Electrifying transport

HUGH McDonald (The Examiner, Letters to the Editor, March 8) questions why Tasmania isn't further down the road to electrifying our heavy transport such as buses and trucks and the simple answer is money.

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The state government is broke and doesn't have the cash to pay for the electric buses, let alone the numerous fast charge stations etc needed, and it is busily selling off all the power it possibly can to the mainland so it can claim the dividends to try and bolster its flagging finances.

The fact that we export "green" power to Victoria who then uses it to market products produced with "green" power is bad enough, but to sell at discounted rates in comparison to what Tasmanians are charged is even worse.

Your dream of an electrified transport system, while we keep selling our soul to the mainland, is a pipe dream.

If Tasmania kept its power here and used it to entice businesses to set up here, who then provide extra income for the state, we may be able to afford the costs involved in converting the transport network.

But until Tasmanian power is used here and not sold to the mainland for pennies on the dollar, I don't see much hope. Remember, we have "Rockliff Stadium" to build and we need the money to make sure that happens.

Climate change and fixing the act

LAST week, a young man told me that he and his friends were unlikely to have children because climate change is such a threat.

Peter McGlone (The Examiner, March 8) explained the critical need for Tasmania to start reducing carbon emissions. The current review of the Climate Change Act is the opportunity to make the Act stronger, specifically to introduce legislated targets for a reduction in emissions across all sectors and organisations.

Premier Rockliff presented his State of the State 2026 report on March 3. While he referred to many important matters, he did not mention climate change at all. Neither did Josh Willie, Leader of the Opposition, in his reply.

This is why the Act must also legislate for an independent body to provide intelligence and advice to the government. Our young people depend upon it.

Janet Berry, Pipers Brook

WHAT will it take for our government to fulfil community wishes and spare forests like the ones in the Dial Range?

At this point, it appears that the inappropriately named agency "Sustainable Timber Tasmania", via our state government, tries to prove a point in the Dial Range. The agency seems to fear, if it favourably considers well-founded public and economic concerns, it could become an "inconvenient" precedent. One that could force this forest agency to finally act in the public interest and reconsider other environmentally unacceptable forest operations that don't meet community expectations or interests.

After 250 years, it is time to overcome our colonial economic habits and stop selling off all that is dear to our communities and everything that makes Tasmania so special and the most attractive island to visit or live on.

Nowadays it is essential for extractive industries to act and adapt to scientifically proven, critical environmental and climatic realities so we finally can create and live in a truly sustainable Tasmanian economy.

Should we still lose parts of the Dial Range forests to wood chips now, I suspect it is purely due to childish stubbornness of blinkered leaders clinging to the past, a past that has well and truly proven to be unsustainable.

Helmut Schwabe, Gunns Plains

Good character references

I MUST agree with Amelia Higgs, president of the Law Society of Tasmania. No legislative amendment is needed in Tasmania regarding good character references when sentencing procedures are underway.

As much as we empathise with the victims of sexual assault, to exact revenge on behalf of them is not one of the primary functions of the criminal justice system. Its procedures are not there simply to make victims feel better.

More important functions are to protect society, to deter criminal behaviour in the population, and to rehabilitate offenders.

Therefore, good character references are very relevant to sentencing, as they bear on how much society will need protection from the offender and how "rehabilitatable" they are. It makes a big difference whether we are dealing with a thorough psychopath or an out-of-character lapse.

And if a victim of crime is distressed at hearing how good an offender has been in their life in general, this is no reason the court should not hear it and........

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