Why not place their names on a breach of quarantine register? Maybe then those selfish people will realise the seriousness and the consequences of their actions to others in the community.

ALL Northern central councils and the state government have contributed to a 286-page TEMT document which discusses changes to the Tamar River and estuaries flows. My preliminary thinking is that a large group of people have pulled in documentation from many sources, so the whole thing is a mismatch, without purpose on how the problems of the here and now can be dealt with. Some of the historic information is of interest in how previous generations have dealt with river flow to suit the needs of mankind at their time.

Previous generations have made serious environmental errors for short term gain. But that's no reason why this generation living here now should sit on its hands and do nothing.

IT IS disappointing that the TCCI continues to align itself with the tobacco industry in promoting e-cigarettes.

At a time when we're trying to deal with the pandemic, the TCCI wants us to embrace e-cigarettes, which have been shown to worsen COVID-19 severity in young people.

The World Health Organisation has only this week issued a strong warning in a 212-page report and said "As cigarette sales have fallen, tobacco companies have been aggressively marketing new products, like e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products and lobbying governments to limit their regulation. Their goal is simple: to hook another generation on nicotine. We cannot let that happen".

TCCI quotes Public Health England's discredited figures on the "safety" of vaping compared to smoking tobacco.

PHE was dismantled and restructured after failing to competently address several matters, including exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims around e-cigarettes.

In fact, research conducted by Tasmanian medical scientists has shown e-cigarette products to be considerably more toxic than originally assumed.

Despite this, Tasmanian media outlets fail to question the baseless and discredited claims from those with a vested financial interest in promoting these toxic products.

Research out this week demonstrates that e-cigarettes cause harm to unborn babies, when used by pregnant women.

"E-cigarette use during pregnancy, particularly when used daily by individuals who do not also smoke combustible cigarettes, is associated with adverse birth outcomes."

For anyone who has become addicted to e-cigarettes in an attempt to quit tobacco, you can be assured that help to quit for good is available through the Quitline, or your GP, who is genuinely interested in helping you achieve better health.

THE Northern Midlands Council has defended its position over Villages @Q development (The Examiner, August 6) and on the face of it, the council appears to be following correct planning procedures by insisting on demonstrated compliance with the planning scheme requirements.

Unfortunately, such instances are being seized upon by property development lobbyists as examples of the unworkability of the Tasmanian Planning System and the need for "planning reform".

This isn't a new strategy. It started back in the late 2000s when Stuart Clues (Housing Industry Australia), Mary Massina (Property Council) and Michael Kerschbaum (Master Builders Association) made similar claims and orchestrated an unrelenting campaign for planning laws in Tasmania to be more developer-friendly - "red tape" removed and laws "streamlined".

Despite that planning laws have been becoming incrementally weaker in the past decade in terms of protecting residential amenity and the environment the growth and development lobby continues to claim that further "reform" must continue to remove any "barriers".

The end game of this round of property development "reform" is based on sidelining local government from its planning authority role and replacing them with "one independent body".

This is an odd request given we already have an independent planning authority the Tasmanian Planning Commission and an independent appeals tribunal in the Resource Management Planning Appeals Tribunal.

Clearly, the aim of the "planning reform" campaign is to create a new authority/panel that is more developer-friendly while reducing the community's ability to participate in land use planning decision-making processes. Concurrently the state government has created a new body, the Planning and Policy Unit which appears to be designed to over time disempower and take over many of the functions of the Tasmanian Planning Commission.

The main outcome of these new planning entities will be less independence because they are more subject to ministerial influence and intervention.

This is not only an attack on the planning system but also on democratic principles in particular the importance of separation of powers via independent regulatory authorities to limit executive government and undue influence of vested interests.

How much more reform will there be before the planning system becomes a hollowed-out token rubber stamp process stripped of its integrity, independence and oversight roles?