QUEEN VICTORIA REINCARNATED
AFTER many months of closure, Monday last was visitation day for me to visit the revamped Queen Victoria Art Gallery.
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I arrived with an open mind and definitely no expectations.
The welcome by staff was intoxicating, but in hindsight, they are obversely overjoyed with the dynamic changes within.
The magnificent blackwood hand-carved staircase has been re-birthed in walls painted in colonel pillar-box red surrounded by LED screens delivering a welcome back to country crackling smoking ceremony.
As one ascends, the portrait of Queen Victoria looms, hung between rows of tea trees, at times obscured by puffs of rising smoke.
Walking from exhibition to exhibition I found each had plenty to say about culture, about colonialism and post-colonialism and about our community.
The stand-out tribute to Tasmania's First Nation Peoples, the pioneering female artists and Garry Greenwood's Wild Imagination through leathercraft, all are presented with passion and artistic flair, with many new works evocative and mentally challenging.
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I applaud the creative placings of old and new art and encourage all Launceston graffiti taggers who choose to vandalise our historical buildings to discover real art and how it can portray a powerful story.
A big shout out to Tracy Puklowski's creative passion in inspiring and setting the challenge for curators to think big.
An absolute 10 out of 10 triumph.
Thank you to the City of Launceston council for your vision.
Bruce Webb, Launceston.
What do you think? Send us a letter to the editor:
POOR SOLAR REBATE
AFTER being informed of our $1100 odd quarterly power bill (over $12 per day), I enquired what the solar rebate was for our new 14-panel array.
The answer?
It was $13, yep $13.
That's a payback period of 96 years.
If you are taking your funds out of your superannuation, it's actually costing you to have solar.
Is the feel-good factor worth it?
Rod Force, Sandy Bay.
EQUITABLE ACCESS
THE law is unequivocal in that equitable access must be provided but quick access to toilets is especially important to wheelchair-bound patrons and the elderly (The Examiner, August 2).
This is a no brainer and I don't believe it's about funds.
Even if a hat were handed around I'm sure the basketball community would happily chip in with cash and services, but the owners hide behind layers of bureaucracy and nothing is done.
Good on you Michael for speaking out.
Benjamin Nitschke, Launceston.
MOUNTAIN TOURIST LIFT
IT is so hard to understand sometimes the decision made by those who we elect to look after our welfare and interest.
The Hobart City Council's short-sightedly listened to minority groups and voted against a definite Tourist draw, the lift up Mount Wellington.
What a missed opportunity.
There are so many of these types of lifts worldwide offering tourist and local fantastic opportunities.
In the Alps, the centre of Hong Kong and so on.
Australia's own Gold Coast takes up every opportunity for tourist drawcards and accommodation, catering and pampering to this lucrative industry.
Tasmania also relies on tourism yet bork at so many drawcards because it may upset some in the smallest way the surrounding.
In Launceston, there was opposition to a new hotel because wait for it, "it was too big".
Wow, we will fall behind if we do not have top class accommodation and worthy tourist attractions.
Wake up councils give us a fighting chance at the tourism dollar.
Peter Doddy, Trevallyn.
TASSIE TRAVEL VOUCHERS
I LOVE the idea of a lottery.
It seems a lot fairer and easier to accept the no win, after all, lotteries are won by two or three people and that's fair.
I dipped out the last two but will have another go as I have to be in it to win it, but no winging from me if unlucky.
Irene Grant, Penguin.
NORTHERN PRISON SITE
ADAM Holmes (The Examiner, July 31) explains how Australia's national environmental laws significantly favour land clearing, by the use of environmental "offsets".
Citing the recognised natural values of the bush block proposed for the Westbury prison, he writes that the Tasmanian government is planning to "offset" this bush block with other land that could be protected, instead of the proposed prison land.
This offset provision in our national environmental laws is a complete con job, a developer's dream that has been granted thousands of times over the last 20 years.
This has obviously led to significant habitat loss for endangered species, such as the masked owls at the Westbury prison site.
Each time, two areas of habitat are reduced to one, with the allowed destruction of the original habitat.
Why is Tasmania's environment department involved in such blatant political horse trading?