DIANE Burton (The Examiner, April 1) rightly makes the issue of Domestic Violence and the consequences of such blatantly clear, and it is a huge national, if not worldwide, problem for society. However, her comments are biased in the extreme.
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Her letter would have us believe that it is only women who are the victims when, in fact, women can be perpetrators to their male partners. The law and opinions on this subject are one-sided. A woman can have her partner removed forcibly by the police and courts from the family home and children without any physical evidence, just verbal statements and with no proof whatsoever. The male partner can be mentally tortured daily by the female, threatening he will never see his children again is one of many; she also then gets substantial payments from the taxpayer to live in the family home, which has been paid for by the male in many cases. He, if not jailed, has to then start a new life with very little help at all.
It is time for this one-sided, unfair, and degrading system to be changed. It has gone too far in favouring the female.
Richard Cooke, Invermay
University study centre on King Island
THE Commonwealth government will establish a university study centre on King Island, making it easier for the locals to complete Year 12 at their high school and a degree while studying on the Island.
This makes clear how important it is for all communities to be supported in achieving the highest level of qualifications possible. But while Launceston is fortunate to have a university campus, it is worrying that public schools in the area are falling well short of supporting their students in completing secondary school.
St Mary's is doing best, with 55 per cent of its 2020 Year 10s gaining their TCE in 2022. For Year 10s of the other public schools in the area, only those at Riverside (54 per cent), Prospect (51 per cent), and Winnaleah (50 per cent) were more likely than not to gain their Year 12 qualification, with others down as low as 17 per cent.
The King Island University study centre shows how important it is to support all communities in gaining higher-level qualifications. We desperately need the Tasmanian government to lift its ambition for our school students. We cannot pretend that less than half of the young people in the North East completing their Year 12 is OK. It is not. We need a thorough inquiry to get to the bottom of the problem and fix it.
Michael Rowan, Birchs Bay
Taswater
TasWater's current policy of seeking public input into sewerage pricing over the next several months must be seen as a delaying tactic. Although it was not properly advertised, the Economic Regulator is currently reviewing the policy, with submissions on residential sewerage closed months ago and submissions on trade waste closing on April 12. Submissions made over a long period can be viewed on the OTTER website, including one from TasWater indicating that they, too, hold the view that the present ET system must change as it is unfit for use - backed up by their own Jacobs Report from 2018 that came to the same conclusion.
In your paper, TasWater continues to inform the public that the combined water and sewage bills at the 200 kl per year level are comparable with Melbourne prices. This is deceptive - TasWater is aware that due to access and geography the cost of water in Tasmania is only half that in Melbourne, and that the 200 kl ET unit used contains a 30% leakage factor. At the actual average usage level of 150 kl we pay far more for sewerage than Melbourne. The situation is even worse for trade waste customers as their bills are based on that inflated ET unit price multiplied by errors in establishing the number of ETs that are assumed as their usage. There is more than enough evidence that a proper parliamentary Inquiry should be held into Taswater pricing.
M.J.Eastley, Deloraine
