WITH the budget coming up and lots of high income people about to lose the pension, I await with interest the outcome of lawyers and financial wizards who will be working their butts off in order to find loopholes to secure the pension for those who can afford to manage without the extra.

— BILL EDMONDSON, Grindelwald.

Tamar Lake

I RETURNED to Launceston this week after almost a lifetime of travelling and working around the world to hear and read news of a great Tamar Lake.

Wow what a grand way to hide the mess and to educate our children.

It seems human nature will not confront the real issue, which is cleaning up the mess we make.

I remember the Tamar River at its best.

Fifty years ago, large schools of Australian salmon, yellowfin tuna, oysters off the rocks for Sunday breakfast and crystal clear blue water, now all gone.

Keep telling our children, don't worry in this world, the last thing we have to do is clean up our mess. Just spend untold millions to hide it so that it goes away for another 50 years or so and then left to the next generation to clean up.

Until such time as a business plan incorporates and pays for the need to clean up its mess, before it start up. This is right up there with great leadership ambitions of the world.

— PATRICK VON STIEGLITZ, Airlie Beach, Qld.

John L Grove

AFTER suffering my third stroke on April 26, 2014, I was taken by ambulance to the Launceston General Hospital’s emergency department.

I was admitted to the Stroke Unit on Ward 6D where I stayed for several days until my condition stabilized.

I was then transferred to the John L. Grove Slow Stream Rehabilitation Unit where I stayed for the next 100 days.

On admission to John L. Grove I was unable to walk, feed myself nor take care of any of my daily needs.

During this time I received the greatest of skilled and dedicated care from all the staff involved in my recovery.

I fear that without the service of the John L. Grove Centre I may never have regained sufficient function to return to my own home and would most likely have been resigned to spending the remainder of my life in a nursing home.

The ongoing operation of the John L. Grove Rehab Centre is absolutely crucial.

Please Mr Ferguson carefully consider the importance of the John L. Grove Centre and don’t deny present and future patients the same loving care and treatment I received, which was essential to my recovery.

— ELIZABETH R. RANSON, Hagley.

Volunteers

THE St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia would like to mark the occasion of National Volunteers’ Week (May 11-17) by extending a warm thank you to our dedicated volunteers.

St Vincent de Paul Society volunteers are everyday people, from all walks of life and backgrounds and together their selfless actions enabled our charity to assist approximately 1.8 million people last year.

I sincerely thank each and every one of our 63,430 volunteers and members for their time and efforts.

They are following in the simple footsteps of a fellow volunteer, the founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society, the Blessed Frederic Ozanam.

Frederic was a young University student when he founded the Society in France in 1833.

I believe the good intentions of our volunteers are aptly summed up by this quote from Frederic:  ‘In my life I want to become better and do a little good’.

— GRAHAM WEST, St Vincent de Paul Society National Council of Australian president.

Penny Royal

WHILE the much of the redevelopment of the Penny Royal facilities by the JAC Group is welcomed, I was quite perturbed to read (The Examiner, May 7) that there is going to be an animatronic experience featuring notorious bushranger Mathew Brady and the much misunderstood John Batman.

Venerating a criminal in Brady is bad enough but to include a vile man who viciously hunted down Tasmanian Aboriginal people is a complete and utter insult to modern Tasmanian Aborigines.

How John Batman came to be celebrated in history is a mystery as he was described by artist John Glover as a "rogue, thief, cheat and liar, a murderer of blacks and the vilest man I have ever known".

George Augustus Robinson wrote that Batman was 'a bad and dangerous character.

He has recently lost part of his nose from the bad disease (nasal syphilis) and Governor Arthur stated, 'He has much slaughter [of Aborigines] to account for”.

Batman also tried to swindle the Kulin (Victorian) people out of their vast country.

Some say he was responsible for the founding of Melbourne, but the much forgotten John Fawkner deserves more credit for that than Batman; a man who should be reviled as a colonial terrorist and definitely not a hero.

— GEOFF McLEAN, Launceston.

Indonesia

I THOROUGHLY agree with C. and G. Stebbings’ letter (The Examiner, Saturday, May 9). I will not repeat what they have covered as I concur with all that they have said, only to give my further thoughts on the matter.

My wife and I have travelled in Indonesia several times, not just Bali but Java West, East and Central and Lombok.

We were planning a possible trip to Bali at Christmas, however I will now never travel to Indonesia again, there are superior alternatives.

I make no apologies nor offer the chance to `save face’ to Indonesian sensibilities on these issues.

The withdrawal of our Ambassador was, I think timely, but did not go far enough.

I believe any Government (taxpayer) funded aid to Indonesia should be suspended.

That international organisations should be actively petitioned to support Australia’s stance.

Any boats coming illegally into Australian waters from Indonesia should be turned around and sent back to Indonesia. (The reverse of-course should also happen).

Finally, in response to the "bring back the death penalty” much as I abhor the trafficking of illegal drugs under any circumstance, I do not consider it to be murder, unless the person involved is force feeding it down the throat of the recipient.

Strong penalties yes - but the death penalty - no.

— ANDREW SMITH, Bridport.

Ring roads

IN THE early '60s now local street maps of Launceston City and surrounds, showed proposed ring roads for the eastern side of the city.

Is the city serious about providing a ring road system.

I am at a loss why the Launceston City Council continues to do nothing.

The city has a major issue with traffic from the Riverside/Legana  areas entering the city to go toward Mowbray/Newnham and University areas creating bottlenecks choking the existing roads unnecessarily.

This leads me to the many proposals for a bridge, lake with a  lock or a tunnel to relieve the unnecessary issue of sensible east-west access.

Will the council respond with another proposal and institute action.

I suspect just rhetoric and no action.

Get serious and do your jobs, make decisions, and demonstrate you want to advantage the city and not pander to the Brisbane Street Barons.

Let us see confirmation with set time lines, to complete the eastern ring roads and create a tunnel or bridge across the river near Newnham. Commit with action, not words.

Do not just form another committee, just demonstrate with action.

— ADRIAN GOFTON, Newnham.

Silt

IT IS great to read suggestions by well meaning folk on how best to remedy the silt problem in the Tamar.

I strongly encourage community involvement in this issue but some suggestions are scientifically flawed and can only make the situation worse.

Estuarine hydrodynamics is a complex science but the fundamentals are relatively straight forward.

The volume of silt on the intertidal banks is in a 1:1 zero sum game with the volume of water between low tide and high tide (called the tidal prism); the more of one the less of the other.

The two volumes naturally reach a balance or equilibrium.

The tidal prism also affects the volume of silt in the channel, although the relationship is more complex.

Removing silt does not alter that balance; it merely returns until the balance is restored. The adjustment must come from the other side of the equation; ie. the volume of water. Increasing the freshwater discharge helps because this increases the low tide width which in effect is the foundation for the tidal volume.

Proposals which reduce either the freshwater or tidal flow in any way can only result in disaster.

I suggest searching ‘Friends of Upper Tamar River Estuary’ on the internet.

As a researcher I have found this page unbiased, informative and scientifically sound.

— IAN KIDD, West Launceston.