Expert advice to the government more than a decade ago was that reducing country road speed limits from 100km/h to 90km/h would result in 21 fewer serious casualties each year. Around 2010, 100km/h speed limits were reduced to 90km/h as a trial in the Kingborough and Tasman municipalities.

At the conclusion of the trial, community acceptance was high, with about 80 per cent support. Kingborough opted to continue with the reduced speed limits, however Tasman opted to return to 100km/h on its roads.

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An independent economic evaluation carried out by Professor Max Cameron in 2009 considered the effect lowering rural speed limits would have on travel times, vehicle operating costs, air pollution costs and crash costs. This evaluation found that lower rural speed limits would be economically justified and that there would be a net benefit to Tasmania. A small reduction in average speeds leads to a significant reduction in both the likelihood and severity of crashes, especially at higher speeds.

Whilst the Road Safety Advisory Council is not currently considering reducing the default speed limit on country roads, it does support sensible and appropriate speed limits based on the infrastructure standards and safety features of individual roads.

PENE Snashall from the TSGA Group likened the Tasmanian salmon industry to an Olympic team (The Examiner, October 13) and complained that the industry is being attacked by "misinformation".

This is a bizarre analogy, but if the industry truly were Olympian, wouldn't they be striving to be their best, listening to feedback and improving on past mistakes?

Instead, we have an industry that damages waterways and marine ecosystems while not learning from past mistakes. We have an industry that ignores community feedback, one that is called not sustainable by WWF and one economist Graeme Wells has called out for exaggerating employment figures (wouldn't that be misinformation?).

Global salmon's "best practice approach" is under fire as their eco-certifications are exposed as dubious. More wild fish goes in than salmon comes out, contributing to declining wild fish stocks and the RSPCA is being criticised for approving the use of deafening seal bombs as deterrents. This doesn't sound like they're going for gold.

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AS A retired TAFE teacher with 36 years' experience, I have seen many changes to the delivery of technical education in Tasmania over the years, most, unfortunately not for the better.

The Community College concept of the 1980s that blended TAFE and secondary colleges was an abject failure.

TAFE Tasmania was dismantled in 2009 with the Tasmania Tomorrow concept comprising the Tasmanian Academy (colleges) Tasmanian Polytechnic and Tasmanian Skills Institute (both formerly TAFE).

This also proved to be a failed experiment and we now end up with TasTafe, which is about to become TasTafe V2.0.

One proposal is to spend $98.6 million on hiring 100 extra teachers over four years. In the current building boom, where are you going to draw highly qualified and paid builders, electricians, plumbers etc to teach at TasTAFE for a salary of less than $100,000 a year?

For the sake of apprentices and their future, I hope they get it right this time.

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