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.

The clear felling of old growth forests must stop. More generally the widespread logging of native forests should be phased out except for the careful extraction of individual logs for speciality timbers. Much greater care must be taken with the siting, composition and management of plantations. Forestry operations on private land must achieve a sensible balance between the right of landowners to engage in profitable commercial endeavours and the public interest in retaining native forest for carbon sinks and other environmental reasons. Disadvantaged farmers should be compensated.