Swimming champion on the world stage, who will inspire many other young Tasmanians to follow in her wake.  

Tassie does well on the world sporting pages with our cyclists, girls especially, and the gallant Richie Porte, champions in their field. And we delight in the effectiveness of level-headed Aussie cricket captain Tim Paine. Plenty for young people to emulate.

IN regard to the church sales, what a long and worrying time it was for all those involved. I want to thank all those who took the time to get in touch with me, by various ways, all supporting me and my concerns for a little church that meant so much to me and my siblings and relatives.

Support came from afar, all over the state and country and I will forever be grateful that through their support we were able to save our church from being sold.

I’d like to think that my communication with the Archbishop of Canterbury may have helped my cause.

Yes, I did write to him, and yes I did receive an answer with his prayers and blessings. For this, I am putting the blame on our local mayor, who was so much help in our quest to get the result we had.

He suggested it, (albeit tongue in cheek) not thinking I would take him up on it, but he never estimated my resolve I’m sure.

For all of those who were successful, my thoughts and prayers are with you all.

With the recent COAG meeting discussing immigration quotas, I wonder why we need to put more pressure on our exciting infrastructure, which is already failing the present population.

We need to build the infrastructure before we bring in another 160,000 people.

We always seem to be chasing our tail which results in housing shortages in both ownership and rental categories, which in turn pushes up prices, that only helps real estate salespeople. I do have one question, how many of the 160,000 are the tradespeople we supposedly require and are their qualifications acceptable in Australia? Or do they need recertification at our expense?

IT has been disturbing to see so many recent correspondents writing to support the corrupt and unethical actions of Lawyer X in Victoria.  

In becoming a police informant to secure convictions, Lawyer X betrayed the confidence of her clients and subverted the judicial system to such an extent all semblance of fair trials for many was not possible.  

The actions of Lawyer X have now resulted in a Royal Commission that will most likely see convictions overturned, massive amounts of compensation awarded and criminals walk free never to be retried.

It is a key foundation of the judicial system that defendants can not only trust their legal representation but know it is free from corruption and unethical actions.  

The subversion of the judicial system by a corrupt and unethical lawyer is not something to be applauded or praised and should be highly condemned due to the ramifications it will have.

TO ALL the school kids going on strike for climate change.

You are the first generation who have required air-conditioning in every classroom.

You want a TV in every room and your classes are all computerised.

You spend all day and night on electronic devices.

More than ever, you don't walk or ride bikes to school but arrive in caravans of private cars that choke suburban roads and worsen rush hour traffic.

You are the biggest consumers of manufactured goods ever and replace perfectly good expensive luxury items just to stay trendy. 

Your scooters and skateboards are increasingly electric.

Furthermore, the people driving your protests are the same people who insist on artificially inflating the population growth through immigration which increases the need for energy, manufacturing and transport.

The more people we have, the more forest and bushland we clear and more of the environment is destroyed.

How about this, tell your teachers to switch off the air-conditioning, walk or ride to school, switch off your devices and read a book.

Make a sandwich instead of buying manufactured goods.

No, none of this will happen because you are selfish, virtue signalling little so and so’s inspired by the adults around you who crave a feeling of having a “noble cause” while they indulge themselves in luxury and unprecedented quality of life.

I CANNOT decide whether Woolworths and Coles have done a good thing or not by banning single-use plastic shopping bags.

They tell us that this ban has led to an 80 per cent drop in their consumption and this has stopped 1.5 billion single-use bags entering the environment (The Examiner, December 3).

But they don't tell us (and the Boomerang Alliance has asked them) how many of the alternative thicker multi-use bags they have distributed?

Are they consuming just as much plastic that could still end up as litter, enter the ocean or end up in landfill?

A better approach would be to do what some other shops do and that is to only offer long-life cloth bags, boxes or heavy-duty paper bags.