Before long our CBDs will become ghost towns with rows of empty shops.  

Generally we need to change our concept of CBD into a workable CLD – is a Central Leisure District.   

Banks and other corporate offices should move out into the suburbs, leaving the city centres for shopping and social activities. 

Modern technology no longer requires their presence on the city blocks to facilitate contact and commercial business. 

It can all be done at the push of a button, providing less congestion and a healthier environment for employees.

Perhaps corporate bodies could lead the way by moving to decrease the growing costs of their city centre offices, and providing a healthier environment for their staff.  

A few such moves would bring a lasting sense of reality to this region of civic government and that is long overdue.

Len Langan, Longford. 

I MIGHT be an old goose with much to say about everything but perhaps I might have a point.

The news is rife with violence against police officers and or ambulance drivers.

We will not even talk about anger towards parents or domestic violence at home.

Authority is the system in place that is there to assist day to day people if threatened.

Discipline is what we are taught from a young age to enable boundaries.

No person has a right to argue each of these issues just because they were not taught it.

If we were a world of anarchy with no control, like Mad Max, I could see us all running for cover.

Abusing the system that is trying to keep us safe, is like high-fiving yourself for slapping yourself in the face, which is a nonstarter.

Many of the ambulance drivers are volunteers that have taken time out of enjoying their worlds and their families.

Police officers are not highly paid, work shifts, leave their own families to try and make our worlds livable.

Come on people; stand up for a fair go to our authority and discipline forces because this is Australia.

We all deserve to be able to live in a world where we feel safe and protected.

Felicity O’Neill, Deloraine.

I MUST say  recent contributions on the subject of Christianity have been very entertaining.

I was especially amused by the contention that we can’t know about a star 9.3 billion kilometres from Earth because our instruments can’t see that far. 

Perhaps one imagines astronomers peering through a very long telescope.

Science has absolutely nothing to say, and no interest in Christianity or any other religion. 

And it certainly is not in the business of disproving the existence of gods or any other mystical beings. 

I guess I can accept that the above mentioned contributions might have been away the day they did science in their schools, but here’s what really surprises me. 

They seem to have a lack of knowledge about their own Christian dogma. 

As Steve Saunders said, the gospels don’t even claim to have been written by eyewitnesses to the supposed miraculous events they describe. 

The accounts were created much later by people who weren’t there, and have all the hallmarks of a back-story created to launch a new religion.

I find it strange that atheists are often more knowledgeable about the Bible than many Christians who seem to either have not read it, or not understood what was actually written.

David Tyler, Prospect.

SUE Hickey might say she had a vote of confidence from the State Parliament when she was elected as Speaker by Labor and the Greens, but she can hardly have forgotten that she was voted into Parliament as a Liberal.

She joins the ranks of opportunistic politicians who put their own ego above their constituents and reinforces the general belief that politicians cannot be trusted.

Robin Claxton, Dilston.

I HAVE been away for several weeks.  

On return and reading through The Examiner for April, I was delighted to read in the Wednesday, April 11 issue “Toilet block merged into $3m proposal”.  

That is it will now form part of the redevelopment of Macquarie House, where it should always have been, not a stand-alone  blunder degrading the Charles Street entrance to our impressively refurbished City Square.

To reassess the design and location of the toilet block would have taken, I imagine, some real mettle on the part of the City of Launceston. 

So sincere compliments indeed.

Jim Dickenson. Launceston.

TIMES are very tough indeed if opportunity shops are placing security guards at the change rooms.

Davis Seecamp, Trevallyn.

LATELY it is becoming clear that the new construction in Kings Park is an edifice en memoriam.

During its construction river-edge vegetation was damaged. 

Let’s hope that City of Launceston council will see fit to revegetate the river bank such that the swans and other waterbirds that reside in a dwindling city-centred river habitat can safely remain to bring their majesty and natural integrity to this gentle and popular walk-through place.

Helen Tait, West Launceston.