If the AFL can put in $100 million over seven years into the Gold Coast then they can put in money into a Tasmanian team.

The AFL are treating Tasmanian people with contempt. The experts say we can afford a team albeit with government money.

The government already gives money to the AFL through North Melbourne and Hawthorn so there wouldn't be much change if giving it to a local side.

Then let the AFL put in money as they do to GWS and the Suns. If they refuse to come to the party, let the mainland clubs stay at home. The government should then allocate the money saved to local football clubs to get the game going properly again in Tasmania.

Over the years the AFL has virtually ruined local football here. Let's hope the government sticks to its promise. I've been a Hawthorn supporter since 1956.

I AM not that fussed about the relocation v a new Tasmanian team alternative, although lean to the former on practical grounds including a health seed membership and home crowds in Victoria or wherever. That said, it's a no-brainer that the home ground should be UTAS Stadium. As far as location, location, location goes, it beats the hell out of Bellerive despite the views. It is easily walked to from the city and adjacent accommodation areas and then back to the bars, cafes and restaurants on Invermay Road, the Seaport and the CBD.

In Hobart, it's a drive across the bridge, maybe a ferry or a bus.

HERE we go again. On talkback radio on Friday, the topic was an AFL team for our little state at a cost of about $100 million.

We haven't an arena that has the capacity, so that would have to be built. According to reports, the Tasmanian State League is in dire straits and we haven't got the players and certainly not the money to attract interstate players. We are also in the midst of a raging pandemic so the hordes are being shut out and can't attend matches. Businesses are going to the wall and all people seem to think about are a load of guys who play with their feet. Surely it would be better to put money into businesses who won't last the course so that they are able to keep going and still employ their staff? After all, that's where the money flows from into the government coffers to keep the state going.

HAS anyone else noticed the gaping flaw in the council's planning process? Yes, there will be 750 more car movements on a daily basis but how do those large boxes get to the warehouse? Larger container freight trailer trucks from Devonport.

So the traffic impact is not just on Invermay but the entire Bass Highway corridor from Devonport to the warehouse, adding more large trucks every day to the hundreds of tourists off the Spirit and thousands of new commuters from the new residential complexes springing up at Hadspen, Prospect, St Leonards and Relbia.

How soon before misty mornings see daily reports of mass traffic congestion into the city or serious fatal accidents? Our road infrastructure can only take so much.

SOON there will be three COVID vaccines to choose from. However, all the vaccines under the sun will not matter unless people step up and get vaccinated. There are idiots in the community against vaccinations of any sort, nothing will change their minds, that is their decision and that decision may prove deadly for them. Everyone else should be rushing to get vaccinated after seeing what is happening in Sydney, Melbourne, SE Queensland and now the ACT.

Vaccinations will stop people from getting seriously ill or dying and make the national community safer. Mass vaccination of the population will stop lockdowns. Come on Australia, get vaccinated and encourage your family and friends to get vaccinated too. It is the only way for us to get to an end of this calamity that we see ourselves in.

READERS would not be surprised to learn the anti-development mindset, championed by the Bob Brown Foundation, will challenge the appeal lodged by the Mt Wellington Cable Car company on the Hobart City Council's rejection of their tourism development.

If councils are to retain planning decisions the state government needs to champion an urgent parliamentary review of the planning process per se; particularly on enterprising development ideas, such as aquaculture, alkaloids, and tourism, which bring new money to the Tasmanian economy.

Let's be clear, the BBF minority thrives on our apathy - the majority remaining silent. So take a minute and add your voice to demand that change.

Over 3000 Tasmanians already have.

SO the government is patting itself on the back because the wire safety barriers they have installed on the Midlands Highway appear to have saved lives.

Don't get me wrong this is great, the last thing we want are deaths on our roads.

An interesting comment was that the cause of the vehicle losing control was a tyre failure, most likely caused by the hundreds of potholes on our Midland Highway, many appearing in the newly constructed sections completed to allow for the wire barriers to be put in place. Whatever happened to the quality of road construction in Tasmania, they are a disgrace and the government cannot be patting itself on the back until road surface quality is improved.

ANGER, frustration and deep disappointment is what I feel after wading my way through the recently released long-delayed and eagerly anticipated Tamar Estuary Management Taskforce Report into the degradation of the kanamaluka/Tamar estuary.

The taskforce, through its contributing authors, chose to focus on the very obvious build-up of sediment which they try to assure us is natural, however, they are wrong as the 2010 BMT WBM Report clearly indicated 38 per cent of estuary sediment is sourced from forestry-related activities and 26 per cent from agriculture; hardly natural.

The chosen focus was virtually to the exclusion of all other ailments the very ill estuary suffers from, such as reduced South Esk River flows and sewage contamination, despite the fact that "in 2015 raw sewage spilt into the Tamar more than 900 times over the course of the year" (The Examiner, July 23, 2017). While the report significantly emphasised it is an estuary being investigated only token research was conducted into one of the estuary's major tributaries, the South Esk River, and how it has been affected for over 65 years by reduced river flows since Trevallyn Dam was commissioned.

The authors, ignoring the advice of eminent scientists such as Professor Doug Foster (1986) and Associate Professor Brian Jones (2006) who both recommended dredging should continue, go to extreme lengths to discredit the practice, apparently unaware successful dredging operations are conducted throughout Australia, even in the proximity of such sensitive areas as the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and Marine Park. TasPorts conducted a successful dredging exercise in Devonport Harbour as recently as 2015; the New South Wales government has a dredging strategy believing "a well managed statewide dredging approach can economically provide navigational and other benefits such as flood mitigation, sand for beach nourishment and help conserve water quality within our estuaries". If dredging operations were to cease throughout Australis the nation would soon grind to an economic halt.

The TEMT report's authors also appear very willing to allow august institutions such as the Tamar Rowing Club and Tamar Yacht Club to sink into oblivion with very limited, if any, access to the water through the lack of dredging; this is totally unacceptable.

In the short term, and until such times as erosion problems in the catchments can be properly solved, we appear to have no choice but to, expensive as it is, continues dredging for the foreseeable future.

Learn to love the mud, no way.