Letters to the Editor, March 20, 2020

In your Letters to the Editor today: More time to bond, closed borders could reap other rewards, and camaraderie in the supermarket.

BRIGHT SIDE: Families might have time to spend together at home.

In your Letters to the Editor today: Surviving difficult times, closing the borders and dealing with coronavirus.

MORE TIME TO SPEND TOGETHER

TOUGH times don’t last but tough people do. We survive difficult times by challenging and dealing with adversity. I’ve had many neighbours, past neighbours and friends phoning me offering help with transport and shopping.

Maybe children and parents will have more opportunities to bond as their houses become homes and they spend more time in them, and together. Mothers will have more time to prepare and plan meals (if they can buy the ingredients!) and even newspapers could be recycled and cut into small squares.

Beryl Manning, Kingston

Always the right time

AS MLC Meg Webb highlights the unnecessary harm caused by poker machines in Tasmania we hear protests from Steve Old that now is not the time to raise this (Mercury, March 17). I disagree, because it should be abundantly clear that poker machines are designed to be addictive and this is stripping many Tasmanians of the financial and social resources that would otherwise help them cope with the threat posed by COVID-19.

As we move through and get over the COVID-19 threat we have a unique opportunity to reflect on what is most important, health and community wellbeing perhaps? Celebrating each other’s company in our great hospitality venues will again be part of this picture. I don’t want a future where we pin our economic fortunes on exploiting people and place. My choice would be for a more compassionate society, supported by an economy that is regenerative and distributive by design.

Nick Towle, Heybridge

Only benefit a free TV

I UNDERSTAND the frustrations expressed by Judy Halton (“Royal great, but why not private choice?” Letters, March 17). I have suffered the same problems.

Having had private health insurance for a lifetime and requiring hospital admission, when the paramedics told the private hospital my age, suddenly they were “on standby” and the Royal was the only option. While I have no faults with the excellent care, the only benefit from being a private patient was a free television. So much for the hospital and doctor of your choice. The moral is to refrain from living too long. Otherwise private health insurance is worthwhile.

Joyce Burrows, Battery Point

Kangaroo Bay boost

IN these virally troubled times, it is reassuring to read some good news in the Talking Point from Finely Zhang (“Five-star hospitality headquarters,” March 19). We are going to need all the jobs and business this development will produce now and in the future. Hopefully, the noisy NIMBY minority on Rosny Hill will not try to block this sensible development that is in keeping with the improvements around Kangaroo Bay over the past five years or so.

Evan Evans, Lindisfarne

Bellerive project no gift

CHAMBROAD director Finely Zhang, who from reports is a decent fellow, has continued the misinformation that has surrounded the Kangaroo Bay project. If the photo is from renowned Tasmanian architect Robert Morris-Nunn and for purposes of general understanding it is interesting to see how the Chinese company envisions the development. It is sitting in something like an industrial estate with surrounds bearing no relationship to Bellerive. The article quotes a friendship agreement between Clarence and Binzhou as a pillar of the development. Any agreement was signed by state and local government politicians on taxpayer trips and not a social licence owned by the Clarence and greater Hobart communities.

To wave this $80 million project as a gift and that we should accept it with good grace is an insult. Tasmanians do not want all of their assets of water, food, minerals, tourism and iconic real estate sold to overseas interests whether Chinese or other.

An open investigation of all aspects should be instituted by the government that now holds Will Hodgman’s poisoned chalice. For a start, if a hospitality building is needed, why should it not be on land at Rosny College, a fit-for-purpose education site, leaving the small Kangaroo Bay vista along Cambridge Rd with appropriate public access and nature plantings such as at the other end of Kangaroo Bay?

Dennis Keats, Howrah

CLOSED BORDERS COULD REAP REWARDS

WHILE Premier Gutwein’s “Closing the borders” announcement might have come as a shock to many, there are definitely positive aspects that could benefit thousands of Tasmanians.

This border closure should be seen as a way to maximise opportunities within the state in order to get ahead.

While it will definitely have an impact on people renting out their properties as Airbnb, it provides a great opportunity to improve housing capacity. What if those properties were to become available to people on the State Housing list? Homeless people might even find a warm roof over their heads during the coming winter. Government financial assistance would help this to happen sooner rather than later.

The Commonwealth Government has recently forgiven Tasmania’s State Housing Debt, which means thousands of dollars that would have flowed back to Canberra are now available to house people on waiting lists for years. Tasmania has the expertise to built more homes. Hopefully lessons have been learned about the downside of building suburbs on city fringes without necessary social infrastructure.

More houses could be built to house students who wish to come to Tasmania to study; similarly, a wide range of accommodation might be built for people who wish to retire here.

Unemployed people might benefit in our highly productive fruit industry. Many orchardists depend on overseas labour to harvest their crops. In January, an estimated 15,600 people were unemployed, third highest in Australia. Opportunities to work in fruit and possibly other agricultural industries might help. Tasmania’s closed border has the potential to add a whole new meaning to the political mantra “Jobs and Growth”.

Paddy Byers, South Hobart

HOT TOPIC: DEALING WITH CORONAVIRUS

Camaraderie in the supermarket

LET us hope the tide is now turning and the disorderly, unseemly and un-Australian behaviour in our supermarkets is a thing of the past. Certainly Thursday’s experience was a good one. Orderly co-operative seniors and pensioners at the local supermarket’s 7-8am opening, shelves stocked, with some restrictions.

There was a war-like “we are all in this together” feeling in the air with complete strangers assisting each other with their shopping and exchanging views on the current pandemic. So long may this “we are all in this together” herd mentality continue as we face what could be a long hard haul for us all.

Chris Needham, Kingston

Odds are in your favour

ITALY is now considered the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic. Italy’s population is about 61 million. At last check, they had about 36,000 infections. That means about one in 1600 people are infected. Translating that to Greater Hobart with about 250,000 means approximately 160 infections! Numbers don’t lie! Relax. Take basic precautions. The odds are very much in your favour.

Craig Hughes, Sorell

Un-Australian, how?

FIRST the Prime Minister presides over a series of unclear and seemingly contradictory announcements about precautions people should take which inevitably leads to ordinary people feeling confused and anxious, then he tells the same people they are “un-Australian”. What the heck does that mean? Over the past few centuries has the defining feature of white Australia been that we are not hoarders? That we revel in having our cupboards filled just enough to feel culturally safe? That we scoff at other countries that seem to be hoarders as less than us? Is that what separates us from the rest of the world?

Does the fact people have felt anxious enough to feel a bit of hoarding was in order mean they are letting the side down? Show some real leadership and present us with some honest pictures of the future rather than attack ordinary people.

Michael Small, Mt Nelson

Go hard, go early

I’VE just returned from the mainland, where major states have coronavirus curves that have already gone exponential and there’s a sense it’s already too late to avoid disaster. We have a small population and live on an island. With no exponential growth curve yet, we can take decisive action and maybe knock this on the head. The medical community are telling us to “go early, go hard”. For starters how about a state lockdown — all schools, restaurants, theatres, banks, hotels, sporting venues and shops that don’t provide essential products and services and suspend all travel into the state, no exceptions. The aim should be to get us back to zero cases ASAP, and sustain that. Can it be done? There’s only one way to find out.

Peter Cochrane, Battery Point

Hoping for discipline

I KNEW about two months ago when the evening news showed Chinese authorities putting a net on the end of a long pole over the head of a Chinese citizen who was not co-operating that Australia would not be able to cope. We are still considering football matches and allowing groups up to 100 and our leaders like Donald Trump for the most part really do not get it. In two months and for months beyond we will rue our lack of discipline. At the end of all this I hope we are a more disciplined and caring country but I will not be holding my breath. As we are going to witness in America, capitalist democracies have real shortcomings in the modern world.

Peter Rayner, Rosetta

Machiavellian ways

PRIME Minister Scott Morrison labelled supermarket hoarders as “un-Australian”. The reaction shouldn’t be surprising considering most Australians relax of an evening watching reality programs where the main objective is to scheme against others in a Machiavellian way. Workplaces are full of people whose burning ambition sees them backstab colleagues. Driving will see you exposed to all manner of selfish actions. Most seem to be out for themselves. Regrettably, this appears to be the New Australian way. Stripping supermarket shelves is just another indication of the slow descent towards a meaner, disrespectful and uncaring Australia.

Stuart Cox, Howrah

QUICK VIEWS

Hat off to premier

WELL done, Mr Premier, first in the country.

James Cooper, Dynnyrne

Rewind to ration cards

AS a World War II Baby Boomer, dare I suggest that the selfish panic buyers may need to be controlled by the introduction of ration cards? This emergency may be new to some, but many of us have been there before.

Mike Griffiths, Geilston Bay

No pat on the back now

WHAT a difference a crisis makes. We go from patting ourselves on our collective backs during and after the bushfires, and now, it’s the every-man-for-himself situation. It is exposing the dark underbelly of greed in this country.

Peter Taylor, Midway Point

Don’t forget the islands

I HOPE the “stringent” requirements” on exemption from the border quarantine describe Tasmania as the State of Tasmania, so it includes Bruny and Macquarie islands among others, as well as people on ships leaving Tasmania and returning without entering any other jurisdiction port (say for research or fishing vessels). Consideration should also be given to exempting Antarctic expeditioners.

Arthur Sale, Howrah

Blow the whistle on footy

I CAN’T believe the arrogance, stupidity and greed of the NRL and AFL. Wake up, guys, pull the pin on the games! Re-assess in two months but don’t put lives at risk because of greed and ignorance! It will be too late to stop the games when infection hits as it will run like wildfire. We can put up with a temporary loss of games to save lives in the long run.

Scott White, Sorell

Pack animals

I WAS under the impression the human species was at the top of the evolution tree. At the moment we are demonstrating we are no more than a dumb pack animal following the leader, no matter what. Just like the animals that jump into a crocodile infested river in Africa. Not thinking, just following.

Andrew McInnes, Claremont

Tourist dollar

IT is tourists who will bring this virus to Tasmania, the state with the highest number of old people, who are in the danger zone, yet it seems the tourist dollar is more important than their lives. Government will have blood on their hands through stupidity of not closing its borders to this group.

Peter Aris, St Helens

Please explain

CAN someone please enlighten me about the panicking for loo paper? I’m bamboozled, as are many people.

Elise Oost, Dover

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