted pardalote (The Examiner, April 05).

Of course we need housing developments, but I deplore the very idea of encroaching on the habitat of this rare and very special bird.

IN OTHER NEWS:

The measures proposed by Communities Tasmania to protect the habitat of the bird should be adopted immediately and every effort made to ensure that any housing development does not encroach on or impact this, "one of the last-known colonies of forty-spotted pardalotes in mainland Tasmania." Australia has one of the highest extinction rates in the world. We should take every conceivable measure not to continue the trend.

THE Willis Street Car Park will close permanently from April 11 (The Examiner, April 6).

This area is already congested and to lose a further 165 spaces is ludicrous.

Where on earth does the City of Launceston council imagine that future users of the Albert Hall, City Park and Harvest Market will park?

INDIGENOUS affairs, violence against women, aged care, NDIS, family law, return of Australians stranded overseas, prison reform, inhumanity to refugees, poverty v increasing wealth, rising mental health problems.

This is only the shortlist.

Each of these takes the media by storm for a short time.

The government declares something should be done, orders reports and/or royal commissions, and looks keenly interested.

They even attempt to give the impression they know what they are talking about.

Another issue hits the headlines and takes centre stage.

Morrison et al play politics with it, dither around the edges, all the time waffling on about how terrible it all is.

Then, as usual, absolutely nothing is done.

Remember they have had years to fix at least one of the above.

So how on earth can this incompetent lot possibly deal effectively and decisively with climate change - the biggest existential threat to us all?

Mother Nature is only beginning to kick back against the treatment of this once beautiful planet. Even without scientific evidence, the signs are all there that we are in for one hell of a ride.

Given his track record can Prime Minister Scott Morrison save us?

LABOR leader Rebecca White must be distressed at the level of disunity within the party which she will lead to the state election. First, there is the pre-selection debacle that has required federal intervention and now there is the criticism of policy by a candidate in the Southern seat of Franklin.

How can voters be confident in a party that requires federal intervention to settle local, factional disputes?

Whatever the outcome of the election, it seems Ms White is on borrowed time as leader as she has challenged and embarrassed the union-based left wing of the party and eventually will be made to pay for that.

It seems the boys club is alive and well in the Tasmanian Labor Party.

PREMIER Peter Gutwein must think Tasmanian voters are fools or suckers, with the new health policy cash splash.

Over their seven years in power, the Liberals have presided over a health system in perpetual crisis, with daily reports of ambulance ramping at the public hospitals, emergency calls unanswered and people dying as a consequence. Doctors and nurses are working double shifts and suffering burnout from long hours of stress. Yet, now in the heat of an election campaign, we have the promise of money to burn. Where was this money when people were dying for lack of beds and treatment in hospitals?

Cynicism abounds.

LIKE a feral cat fleeing from a raucous family of outraged native hens, the Liberals are running scared of mention of the proposed Northern Prison. The government does not want waves from the mismanagement of this extremely expensive, unjustified, and unpopular project to spread across other electorates. Its 10-year cost is now $3-4 billion dollars. This figure will undoubtedly rise. A fraction of this, spent on proper rehabilitation and preventative measures, would solve our shamefully high recidivism.

The government does not appear to have the guts to prioritise logical humane policies across mental health, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, homelessness, poor literacy, problem gambling, etc. A good government would lead and support the community to solve these problems. This second maximum-security prison at Westbury will only exacerbate them, and the government will be building a hundred-year monument to its own very bad government.