Still waiting
AGAIN, Mr Ferguson said progress on actual waiting time is our main focus and he said there has been a massive reduction in waiting times for appointments since the Liberal Government came to office ( Mercury, October 3). You said the same six months ago Mr Ferguson and then you spend $100 million on health, on I don’t know what. People out here are suffering in pain and all you can say is we’re trying. Well, try a little harder. sale of the Van Diemen’s Land Company. Other countries encourage investment by leasing assets or ensuring there is majority local ownership of resources and if these resources are resold they have to return to local ownership. Our governments, federal, state and local, seem to be intent on selling whatever they can for short-term profit without taking into consideration the long-term implications. Under climate change projections, Tasmania’s prime agricultural land is set to become more valuable. With local government elections on, perhaps it’s time to ask our candidates to give us their vision of our future.
Date failure
THE Liberals’ decision to try to keep Australia Day on January 26 is doomed to failure. If January 26 is so divisive and thinking people want the date changed, the Libs’ policy is effectively calling on people to ignore division and to stop thinking. Will the Libs pass a law to ban thinking and hope the current and next generation stop wondering why, of all dates, the 26th was chosen. Hoping the debate goes away is inadequate. Expecting people to fall into line with an outdated and divisive date is asking to be thrown out of power.
Act on climate change
IT is clear from the latest climate report from the IPCC that the world is headed for serious problems as a result of climate change ( Mercury, October 9). Yet Right- wing conservative politicians and commentators are in denial because of vested interest and stupidity. People and corporations can do things to reduce CO2 generation. One of the simplest is to replace existing halogen, filament and fluorescent lighting with LED equivalents. A 50-watt halogen downlight running four hours a day uses about $20 of electricity a year. An equivalent, quality 8-watt LED downlight costing $14 uses about $3 of electricity a year. So after the first year of cost payback, your LED downlight globe saves $17 a year for the next 12 years or $200 over its 20,000 hour life. Carbon dioxide generation is reduced because we can sell more clean energy interstate. It is a financial and environmental win.
Timed your run too early
UNBELIEVABLE! We have Christmas starting in the stores in September and we’ve just had the privilege of seeing Bill Shorten on a Labor advert telling us what a credible government his lot will make. Forgive me for questioning whether he is really silly enough to begin electioneering eight months out from when an election is likely. Malcolm Turnbull learned his lesson with the five by-elections taking forever. If we have to see Shorten’s face on TV in coming months it could be a big mistake. It would also be very interesting to see where the dollar tree is which is going to give him all this cash. It’s certainly not at the bottom of our garden after the husband decided to prune the lemon tree!