Onya Mercury
I’M a regular reader of the Mercury and The Australian, subscribing to home deliveries of both. I also have online subscription to The Age and The New York Times for wider coverage of interstate and international issues. I read all these newspapers but it’s the Saturday Mercury I really love. In particular Charles Wooley, Simon Bevilacqua and Don Knowler. Their love, passion and knowledge for all things Tasmanian makes Saturday’s paper a stand out. Without fail their way with words never disappoints. I should also mention Peter Boyer whose Tuesday articles should be made compulsory reading; a journalist with an excellent scientific mind whose articles are both chilling and compelling. I hope this level of excellent journalism continues so I can look forward to many a lazy Saturday reading my favourite articles. Thank you,
States’ rights?
IT is bitterly disappointing the State Liberal Government refuses to stand up to Canberra politicians who want to weaken our state’s gold-standard anti-discrimination laws. The laws threatened by Canberra have helped return dignity to the many Tasmanians who are vulnerable to hate and stigma. In 1994, when Canberra intervened to override Tasmania’s former antigay laws, the state Liberal government loudly screamed “states’ rights”!
Why isn’t it doing the same now? Why isn’t it defending the right of Tasmanians to make our own human rights laws? Clearly, it does not care about states’ rights at all. As in 1994, it’s interest is in giving free rein to bigotry against minorities.
Inconvenient truth
CLIMATE Change is a clear and present danger to human communities. Our children face a threatening future.
Last year 94 British academics wrote: “We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, with about 200 species becoming extinct each day. Humans cannot continue to violate the fundamental laws of nature or of science with impunity. If we continue on our current path, the future for our species is bleak.
“The ‘social contract’ has been broken, and it is therefore not only our right, but our moral duty to bypass the government’s inaction and flagrant dereliction of duty, and to rebel to defend life itself.
“We therefore declare our support for Extinction Rebellion. We fully stand behind the demands for the government to tell the hard truth to its citizens.”
Time is running out. Peaceful civil disobedience has become a duty. Extinction Rebellion brings inconvenient truth to public attention, urgently calling on governments to act. They’re genuinely sorry for the inconvenience.
Rent seekers
REGARDING Vica Bayley’s Talking Point ( Mercury, October 9), it beggars belief that our State Government would not only grant a $50,000 taxpayer-funded subsidy to a blatantly obvious rent-seeking operation but does so in a way almost designed to damage Tasmania’s status environmentally, economically and politically. Australians, led by politicians and bureaucrats, are among the world’s leading suckers for rent-seeking projects and scams. The secret here is to find who in the Government or bureaucracy and connections is benefiting financially. I doubt any among our emaciated investigative media has the time, skills or backing to find out, which is exactly what these projects bank on.
Outrageous ask
WHEN it comes to the proposal for a tourist hotel on Rosny Lookout, size does matter. 185m of continuous building facade and 300m of development associated structures will loom over the Eastern Shore and the brow of the hill. The same length of vegetation must be cleared. It is an outrageous ask.