Rich get richer
Save our lifestyle
“CHANGE does not need to be bad and in fact done right it should be positive” ( Mercury Editorial, March 23). Instead of a litany of trite generalisations, let’s look at examples of buildings or projects in Tasmania where change has worked.
For starters, I nominate the Cape Tourville walkway overlooking the Freycinet National Park and entrance to Wineglass Bay. The beauty of the walkway works on so many levels. It is both practical and aesthetic. It captures the spirit of the area and enhances the lighthouse with its own impressive history. Best of all, it turns a potentially dangerous location into one which can be enjoyed by visitors of any age or level of fitness. It is a place of delight. As visitors linger and watch the changing seascape, they marvel at eagles soaring effortlessly in the air currents, a whale with her young calf or the unexpected harmony of pink granite rocks and delicate flowering shrubs. It is a place to revisit. Obviously the designers of the walkway had empathy and respect for the location.
How often are factors such as empathy and respect bypassed? They are frequently overlooked because they are intangible. Yet we can recognise them. They are the vital links that need to be restated.
There is a difference between welcome changes that enhance a location and unwelcome change which seeks to dominate. That seems a form of arrogance and bullying. It is not the legacy we should offer future Tasmanians.
If we examine the designs and places we admire, it may be easier to work towards positive change that protects our lifestyle and environment. MALCOLM Turnbull wants to cut tax rates to big companies. He claims that it will encourage investment and the money will flow down with higher employment and higher wages. Companies will always invest if they can see there is a buck to be made no matter how much tax they have to pay. Company profits are at record levels yet wages are stagnant. It is proof that “trickle down” economics does not work. It just makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. Company taxes should be raised, not cut, to invest in schools and hospitals.
Hardship
THE state election is over and life goes on. The problem is that hardship for too many people in Hobart is the new normal.
People who work for a wage are the engine of a productive Tasmania, but the years of low wage growth here are affecting our economy. Couple this with tax cuts and tax avoidance, which reduce the government’s revenue and its ability to provide public services, and the result is hardship. This new normal has public health in a sad state, and with people unable to buy a house in Hobart, or even afford to pay rent.
If Tasmania has to change, it should change for the better. If we don’t accept the new normal, we should change the rules for a better functioning Tasmanian society.
Never asked
ACCORDING to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Tasmania has had more deaths than births for the first time on record. So it is curious to claim our population is growing because people are remaining in the state (Talking Point, Mercury, March 22) Our population is swelling due to overseas migration, and folk from the big island who are driven out by overcrowding, soaring property prices and loss of quality of life.
The article claims that population growth can be a good thing but fails to enlighten us of the benefits. For most of us it means increased travel times, longer hospital waiting queues, loss of amenity and more pressure on open space, and has sadly exacerbated the housing crisis.
It is self-defeating to try to house, transport and manage an ever-bigger population, yet this is what we are expected to suffer and is dismissed as growing pains. We’ve failed abysmally in planning for a big Tasmania. We were never asked. It’s time to plan for a sustainable Tasmania that is better, not bigger.