Yes, the world is a mess, no thanks to my generation, but surely that provides the challenges for your generation?  That you are critical and questioning of so much of life about you, is the basis for action.

And there are many areas of need that provide those challenges for all young adults. Don’t feel stifled but get out there to meet the challenges. I have every confidence that you and many others now graduating from our schooling systems will strive to make that difference. So be challenged to action with ‘all your optimism of youth’, which I hope you never lose.

DON Davey ( Letters, November 27) couldn't have watched Parliament question time when the Liberals were in Opposition or he wouldn't be criticising Labor, because Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne regularly called for suspension of standing orders against the Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard Labor governments. If it was good enough for the Liberals to do it surely it must be good enough for the Shorten-led Opposition to do it? If Mr Davey did see Mr  Abbott and Mr Pyne in action, he is acting in typical Liberal style by cheering when his team does something, and then booing when the other team does the same thing. 

M.J. NICHOLSON (The Examiner, November 30) is correct when she states that both sides of politics have failed to provide adequate palliative and end-of-life care services. The 2004 report found that only 52 per cent of those requiring palliative care services were receiving them – it also found that Tasmania had only 50 per cent of the palliative care beds it needed.

The recent Northern Hospice Feasibility Study Report, conducted by Canberra-based Grosvenor Consultants, failed to update those 2004 figures. This report lacked credible data and was more an appraisal of current services than a ‘report on the feasibility of a Northern hospice’. How then could the study claim that ‘the current services are adequate for the next two decades”?

Meanwhile, those living in Northern Tasmania requiring end-of-life care, who cannot remain at home, do not have access to a ground-floor, dedicated facility. Those living in Hobart have the Whittle Ward, a 10-bed publicly funded hospice.

We also know that in the Launceston area, more than 30 per cent of those over the age of 65 live alone and in this state there is a higher than national average of cancer-related illness and chronic disease. Access to excellence in palliative and end-of-life care is a basic human right. It is about providing choice. In Northern Tasmania this fact has been ignored by successive governments.

LISTENING to people speaking of charities and the fact that not all the money goes to that particular one I wonder why they send out cards, bags and address labels. I have received many of the latter from charities I have never supported and I wonder how much it costs to acquire and post these goodies.

Surely it would be better to use any associated costs for the charity itself and then they may not have to ask for more and more money? I support quite a few charities, usually animal related, and I don't receive free goodies from those. One is the RSPCA and another the Australian Orangutan Project where 99 per cent goes to the care of the animals involved.