From memory this river has never dried up until this year, where the surrounding gum trees have succumbed to the lack of water and are showing signs of advanced dieback.

Dead twigs and bare branches form the canopy of these magnificent specimens and are the only remnants of what used to be a thick and healthy foliage crown.

In the face of severe drought and catastrophic fires, I find it incomprehensible that our current government continues to ignore the anthropogenic nature of climate change.

Before God has any hope of answering Barnaby Joyce's prayer to alleviate the effects of climate change, God has to somehow convince our government to act on climate change. This would be a miracle of biblical proportions.

Ed Sianski, West Moonah.

I HAVE been told more than once via email by the Northern Midlands Council general manager that my comments directed toward him and council officers on council decisions have been offensive and not to contact them again.

So it is with mixed feelings that I have read reports by The Examiner reporter, Isobel Cootes on the council's recent decisions.

Thank goodness someone is monitoring this inept group of so-called community representatives and I applaud The Examiner for doing so.

This once proud and efficient local government body is now, nothing but an absolute shambles, obviously lacking leadership from the elected members and its bureaucratic council officials. Every town within the municipality has been affected by silly infantile decisions of council resulting in deferred projects, poorly managed projects and outright stupid projects.

Bill Chugg, Campbell Town.

THE Great Derwent Entertainment Centre giveaway of our community asset, plus $60 million in taxpayer funds, is not about supporting grassroots sports development for our young people, or politicians caring about funding the critical needs of the community.

The great urgency appears to be to create and maintain elite state sports teams to facilitate the lucrative and damaging sports betting and gambling industry at taxpayer expense.

This unbelievable deal appears to have been achieved without a competitive process.

Is it payback, using public funds, to repay the massive political donations from the gambling industry at the last election?

Janiece Bryan, Montrose.

Those researchers? Wasting time on distant possibilities of interference to summer cricket would have been better employed elsewhere.

How about researching the greater possibility of massive disruptions to our electricity supply through using intermittent sources (wind and solar) without commensurate (expensive) storage.

Gordon Thurlow, Launceston.

IN response to Greg Hall's letter (The Examiner, December 27). The positives that Mr Hall's letter purports will be felt by everyone in the North apart from Westbury. Large prisons in small towns herald the demise of the small communities that host them.

Prison employees do not like to live close to their place of employment. Young families don't like to live in prison towns. A large prison for Westbury will see major demographic change to the point where the beloved Westbury Primary School will yet again be under threat.

Seriously Mr Hall, you might be happy to believe the Liberal party's spin but the majority of people in Westbury are not. A prison so close to Westbury is every kind of wrong. If there must be a Northern Prison, locate it in such a place where all the north can benefit without crucifying a small historic village.

A.M Loader, Westbury.

SO former Meander Valley mayors Craig Perkins and Greg Hall think that 'robust debate' is reserved for politicians only. The current, enlightened cat fight between Elise Archer and Sue Hickey being a prime example of parliamentary robust debate.

In their paternalistic, patronising front page article Perkins and Hall questioned the prison opponents' approach to protest, and went on to give advice on how opponents should roll over and accept the wisdom of all of our government's secretive, redacted jobs for the boys, bread and circus style of management. The expressions of interest farrago that has led to the proposed prison site being chosen is a prime example of current Liberal leadership.

At the recent, engineered public meeting Minister Archer was again offered a thousand acres of poor farming land close to Launceston, but couldn't consider it because the owners had not submitted an expression of interest in her top secret scheme. Minister Archer, Yes Minister is a comedy programme not a training programme, and Catch 22 was fiction until now.

Peter Wileman, Westbury.

NOTE to self- when next buying real estate, I need to add another tick box to an already extensive list of things I don't want nearby, including no prisons.

The newest and most important tick box - ensure there is at least one former or current mayor or MP living close by to ensure that in the future I don't end up with any of the other items on my list.

S.Stening, Westbury.