GREENS LEADERSHIP & FUNDING
ON Tasmanian election night, the farcical question of who would lead the Tasmanian Greens into the new parliament was posed.
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With two members only, a hypothetical one-all vote would thrust the Greens into a leadership crisis.
Does a party of two parliamentary members entitle the party to access party status funding, on what basis, or whether special dispensation is required by the government to provide funding?
What explicit or implicit terms and conditions are imposed if applicable, for the Tasmanian Greens to fulfil their obligations and duties as responsible state parliamentarians?
Kenneth Gregson, Swansea.
MONTY PYTHON'S CIRCUS
YET again the flag of victory flies for the Liberal Party, deserving or not.
I wait with bated breath to see when they honour their many promises, but I don't feel overconfident. We have heard it all before, but at times it is put into the too-hard basket and dumped. What has amazed and disgusted me is Premier Peter Gutwein's arrogance in calling an early a year before it was due.
Whatever the reason, we the voters deserve better. Who can tell that maybe further down the track he feels threatened again, if so let's hope his next one will be even shorter, but I won't get my hopes up.
During the boring campaign I was approached by a very smiling hopeful, but before they could bore me with their gibberish, I politely asked for three good reasons why they should get my vote.
I was met with confused silence, so apparently, they had nothing of value to entice my vote.
Don't you just love the ready smiles, numerous handshakes and the cooing to babies, who at times start screaming?
It is like Monty Python's circus at times.
Jo Ford, Legana.
HARE-CLARK SYSTEM
WHY should a party, either Liberal or Labor, with less than 50 per cent of the vote have a "huge working majority".
It seems to me to be anti-democratic.
Such a situation does not represent the will of the people.
The Hare-Clark system provides a proportion of seats roughly in line with the proportion of votes.
That is, if 49 per cent of the voters vote for a party, then why should they have more than 49 per cent of the seats.
Proportional representation represents the democratic will of the people.
Michael Prosser, East Launceston.
POSSIBLE WAR WITH CHINA
WITH all the aggressive posturing by communist China of late I find it hard to believe that world leaders are talking about the possibility of war, as if it will be a conflict where a few ships and men will be lost and when it is over things will all get back to normal.
We are talking about superpowers with vast stocks of nuclear weapons, and all it takes is misjudgement by those in control and we will be in a war in which we are all losers. It's about time the world realised we are all in the same boat and we had better start co-operating.
So what if we have different forms of government, it can still be made to work if we work together and stop trying to take control of the rights and territories of others.
