Big rates rise adds to cost-of-living pain
Kingborough Council is the latest in a long line of local councils that over the years have increased rates way above the average in an attempt to balance budgets.
I understand that there are community expectations around services and infrastructure provided by councils, and these don’t come for free, however I really do wonder how much consideration is given by councils regarding the public’s capacity to pay these large increases? Where does it stop?
It’s all very well to arrange a hardship plan to pay, but that is really only kicking the can down the road, especially for those on fixed incomes. My elderly mother was hit very hard financially some years ago when her local council increased rates by a similar amount.
The recent state election saw many political aspirants promising to do something about the cost of living, perhaps the minister for local government, whoever assumes this portfolio in the new government, can look into this issue.
Stuart Cox Howrah
Lift fix delay
Many of those who have visited Salamanca Arts Centre since December last year will know that the courtyard lift has not been operating since before Christmas.
It’s been a terribly frustrating time, most particularly for those who rely on the lift to access levels one and two of the arts centre, either to attend their workplace, or to visit a gallery or performance.
For almost four months now, countless people have been denied access to up to 70 per cent of the arts centre.
Service technicians have been sourcing components from overseas and interstate, and everyone had reasonably expected that the faults would have been identified and corrected by now, but it seems that as one component is replaced, other older components fail.
Staff from the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (NRE), who have responsibility for buildings maintenance, including maintaining and repairing the lift at the Salamanca Arts Centre, were on site recently and met with senior technicians from the company who have been trying to repair the lift since it failed in December last year.
I have written to staff at NRE requesting a comprehensive report from that recent meeting between NRE, its insurers and the service technicians, as to the prognosis, the immediate steps to be taken to have the lift operating again; the optimum solutions to ensure the lift is not only operating again, but that it will operate in a safe and reliable manner for the long-term, and also what additional measures need to be put in place to ensure that if the courtyard lift were to fail again (even in some years hence) that disability access to levels one and two of the arts centre can still be provided.
Until we receive that report from NRE it’s not possible for Salamanca Arts Centre to say when the courtyard lift will be properly repaired and operational again.
Joe Bugden Hobart
Ecocide mission
We first heard the term ecocide 10 years ago at a Friends meeting in England. It is encouraging to hear in the Mercury (April 4) that Regina Weiss is travelling to The Hague to
lobby for its inclusion in the Rome Statute.
We understand that this would oblige Australia, as a signatory, to include it in our own criminal law. The degrading of the environment by individuals or companies in search of profits has gone on for far too long, resulting in our loss of habitat and species and the present climate crisis.
Perhaps this would give teeth to our environment protection watchdogs – they seem to need this. Best wishes Regina for a successful outcome to your efforts.
Rob and Toni Hill Howrah
Eradicate deer
Carlo Di Falco claims that some of our native wildlife – cockatoos, wallabies, wombats, possums and ducks – are just as much pests as deer.
Well, he’s partly correct, but the problem is one of our own making. We have modified the environment and introduced our own crops that our native animals have taken to. But, in so doing, we have destroyed their natural environment.
Fallow deer, on the other hand, are an invasive feral species. They were introduced from Europe and have been permitted to increase their numbers because of political intransigence.
Hunters will claim they can control the deer, but demonstrably they have not.
Furthermore, research conducted on land held by the Tasmanian Land Conservancy clearly shows that hunters alone cannot control deer numbers.
I agree with Elizabeth Osborne and Paul Merhulik that the answer is to eradicate deer completely in Tasmania. The hunters will find plenty on the mainland for their ‘sport’.
Bob Holderness-Roddam Austins Ferry
Nuclear solution
K. Winter (Bury nuclear “ghost”, April 4) it appears that your knowledge of the nuclear industry is up there with my knowledge of brain surgery. It also appears that you haven’t noticed how many countries already have and/or are increasing their nuclear power generation while others are turning to it in the quest for reliable base load electricity, something wind and solar cannot do.
Those countries are able to supply power to their people and industries at affordable prices while we are on a downward slide of both reliability and affordability and our manufacturing is increasingly moving offshore.
We not only have nuclear subs on order, but we also have nuclear medical products/treatments produced from our existing reactor that have benefited many people (including myself), so is that facility also a “turd” rolled in glitter?
Personally, I would rather have a few modern reactors sited where coal generators are being shut down than thousands of hectares of good farmland being buried under solar panels that are all eventually destined for landfill, and let’s not forget the bushland including active koala habitat being bulldozed for wind turbines in Queensland and other states.
Kerry Foley Launceston