Wire rope cheese-slicers
Swap ministers
WITH the Health Minister saying the Royal Hobart Hospital upgrade will not be fit for purpose until at least February 2020 one would consider that a failure on the Government and minister’s part on bringing this in on time. Yes, it certainly is but the Opposition parties with the help of their union buddies have created disruption and frustration at every stage of the rebuild and that shows they are not interested in anything other than playing politics at the expense of the health of Tasmanians. My suggestion would be to have Ms Hickey resign as speaker and Mr Ferguson resign as health minister. This would allow Ms Hickey to be health minister and Mr Ferguson to have less to worry about and just be responsible for his other portfolios. Another Liberal parliamentarian could become speaker and this would be one without a current portfolio. With Ms Hickey being so forthright about fixing the ills on heath and the homeless, maybe she needs to be given the responsibility. This would shake up the parliament and would certainly test Ms Hickey’s ability. If it worked and I heartily hope it would, it would be a win-win situation. So, Mr Premier are you going to do what it takes to fix the health fiasco now or are you going to let it linger on. ONE part of the comments about the Midland Highway caught my attention (Letters, June 15), the use of multiple strands of tensioned wire rope as a barrier between opposing traffic lanes and sidling protection. My mind quivers at the thought of a motorcyclist hitting this once discarded method (early 1960) of traffic management. If it deemed too dangerous then, what has changed? I realise this product is Australia wide, but there must be a better way, than putting some poor individual through a cheese-slicer.
Great leaders lead
Mercury It is worth remembering the ill-fated journey of the ocean liner MS St Louis during WWII, when 900 Jews seeking a safe haven were denied entry to the US. Many were murdered on their forced return to Europe. The “Voyage of the Damned”, as it became known, helped inspire refugee conventions to prevent a repeat of this atrocity. Australia was a willing signatory to these conventions and other international human rights laws but as former High Court judge Michael Kirby noted, our country does not have a good record of human rights at home. The cruel demonisation and treatment of refugees sadly demonstrates his point.