RELEASE THE REPORT, NOW
THE report of the Tamar Estuary Management Taskforce should not be allowed to be delayed. For most Bass voters, it is the second most important consideration after health and it should be out there now.
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Enough of this prolonged procrastination - this report should be front and centre of Bass and it is to be hoped that The Examiner will not allow such an important matter to be buried in such a shameful way.
By bringing the matter on now, we surely have a chance of a better outcome.
Peter Newsom, East Launceston.
BATMAN BRIDGE NAME CHANGE
I AGREE that a Batman Bridge name change should be part of a bigger conversation and reconciliation plan. There are people in our history who are good, bad or indifferent. We should not try to change, cancel or rewrite history. The bridge was named after John Batman when built.
Everyone knows the bridge by this name.
Maybe we could erect another great monument to the local Aborigines of the area, for example, another bridge further up or down the river. John Batman, however good or bad he was, did leave a pioneer's legacy with help in founding Melbourne.
In 1835 he travelled across the Bass Strait in a small ship with 25 volunteers from Launceston and George Town to Port Phillip Bay. He made a treaty with the local Aborigines of the time to allow his sheep to graze in the area. It was a time when the government of the area had not been able to do so.
So he helped found Melbourne.
Wendy Harrap, George Town.
COMPULSORY PREFERENCING
COMPULSORY preferencing is a scam.
If an independent doesn't receive enough first preference votes, they are distributed to party candidates, despite the voters' obvious intention that they will not benefit.
This effectively invalidates those votes, and the parties are guilty of theft.
This corruption can only be avoided by a massive vote for independents. Don't support the arrogance, sense of entitlement and false promises of party politicians.
Adversarial politics is destroying the state.
We need people who are prepared to work cooperatively in a unity government.
Peter Needham, Bothwell.
SHORT-TERM GAINS
GOVERNMENT'S should be labelled criminals and should stop robbing from our future generations for short term unsustainable gains. Politicians should be jailed.
It's only a matter of time.
Anna Midson, Rosetta.
KEEPING LOCAL CHARACTER
ON a recent visit to a well-known country town I was speaking with a local identity who in retirement still works every day for the love of his community. He lamented to me, that in the rush to cater to the increasing number of travellers passing through the town, that the old and characterful was being ripped out and replaced by modern, mass produced and ubiquitous.
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Thus removing intrinsic character that locals and visitors find charming about the place. His plea and my plea is that with our mass infrastructure spend under the fast clip mantra of jobs-jobs-jobs, we slow down enough to understand how the local can be engaged and complimented in a socialist economy before it is swallowed up in the wake of a mass capitalistic one.
Helen Tait, Launceston.
THERE IS NO GOING BACK
FUTURE generations will look back and thank the Bob Brown Foundation as I and thousands of others do now.
Australia has one of the highest extinction levels in the world for wildlife and forests, along with the Amazon.
We need better decisions at a state and federal level.
The Environment Protection Biodiversity and Conservation Act 1999 is over 20 years old and a senate inquiry has questioned whether the EPBC Act is still fit for purpose. Protection for our environment with expanded commonwealth powers and new institutions such as an independent national Environmental Protection Authority is needed now.
We need the community to make their vote count.
Select future leaders who will protect what little is left for our future generations and at the same time, support sustainable development that provides the best outcome for everyone as well as the environment.
The tobacco industry was able to change, so can other industries.
We need the best minds in the "drivers" seats.
Australia's resources belong to the people.
Once they are gone there is no going back.
Judith Bailey, Clarendon.
CONVICTION IS NONSENSE
SENTENCING Dr Lisa Searle for her efforts and passion to protect Tasmania's unique places will not stop the protests, only the end of the destructive activities of logging old growth forests and mining in the wilderness of the Tarkine will do that.
When will politicians finally understand that those areas are our lungs and leaving them intact and healthy should be our legacy? The government's cry about "jobs" is a lie, they could provide paid retraining for those people in those industries and truly assist them with jobs that will support them into the future.
Gaby Jung, South Hobart.
WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO FIGHT
I THINK it is a criminal act to log native forests.
Governments need to be held accountable for endangering the people and all that we share this planet with.
It is obvious they are owned by the corporate world and greed motivated.
The people have a right and responsibility to fight injustice.
I cannot believe we have to fight our government to protect ourselves.