Letters to the Editor, February 26, 2020

In your Letters to the Editor today: Macquarie Point, men’s programs, and the forests war.

mage from Mona’s Macquarie Point Vision 2050, released in 2018.

In your Letters to the Editor today: Macquarie Point, men’s programs, and the forests war.

Treading water on prime port

MACQUARIE Point should be kept to benefit the people of this state, not sold off to developers (or Mona). It is right on one of the best deepwater ports in the world, yet we have no ferries, no freight shipping (except the occasional log ship), no passenger rail transport and no trams.

Selling Macquarie Point to developers will eliminate any future possibility for further port expansion or rail transport. The train line from Macquarie Point is still unused, while the Midland Highway is falling apart due to excessive truck movements. With our planned ferry service and light rail, we have an ideal opportunity to create a tourism and transport hub with an eye to the future, not just the next election.

Rod Force , Sandy Bay

Be anxious, then fire up

READER Sue Henn highlights climate change and climate change anxiety (“Poor leadership,” Letters, February 20). In discussing the concept with psychologists, the distinction is made with generalised anxiety as a disorder, an out-of-proportion response. In fact, anxiety about the future is a rational response to the science. As with many stresses, we may then react with fright, flight, or fight.

Choosing to ignore only brings so much relief when the news is full of climate-related disasters. And if you ignore the news, the disasters may still find you. Getting fired up is a good start. Then, processing the emotions — acknowledging, mourning the biodiversity loss, grappling with the scale of the issue. Then, the best therapy is to act. Policy of least regrets, activism, call it what you will. Join with others, contact your MPs, change your superannuation. Give our leaders the will to act. Start by signing Zali Steggall’s petition for a Climate Change Act.

Kate Bendall , West Hobart

Handouts to AFL

SO the country’s biggest welfare queens, otherwise known as the AFL, want $7.3 million, or maybe it’s $12 million, from the State Government to set up a Tasmanian team (Mercury, February 21). If the return to the community is $110 million as claimed, presumably one or more of the beneficiaries of this windfall should be able to stump up $7.3 million in a blink. Why should the government be leaned on for dollars we don’t have, to subsidise a highly profitable private company, nearly $50 million net profit in 2019. The cost for a Tasmanian AFL team should be borne by the AFL, their private sponsors and those who attend games via their tickets.

David O’Halloran , North Hobart

Season for prosperity

THANK you for the positive story on the Seasonal Worker Program, showing our Pacific neighbours from Vanuatu (“Work is just a bowl of cherries for Isaac,” Mercury, February 19).

The great aspect of the program is that it is not an aid handout but rather workers who want to be here. At the same time it provides for a growth economy to their respective nations. Credit to Lucaston Park for providing the positive environment to enable good hardworking folks to better themselves. Thank you, Editor.

Helen Samootin , Rosetta

Give them a prison farm

THE good citizens of Westbury may perhaps be persuaded to contain their anger if the government were to announce that the penal institution which they are determined to build in their backyard would not be the conventional soulless concrete place of confinement, but a modern and productive prison farm. Such a vision of enlightenment would not only benefit the rest of the state by going far towards reducing reoffending, but also benefit the bottom line of the LGH by providing a cost-free source of fresh provisions for the hospital kitchen.

David Keyes , Austins Ferry

Bridge must be right

THE Rose Garden Bridge across Brooker Avenue is likely to remain closed for several more weeks as contractors continue to work to rectify issues with the surface coating of the walkway (“World’s slowest bridge build,” Letters, February 25). The City of Hobart will not take possession of the bridge until we are satisfied all issues have been resolved, all works complete and the bridge is safe for use. While it’s disappointing the opening continues to be delayed, we remain committed to delivering infrastructure that meets our very high expectations and those of the community. We will give updates as we get closer to confirming an opening date.

N.D. Heath , General Manager, City of Hobart

Dams and nuclear

WITH the distinct probability petroleum fuel will not be available this century, the writing is surely on the wall. Sooner or later all transport will be powered by electricity from the nation’s grid system. The only way to have such stored energy will be dams with pumped hydro or nuclear plants.

Australia is ideally placed for nuclear. I suspect we will adopt a mix of the two for the sake of security (huge dams folks !).

W. Hindson , Tarleton

Desperate need for new men’s programs

THE recent unimaginable horror of yet another family murder-suicide leaves devastation, pain and grief for families and communities. It highlights the desperate need for active structures and programs for men experiencing mental health issues, relationship breakdowns and deep emotional stress and trauma.

New thinking is needed around these issues moving away from office-based counselling and supports which are anathema to most men. The practice of experienced males meeting other males on their own turf — eg workplace, park, sports grounds, in the home — and responding rapidly to any referred critical concern is what makes the difference.

There is never any guarantee future tragedies can be averted totally, however having personally experienced an outreach men’s suicide prevention program in the past I know it works. Data can reflect the results of tragedy, however it can’t bear witness to lives saved, but we can make a real difference by adopting different strategies with outreach response models.

The Government recently declared its intent to prevent all suicide, well let’s gets serious and initiate early response programs that will reach men and that men will engage with, maybe then we will see a significant decrease in suicide and the horrendous collateral loss of life.

Vyv Alomes , Dodges Ferry

HOT TOPIC: FORESTS WAR

Mindless destruction of heritage

SO the Bob Brown Foundation is a business, the regulator is apolitical, and ministers weren’t involved. Yeah, right. Another step in Tasmania’s inexorable evolution into an intellectually barren wasteland in a wilderness raped to death. This is a police state where successive governments mindlessly trash the environment. Dissent banned by threat of bankruptcy and/or imprisonment; a place China will easily recognise when its takeover is complete.

Nowhere else are heritage resources such as ancient trees deemed noxious weeds so dangerous that parliament sets annual targets for their eradication, irrespective of environmental destruction and resultant annual financial losses.

You couldn’t make this stuff up. Tasmania’s mindless environmental destruction is Australia’s disgrace.

Peter Anderson , Deloraine

Who pays?

IF you need proof of what democracy means to different people, then check these scenarios. Bob Brown and his followers believe it’s about their right to protest in restricted areas, while interfering with people’s right to earn a living, the same people who pay taxes to support most of the protesters.

The other group of people believes democracy is about electing governments to represent their views, by creating laws to stop people like Bob Brown and his followers, interfering with their right to earn a living. Support Bob’s democracy and the end result will be no one earning money to pay taxes. Then where will the money come from to support the protesters? Oh silly me, I forgot, money grows on trees of course.

J. Pritchard , Claremont

Shameful

THE WorkSafe ban on forest protests signals the beginning of the end of democracy in our state, nothing less. It is outrageous that an administrative and regulatory power is being egregiously misused to prevent peaceful protests and to shut down the Bob Brown Foundation. It is instructive to note the timing. The science that now gives us the tools to comprehend the precise nature of the planetary peril we face has never been so publicly vindicated as it has been this summer. We are being warned of the lengths our government is willing to go to snuff out real and truthful debate and citizen action. This is a shameful and alarming day.

Jill Davis , Queenstown

Serious concerns

REGARDLESS of which side of any protest you stand, WorkSafe is there to ensure people go home alive at the end of the day. So, who’s legally responsible if a protester or worker is accidentally injured on a protest site? Who has the duty of care under worksite laws to ensure people are safe? What happens if they end up with a permanent disability or die while protesting on an industrial or logging site? Who’s the one with insurance liabilities and legal liability to ensure that person is covered and gets to go home in one piece at the end of the day? The industry being protested against? Or the Bob Brown Foundation that sent them out there?

All it takes is one slip and fall from a height without the correct fall arrest systems, or a failure of dodgy, non-industry compliant equipment while climbing a tree to cause a serious injury.

Tony Donaghy , Ellendale

Political

I AM appalled by the politically motivated actions taken by Workplace Standards at the behest of the minister to stop legal forestry protesters. The courts will prove the actions of Workplace Standards are unlawful and the regulator must be held accountable. This action erodes community trust and respect for this organisation as the private interests of a few get priority over the interests of Tasmanian workers and their families.

Steve Giles , Glenorchy

The real danger

OH&S have foolishly allowed themselves to be used to stifle protests in the forests. The only danger in the forest comes from Forestry (cynically rebranded as Sustainable Timber). It is a shameful ploy by the Government.

Sid Abraham , Molesworth

QUICK VIEWS

Students dudded by UTAS

SO many UTAS students I know, including my own three children, have been dudded by course cancellations, lack of unit outlines, contradictory information, inadequate facilities and general disorganisation. They have a right as consumers to expect what they pay for and indeed what they’ll be in debt for. Lift your game.

Steve Cumper , Hobart

Propped up

AMUSING reading, “Airbnb now key pillar of economy” (Talking Point, February 22). Yes in the same way that car crashes and bushfires are.

Keith Thompson , Kingston

Right to choose

WOMEN have the right to choose abortions. (No arguments from me.) But grown-ups don’t have the right to choose voluntary euthanasia. Why?

Michael McCall , Primrose Sands

No action on hooning

OVER the weekend I and several other residents in our street contacted the police to advise them of severe hooning attempts, but not one police officer attended to see why the hooning took place, guess they don’t care these days.

Jamie Cracknell , Claremont

Keeping our cool

DON’T think of 2019 as Australia’s hottest year on record, think of it as the coolest year in the next 100.

Ian Fletcher , Dynnyrne

Turn focus to costly consultants

BY calling his review of the state’s public service “sweeping”, Peter Gutwein gives us hope he won’t overlook the seemingly endless procession of expensive consultants producing reports that usually go nowhere. Surely most of the business of government that gets outsourced can be performed efficiently, without bias, and cheaper, by full-time public servants. I suppose the advantage of consultants is that you can choose the answer you want.

Andrew Hejtmanek , Howden

Free exchange of ideas

PETER Manning’s public lecture on the Middle East at the University of Tasmania, Sandy Bay, was informative and contemplative and shows the university’s important role in a free exchange of ideas, to raise questions of public importance, and to contribute to an informed and inclusive society.

Kenneth Gregson , Swansea

Fitting send-off

WITH the amount of publicity surrounding the demise of Holden, can we now expect a state funeral?

Leon Williams , Howrah