POLITICIANS' STAFF DUTIES
SENATOR Helen Polley (Australian Labor Party, Tasmania) has advertised a part-time employment vacancy for an administration position in her electorate office.
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The advertised duties of the position include "campaigning and campaign management" in addition to other duties.
Some taxpayers would not be pleased to learn that their tax payments are funding a staff member of an incumbent member of parliament to conduct campaigning.
Their focus should perhaps instead be on serving constituents and solving their problems.
It seems very unfair to potential challenger election candidates (that is not existing MPs).
They are typically not provided with taxpayer funded staffing to help with campaigning and campaign management, including in the period preceding the calling of an election.
It appears to an outsider that the system may favour existing MPs if these practices are allowed. That matters for equal opportunity for candidates and fair election contests.
Mark Webb, Launceston.
What do you think? Send us a letter to the editor:
WESTBURY PRISON
I COULDN'T agree more with the letter from Peter McGee about a possible prison near Westbury (The Examiner, September 10).
With all the fuss about this issue and other issues such as the possibility of building a cable car up Mt Wellington, Kunanyi, we could be forgiven for thinking that the place is run by snobs.
It would be nice to live in a world where we do not need prisons, but if we have to have them, let them be new, well-built and humane.
It wouldn't worry me if one was built in my area, if it relieved the problem of overcrowding now being experienced.
As for the cable car, how many people do you hear complaining about the one to the top of Table Mountain in Cape Town?
They just use and profit from it.
I even heard one person say Mt Wellington is a sacred place like Uluru and you wouldn't build a cable car up Uluru.
No, and you wouldn't build a road up it either, but that is what you have at Mt Wellington.
Malcolm McCulloch, Pipers River.
PROTECTION OF BUSINESS AND WORKERS
IN relation to (The Examiner, September 15) and concerns about our new Workplaces (Protection of Business and Workers) Amendment Bill.
This Bill clearly exempts peaceful protests like street marches and protests in front of hospitals and schools. Its aim is to protect the rights of businesses to operate and workers' rights to work.
Tasmanians understand that a person's right to protest does not override the rights of a worker to legally earn a living.
Labor in other states and federally have backed this protection for workers, it defies logic that Tasmanian Labor stays in lockstep with the Greens on a fundamental right for workers.
Guy Barnett, Minister for Primary Industries and Water
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