Call us pro-mountain brigade

CABLE CAR

PREMIER Will Hodgman should try to rise above name-calling. Calling those opposed to the cable car the “anti-everything brigade” ( Mercury, March 4) is not just a crude attempt at demonising people, it is simply wrong.

Let’s not try to demonise people who have a different opinion to our own.

The fact is the vast majority of decisions made by governments at all levels, including those that have an economic impact, occur with little or no fanfare or community concern. Even fewer generate community opposition, let alone anger. The proposed cable car falls into the latter category.

So who belongs to Mr Hodgman’s socalled “anti-everything brigade”? They are people who care about having more visual intrusions on the mountain, who don’t want public reserve land alienated or public money wasted, and who don’t want thousands of extra vehicles travelling on already congested roads through South Hobart. Who are they? My kind of people — the pro-mountain brigade.

Let’s try to be respectful throughout this contentious debate. Demonising and name-calling is the prerogative of the schoolyard bully, not the Premier. most, their visual and environmental impact is small. The proposed cable car for Hobart looks well designed with minimal impact. It would have been better leaving from near the brewery but I think the protesters put paid to that. It would be more useful if the fervour self-generated by the anti-cable car people could be directed to get a better education system, better hospitals and a better planning scheme for our urban environment. I am sure, once the cable car is built and operating, those who have the ability to see reason will realise it is a great positive for Tasmania.

Drilling risks

TONY Donaghy (“Fake hysteria”, Letters, March 8) misunderstands the significant technical, logistic and safety management aspects of helicopter-supported drilling in steep, boulder-covered terrain and thick forest that includes numerous old-growth eucalypts in the vicinity of the drill sites.

The work proposed by the Mount Wellington Cableway Company shows 32 holes are planned at the base station, three tower sites, one temporary tower site and the visitor centre at the top of the mountain. Having visited the drilling sites, the magnitude of this task, the safety management aspects and the legal responsibilities of signing off on the safety management plan should give Tony some reason for concern. While solutions are available for every situation, and despite all the best laid safety management plans, anybody with knowledge of the planned drill hole locations and the drilling industry will know that the many risks associated with Glenorchy residents are way behind other cities. We are still waiting for the green lid green waste bins. Glenorchy residents pay some of the highest rates yet get less then any other city to show for those rates.

— this job will be extremely challenging to manage to acceptable standards.

I have no knowledge of the planned development at The Springs but do know the site is largely cleared, open, has ample access for vehicles, and in most places is reasonably level and stable. Trying to compare any work here with the planned drilling by the MWCC is disingenuous.

Report an issue in itself

IN response to the arrogant and dismissive “anti-everything brigade” slur from Will Hodgman, reader Yvonne Trevaskis helpfully recommends a report on the cable car issue, released by the Tasmanian National Parks Association (Letters, March 6). The report contains a quite comprehensive and considered list of “issues that must be addressed in a full assessment”. It is well worth a read.

However, it is unfortunate that it was actually jointly written by the TNPA and Residents Opposed to the Cable Car, begging the question: if the latter are already “opposed to the cable car”, then why do they require that any further issues be addressed and investigated?

This is no different from deciding that the prisoner is guilty and only then seeking out evidence for the prosecution. It is a common and unfortunate feature of the way debates involving the Tasmanian environment have been conducted for decades and feeds the hopefully misguided notion that the anti-everything brigade is alive and well in Tasmania.

Make the most of it

NOW the salmon farms have created a new pest, jellyfish, would it be possible to harvest them and make them edible for human consumption?

Comic genius

SCOTT Morrison at the empty Christmas Island detention centre resembled a scene from Yes, Prime Minister.

Better time for references

WITH regard to Greg Barns’s opinion piece last Monday, I can see his point that anybody charged with an offence should be able to put forward a character reference but I think this should only apply before conviction. If it is submitted after conviction, as in Cardinal Pell’s case, isn’t that tantamount to saying, “He’s a great bloke apart from the fact that he’s a convicted paedophile”?

AFL more business than sport

THE AFL executive think they are bigger than the game and pay themselves accordingly. What was once a great spectator sport is now a business. They have taken the fun out of the game by their overpricing and greed.