Letters to the Editor, February 12, 2020

In your Letters to the Editor today: Political rorting, UTAS dependence on China, and climate change.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: AAP/MICK TSIKAS

In your Letters to the Editor today: Political rorting, UTAS dependence on China, and climate change.

Change the rules on pork

IS it any wonder we have learned not to trust our politicians? If the head of the public service can say no rule was broken in the sports grants scandal, then it’s high time the rules were changed so a minister can no longer blatantly ignore the recommendations of a committee to shamelessly make party politics the criterion in fund allocation. To give thousands of dollars to a rugby club for a women’s changing room when it has no female members and refuse a much higher priority grant to a women’s club with no changing room, or to give grants to clubs where requests are made six months after the closing date in preference to high priority ones which obey the rules, beggars belief.

The Prime Minister did himself no service in his pathetic attempt to justify the political rorting. If politicians are to regain respect from those who elected them, then ethical considerations must be given a high priority in making and obeying rules.

John Sale , Battery Point

Cheating at the polls?

GIVEN the Auditor-General found 330 of the 684 sports awards, or 73 per cent, had not been recommended by Sport Australia, and wrongly given to marginal seats in the Coalition’s favour, it seems the Coalition cheated to win the 2019 election.

And given the Coalition won by only two seats, is it possible that if the sports awards had been made on the merit assessments of Sport Australia, that Labor could have won the last election?

This possibility should be investigated by the Senate inquiry or by a royal commission. And if the numbers suggest a Labor win is indeed possible, should not a fresh election be called?

John Biggs , Sandy Bay

DPIPWE job description

THE State Government’s advertisement for a new head of the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment is missing something. The ad fails to mention a key function of the role will be to continue to aid and abet the sell-off of public land in national parks and world heritage areas. Silly me! Of course, this is not to be mentioned as it’s all to continue behind closed doors so the landowners, the people of Tasmania, know as little as possible.

Phil Easton , Kingston Beach

Halls Island lease

THE furore over the price of the lease for Halls Island has missed the key point — that there is a lease at all! One of the stated aims of the State Government’s Expressions of Interest process is to enable the proponent to enter lease and licence negotiations. The Tasmanian National Parks Association does not agree with the concept of leasing public world heritage land to a private developer but if you are going to do so, some preliminary discussion about the likely conditions of a future lease is reasonable.

Documents recently released under Freedom of Information show the main lease was signed in January 2018, well before any of the three main assessment processes — by state, federal and local government — were completed. The lease is the only mechanism available to the PWS to impose conditions on the proponent. It makes a mockery of subsequent assessment processes to issue it before these are completed.

Nicholas Sawyer , Tasmanian National Parks Association

Forest practices

WERE a professional forester to critique the comments of a learned lawyer on matters of judicial process, I would be inclined to dismiss it as lacking expertise in the relevant field. I am sure Roland Browne would agree. Yet he comments in emotive terms (Talking Point, February 9) on the measured statements of Shawn Britton, the professional forester (Talking Point, February 5). Not versed in jurisprudence or silviculture, I try to take an objective view, but Mr Browne loses me when he states that the planned careful harvesting of selected mature trees “damages forests” and perpetuates “a long tradition of forest industry propaganda”. He uses the exact propaganda he condemns. From a layman’s perspective, statements such as “the logging industry has been causing widespread damage to Tasmanian forests for well over 50 years” do not appear logical. I accept his view that the expansion of agriculture has led to forest destruction, and I would not limit that to 50 years. Tasmania was founded on whaling and timber, and if logging has been destructive, why do we have the highest proportion of forest of any state? Could it be forest workers and administrators had respect for their resource and saw the need to sustain it as vital?

I am not advocating a continuation of clearfelling. I would hope for the benefit of young people that all forests be carefully assessed and that sensitive logging of selected mature trees becomes the norm, and that harvested timber is used in carbon retaining products.

Tim Payne , Mt Stuart

UTAS dependence on China dangerous

THE Mercury is right to highlight the risk of coronavirus to the University of Tasmania (Editorial, February 3).

This epidemic should sound alarm bells for the strategic direction adopted by UTAS.

The university is turning into a low-quality degree mill, churning out commerce degrees for Chinese students who are unqualified for more prestigious unis interstate, overseas, and home in China.

The brutal truth is that no Chinese student worth their salt would choose UTAS if they were qualified for an elite Chinese university such as Tsinghua in Beijing or even a good provincial-level university such as Sichuan Normal.

UTAS’s role in 2020 is to mop up China’s underachievers who didn’t make the cut at home or at the University of Minnesota. With more than 4000 Chinese students, UTAS has made itself acutely vulnerable to sudden downturns.

The coronavirus is a natural disaster but UTAS will eventually learn that Beijing can also turn off the tap for political reasons. The Chinese Communist Party governs on whim and caprice. Any serious dispute between Canberra and Beijing could see all 4000 Chinese students disappear overnight.

In that case, little would be left of UTAS. Having bought the city, trashed the economy of Hobart’s CBD, and abandoned any pretence to academic seriousness, all that would remain is ugly medium-rise concrete blocks.

Geoffrey Hills , Hong Kong

HOT TOPIC: CLIMATE CHANGE

Intolerable transport failure

WHAT is our Transport Minister implementing to combat carbon emissions and reduce traffic congestion? Our public transport is dysfunctional. It’s a disgrace that with some of the world’s best vessels and boatbuilders and a safe harbour, we still don’t have a ferry service from Bellerive, Howrah and Lindisfarne to link Hobart’s CBD. A proposed light rail system seems to have dwindled into someone’s pipe dream and the lack of statewide transport linking North-West, North and South is difficult to understand.

It seems we had more efficient transport in the past with the Tasman Limited. I’d hoped to travel return coach, Hobart-Launceston, for work on Monday, only to discover there is no longer a 5.30pm return bus service to Hobart on Mondays. Tasmania’s woeful lack of vision and insight into transport cannot be tolerated.

J. Wright , Opossum Bay

Action must start

THAT our politicians talk of adaptation and resilience to climate change indicates they fail to understand or are in denial of the mechanisms of human-caused global warming. It is not feasible to adapt to the moving target of continually rising temperatures and their consequences when their underlying cause of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas is not addressed. Encouraging use of natural gas instead of coal may have benefited the Earth’s climate if done 40 or more years ago. Now it will add to the already too high carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere.

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will keep rising while coal, oil and natural gas are burned and vegetation is burned faster than it regenerates. The only natural sinks of carbon dioxide are geosequestration and net vegetation growth but these remedies only receive lip-service, not practical action.

The public indicate climate change is the major concern and want real action. We have seen this summer what a 1C temperature increase can contribute. We cannot risk more. Coal, oil and natural gas exploration, production and use need to be rapidly phased out and persons and communities dependent on these occupations need to be given proper incentives and support to move on. The cost of this will be much less than the cost of ongoing disasters. All politicians and candidates have to publicly state their positions so we can elect a genuinely responsive parliament and real climate action can commence.

Michael Wadsley , Richmond

The Big Lie

THE Big Lie is that our state and federal governments have a plan to bring down power prices, create jobs, reduce emissions, pump billions in the economy, and all without acting on climate. The state government has no plan but to help foreign-owned UPC trash Robbins Island and 170km of Tasmania with their 90m-wide transmission line. UPC will control access to competition from better wind-farm projects in the North-West, and ship power to the highest bidder, with profits going offshore. Infrastructure built, the only jobs will be a few blokes spraying herbicide on 15 square kilometres of wilderness. Sorry, tourists! Tough luck, devils!

Tasmanians are paying millions for a PR exercise and fake economic modelling. We’ll lose while UPC profits, and state and federal pollies claim they’re doing something about global warming. Tasmanians are being conned prior to being ripped off. We need a second interconnector and renewables, but the Marinus project and Battery of the Nation is the Big Lie we’re already paying for and will get nothing from.

Ben Marshall , Loongana

Mercury’s the best

I AGREE with reader Ray Marsh’s “Well done Mercury, fair and representative of our wide community’s views” declaration (Letters, February 7), apart from when readers express their views against the widely held belief that mankind is causing global climate change. With everything else, the Mercury is fair and representative … the best!

V. Ferri , Lenah Valley

Credibility on the line

MR Premier, give Lake Malbena the OK and you lose all credibility for mouthing “climate change”. The proposal is a 20-year operation centred around helicopters and will have a massive carbon footprint in a region the UN regards as priceless.

George Cresswell , Derwent Park

QUICK VIEWS

Games at Launceston

THE AFL Taskforce report says a Tasmanian team would be economically feasible with an average home crowd of 14,000. The average AFL crowd at Bellerive for 2019 was 9880, so that’s the end of that, unless they play mostly in Launceston.

Mick Leppard , Invermay

Over a barrel

ERADICATE pork-barrelling (“Stop the pork”, Simon Bevilacqua, Mercury, February 8)? Sorry Simon, we’ll be more likely to see barrels with pigskin wings a-flapping in the nation’s smoky skies before that happens.

Stephen Jeffery , Sandy Bay

Pork pervasive

POLITICIANS pork barrelling? I don’t believe it. Next they’ll be telling us that lawyers are donating their services for free or that monkeys have stopped eating bananas!

Steve Bailey , Glenorchy

No go ScoMo

SPORTS rorts: no go ScoMo!

Julie Schmidt , Kingston Beach

Shameful legacy

THE Morrison Government will be remembered for its corruption, secrecy and denial of the bloody obvious.

Geoff Dannock , Blackmans Bay

Acting up

AGAIN at the Oscars we are subjected to Hollywood actors lecturing us on their view on politics, science, climate and ethics. Predictable and boring. We pay these people to divert and amuse use, not to lecture us.

James Turley , Geilston Bay

Monkey business

THE intelligence level of so many politicians makes one wonder whether we have elected monkeys. It seems every day one of them suddenly confesses they hadn’t followed parliamentary requirements of disclosing items that could be seen as representing a conflict of interest.

Raymond Harvey , Claremont

One question

THE Government survey for Westbury needs only one question: “Do you want to live in a prison town, or not?” No spin needed. One simple question.

Heather Donaldson , Westbury

Onya Donald

CONGRATULATIONS Donald Trump on defeating the ludicrous impeachment, onward for another four years. Nancy Pelosi should stop making a fool of herself.

Stan Forbes , Battery Point