There is uncertainty around 2024 Tasmanian State election result

However the abandonment of Laura Alexander and John Tucker from the party is unexceptionable. They were elected by Liberal supporters on the Liberal ticket, without that support their chances were minimal, and to be in the centre of a possible election is preposterous. Their personal agendas of criticism may be valid but it is only a fraction of what it takes to run a State.

Labor is preparing and massing their forces for a stable Government but they have the David O'Bryne affair. Honour, solidarity, commitment, dependability, and reliability are needed. At present there are too many personalities seeking grandeur than working as a team. Voters are losing faith in parties and independents are great, but unfortunately without numbers they can change very little. Elected politicians push for what they believe seeking support from other members, but display unity and stability it is not hard to be loyal.

Peter Doddy, Trevallyn

RECENT visit to Tasmania (including Lorinna in northern Tasmania) by singer/songwriter/storyteller Fred Smith with his signature backdrop of changing, still images of photographs, ephemera and archival material performances are combined with evocative lyrics and music to paint a masterpiece of political narrative.

The Australian diplomat/troubadour may loosely be compared to American documentary maker Ken Burns's presentation style of pertinent still images of photographs and archival material overlaid with relevant period music and poetry (for example Walt Whitman), alongside his impeccably researched documentary narrative.

Kenneth Gregson, Swansea

I NOTE a recent article by Isabel Bird (The Examiner, February 14) on compulsory voting (avoiding this is bizarrely deemed by her to be a 'non democratic act'). The article is subtitled: 'how should we deter non-voters?'

Why should we? Compulsory voting is not clearly a good thing and voluntary voting occurs in many countries deemed to be democratic.

Perhaps to your surprise, like all Tasmanians, I have no legal right to vote in the coming election. What I have is a legal duty to vote - a quite different and incompatible thing. A duty is a constraint upon freedom of action. A right is a freedom. Freedom implies options. Were I to have a legal right to vote (identical to the right not to vote, incidentally), then whether I voted or not would be up to me (I can exercise a right to freedom of speech by choosing not to speak at all).

But to say that no-one has the legal right to vote is compatible with saying that, despite this, they have a moral right to do so (and thus no moral duty to do so).

Bad laws have always existed and I suggest that voting as a legal duty is one - the legal duty to vote clashes with the moral right to do so. The default position, I suggest, is that people should be free to do whatever they wish and if that freedom is to be restricted, then the onus is on the freedom restrictor to advance a sufficiently strong case warranting that freedom loss. Not just any old reasons but ones good enough to warrant restricting a person's freedom of action. I suggest that such reasons are not available in this case.

I would love to have the legal right to vote but rebel against an imposed legal duty. I have gone to court and paid for my conscientious moral stance and think that the path forward is not finding better ways to coerce me to do what is morally wrong but changing a bad law.

Peter Davson-Galle, Rosevale

POLITICIANS from all parties procrastinate about the interest of whom they represent!

If this is so, why does it take a proposed election for the sharpening of pencils and the offer of inducements to the poor cash strapped public.

Surely our politicians should be looking and offering these benefits without the threat of an election.

No wonder the public are sceptical of most politicians and their parties.

Ian O'Neill, Westbury