Direct flights still on my radar
AS a Tasmanian who has enjoyed several holiday trips to New Zealand by air, and who in 2012 wrote to the Mercury supporting resumption of the Hobart-Christchurch air link, I join the latest chorus for restoring this connection. In particular I applaud Simon Bevilacqua’s contribution (Mercury, April 25, May 9) and John Livermore’s excellent Talking Point on April 30 in support. His valuable summary was based on experience using the service. It is pertinent that when flights ended in the 1990s, Air New Zealand and Qantas had passenger loadings of 80 per cent. For my part, I had gained support from Clarence Mayor Doug Chipman who said he had no doubt the link with Christchurch would be a major tourism boost and of great benefit to Tasmania and New Zealand. Vince Taskunas at the RACT was similarly supportive and there was backing from the then Christchurch mayor Bob Parker.
It is encouraging to see our Premier talking about the renewal of a Hobart New Zealand link and others also showing enthusiasm. A Mercury report of September 11, 2007, headlined “Flights to New Zealand on the radar” has a photo of then premier Paul Lennon at the opening of a $23 million facelift to Hobart International Airport. A report of July 28, 2009, said direct flights to New Zealand (and Asia) within three years were on the radar.
Well, I have to say they are still on my radar, although I’m now in my 90s. And so, at my age, I’d like to see that resumption sooner than much later.
Derek Haigh
West Hobart
Low fuel margin memory
CAN we recall a time when the price of petrol was not complained about? I can, it was when there was an operator in each outlet and we managed our sites on margins of 5 per cent or less and there was real competition between operators in close proximity. When I started retailing fuel there were no price boards, we had a roster system, employed driveway attendants and had low margins. Now we have the duopoly of supermarkets retailing fuel without a retail price regulatory body and have seen margins increase to levels over 35 per cent. Fuel is a necessary commodity for every Australian and retail margins should be regulated to 10 per cent, a fair return considering most retailers only have one console operator’s wage to cover.
John Douglas
Old Beach
RSPCA sign-off
FOR me, it takes a quote from old Rome to sum up the new CEO of RSPCA Tasmania: “Who will guard the guards?”
Reader K. McLaren wrote it was “odd” to appoint former Farmers and Graziers Association chief executive Jan Davis (Letters, May 11). The letter condemned intensive cattle farming where the animals have limited freedom to graze before slaughter. But the description as “odd” was, I reckoned, a little tame.
The cruelty meted out to sheep and cattle in Indonesia and the Middle East is a shameful fact, a practice which Jan Davis in her role as TFGA chief defended in 2018 with: “A ban makes no sense. We don’t ban other things outright every time there is an unacceptable outcome; and punishing those (farmers) who have worked to improve standards is unfair.” Surely Davis does not plan to carry that sentiment into the RSPCA. And who signed off on this “odd” appointment? I’m shamed into harking back to that cliched line of 20 years ago: “This smacks of Colonel Sanders babysitting your chickens.”
Hugh McLean
Taroona
More to say on Israel
GREG Barns no longer even tries to temper his denunciations of Israel with any semblance of context. To read his account of the proposed annexation of parts of the West Bank (Talking Point, May 11) you would never know it wouldn’t include the areas where Palestinians rule themselves and would require Israel to support a Palestinian state. You would never know about previous offers of a Palestinian state in almost the entire West Bank and all of Gaza which Palestinians refused.
Barns accuses Israel of apartheid even though by law all citizens have equal rights and Israel’s Arab citizens are equal of any other Israeli and well represented in parliament, courts, professions and defence. He omits to say West Bank restrictions are purely for security. When Israel declared independence, in accordance with the UN plan, it had to immediately defend itself from attack by local Arabs and invasion by all its neighbours. Barns calls this “the Israeli aggression of 1948”. Then again his description of Israel’s founding makes clear he would deny Jews the same right to a state in their homeland he so ardently urges for Palestinians.
George Greenberg
Hobart
Beekeeper worries
IT is very disturbing to hear leatherwood trees are being logged by Sustainable Timber Tasmania, such that Smithton beekeeper Rodney Smith has called on the Greens to assist in the halt to logging in coupe meoo8b. Leatherwood trees grow only in rainforest, to hear these precious trees are being logged would cause consternation throughout the Western world where the logging in rainforest is deplored. Without bees the entire food chain would be disrupted, pollination is vital and that is precisely what these wonderful insects do.
Phil Jones
Margate