The News Review:
- 20th Hydro Tasmania Three Peaks Race – the wrap
- Section 92 meets internet net wins
- Taking stock of our birthstain
20th Hydro Tasmania Three Peaks Race – the wrap
Sail World – Mar 29, 2008
The Hydro Tasmania Three Peaks Race has been described as all of this and more but above all it is a hell of a lot of fun. 335-nautical mile sailing course and a 131-kilometre running course up mountains three of them it started at Beauty Point at Beauty Point on the Tamar River in northern Tasmania and stops at Flinders Island in Bass Strait Coles Bay on Tasmania?s east coast and the State?s capital Hobart. This is the wrap up of the 20th Hydro Tasmania Three Peaks Race Twenty-eight entries and the successful trial of a new Google Earth yacht tracker helped raise the profile of the event. The race started in similar fashion to its 19 predecessors ? on a clear sunny Good Friday with a light but strengthening northerly sea-breeze.
Section 92 meets internet net wins
The Australian – Mar 29, 2008
The racing clubs continued to fight Betfair tooth and nail on the basis that backing a horse to lose posed considerable integrity issues. Betfair’s director of corporate and business affairs Andrew Twaits says that across 2004-2005 it offered to pay every state a product fee of 20 per cent of its gross revenue — a figure he says matches the contribution of TABs. They had no takers and every government held firm until Tasmania was made an offer too good to refuse: 35 per cent of gross revenue from all Betfair activities (a 15 per cent tax plus a 20 per cent product fee). The interstate racing clubs cried foul. They were staging the events and Tasmania was getting the profits much the same as TAB’s across Australia keep the revenue from betting on interstate events. However the integrity looked very shaky when Racing Victoria signed an agreement in July 2006 which allowed it to access to Betfair’s records in return for a "product fee" for publishing its race fields. The irony is that it has not received a cent because — as Twaits explained — Racing Victoria stipulated it had to pay a certain amount to the Australian racing industry and Betfair more than covers with its fees in Tasmania… They had no takers and every government held firm until Tasmania was made an offer too good to refuse: 35 per cent of gross revenue from all Betfair activities (a 15 per cent tax plus a 20 per cent product fee). The interstate racing clubs cried foul. They were staging the events and Tasmania was getting the profits much the same as TAB’s across Australia keep the revenue from betting on interstate events. However the integrity looked very shaky when Racing Victoria signed an agreement in July 2006 which allowed it to access to Betfair’s records in return for a "product fee" for publishing its race fields. The irony is that it has not received a cent because — as Twaits explained — Racing Victoria stipulated it had to pay a certain amount to the Australian racing industry and Betfair more than covers with its fees in Tasmania. "Every betting agency is licensed in one state and pays its taxes in that state" he says "We already pay our product fees; we can only do that once or we will go out of business. " With the support of all the other states bar Tasmania Western Australia stuck to the integrity argument in the High Court.
Taking stock of our birthstain
The Australian – Mar 29, 2008
They disembarked in the colonies of NSW Van Diemen’s Land and Western Australia but while still under sentence or later when free they permeated through the colonies of Victoria Queensland and South Australia as well. Twenty-five thousand women also arrived as felons. They were distributed almost equally between NSW and Tasmania. A number of girls or youths aged say 15 who landed in the final batch to Tasmania in 1853 let alone Western Australia in 1868 survived well into the 20th century. Thomas Harrison transported in 1863 on the Lord Dalhousie for instance did not die until 1931. Some even lived until World WarII was raging. In the early years of the 21st century grandchildren of convicts were still alive who could remember their grandparents their close generational link a demonstration of how the convict past penetrates modern Australia.