Over 35 years of keeping cats, our cats brought in about five or six birds in that entire time. So now we are meant to keep a domestic pet in confinement all its life in case it catches a bird or two?

READ MORE: Launceston man paid girl cannabis for sex

No cat owner likes to see a bird lose its life, however, this proposal is just typical left-wing police state overreach.

IMAGINE if this was a proposal which the residents of Evandale were confronted with.

Unfortunately, that is the exact situation for the residents of Stanley (The Examiner, July 12). It is not the only community in Tasmania with development proposals for wind turbines. These are proposed by companies whose sole purpose is to obtain a development application approval from the relevant council and from the Environment Protection Authority to sell to a company that constructs and undertakes the business of operating the wind farm.

These companies are well versed in the art of the DA and in identifying community concerns and pitching their DA to the EPA and council in the slickest and most palatable form. Little wonder that small communities throughout Tasmania feel isolated and left on their own when confronted with these development proposals.

Communities feel let down by various levels of government for those who have not formulated sufficient guidelines which would preclude development from being proposed in sensitive areas.

It is left to communities to run the fight against these slick proponents and hope that their concerns are adequately measured by the EPA and their council. It is unfair that their governments have abandoned these communities in these circumstances.

If you think this cannot happen within a historic and valued area in which you live or that you respect, think again.

SUNDAY and Monday, July 4 and 5, we witnessed how inane political spin has become. On Insiders, the senator being interviewed vowed that, by various means, the Coalition had saved 30,000 plus lives.

Makes one wonder who is employed to count those who would have been on the death list. In answer to the next question, on their Achilles heel policy of pork barrelling, Finance Minister Simon Birmingham stated that disproportionate sums were allocated on the route to the airport.

READ MORE: Adams Distillery rises from ashes with $10m plan

Well, as the airport is not in Toorak, a case could be made that this money was a necessity rather than pork barrelling.

Finally in Tuesday's presser, Senator Matt Canavan asked what would be the fate of country communities if the tractor drivers all lose their jobs. It may have escaped his notice, but the world is on the cusp of self-driven tractors (unless the Nationals stop that event as they attempt with every other advance). I assume that this will result in the demise of the very jobs he referred to and, by extension, the communities that he wishes to protect.

IT IS time to reset Australia's industrial policies.

The loss of almost the entire motor vehicle production capacity of Australia which once employed hundreds of thousands of well paid full-time secure jobs was not in the national interest. Australia must now rebuild its manufacturing and rural sectors decimated by a misplaced free market and radical free-trade policies.

READ MORE: Green UTAS campus comes to life at Inveresk

The disruption of the global supply chain by the COVID-19 virus and China's bans on Australian exports highlight the need for Australia to disconnect from China and build closer economic ties with India as part of a strategy to quote firewall and quote the nation from China. Equally, Australia must now undertake major new infrastructure policies and advanced industry policies to reduce its reliance on China.

This will only be possible if a national development bank is established to fund a new nation-building enterprise.

HOMELESSNESS is a growing problem in Tasmania and was well before COVID-19 hit our shores. Now, with the additional financial hardship caused by the pandemic, the housing crisis is getting worse and thousands of Tasmanians are struggling to keep a roof over their heads.

We are well into winter and this issue is ever the more pertinent.

The government clearly demonstrated they can house rough sleepers, as they did throughout the height of the pandemic.

Yet, when pressed about the issue at Senate Estimates, Minister for Families and Social Services, Senator Ruston, displayed a genuine disinterest in homelessness and argued that the current funding and scheme is appropriate.

Tell this to the families who are doing it tough.

The federal government has no idea how many homeless people have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

Nor do they have a plan to ensure rough sleepers get vaccinated. We live in a wealthy nation and the Morrison government has no plan to ensure families and individuals have a safe place to call home.