Tertiary institutions must be better funded to wind back the increasing reliance on fee paying students and commercial sponsorship of research.  Youth Allowance should be increased to a more realistic level and better indexed to keep pace with inflation, student representative organisations must be revitalised and measures put in place to better deliver affordable student accommodation.

Schools must be adequately funded according to need and not according to whether or not they are publicly or privately operated. Teachers must be trained and employed in such numbers to provide an effective learning environment for all students, as well as reasonable lesson preparation time, rest and professional development for the teachers themselves.

The proposed internet filtering is inconsistent with the nature of the World Wide Web and probably unachievable technically in an open society like ours. It should not be allowed to proceed. Web users should instead be protected by commercially available filter software, as well as effective law enforcement efforts against those who would seek to misuse the web. 

I’ve long opposed Gunns’ proposed Tamar River pulp mill and spoken at two protest rallies against it. The proposed mill is not pollution free, not water and energy efficient, not sustainably supplied and not located where the locals are happy to have it. Nor has it been assessed by a process we can trust.