We visit her nearly every day. Over the past four years, we have witnessed a constant turnover of overworked and underpaid carers. As a result of this, she finds it difficult trying to form relationships with new staff due to time constraints and communication barriers. The staff are doing the very best they can and she understands the pressures the system imposes on them.

However, she increasingly feels like a number in a seemingly uncaring system and not a human being who deserves more support and dignity than this current system allows. It breaks our heart to see her so constantly distraught by this situation.

She deserves better. The hard-working staff deserve better. People in their most vulnerable years deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and not as a means to a company profit. I only hope the interim report into the aged care sector, due out October 31 provides some positive solutions to a system in crisis.

Janet Lambert, Devon Hills.

A GENEROUS thank you to Frances Vinall and the journalists at The Examiner for the Lasting Legacy supplement in (The Sunday Examiner, September 1).

It is easy to forget that Tasmania only had 247,000 residents in 1939.

Yet as our nation's smallest state we contributed almost 30,000 to the war effort battling in Africa, England, France, Europe and the Pacific plus manufacturing in Tasmania. In particular, I refer to thank Frances for her story on one of two left alive of the 2/40th AIF who was sent to Timor to keep Koepangs Penfui airstrip and the Hudson bombers alive and protect our Northern shores, that is Darwin.

More bombs were dropped there than in the entire Vietnam war.

No matter how you view it, those 917 men versus 23,000 (they say) Japanese troops held up the invasion advancement by two weeks to get US battleships in place, Coral Sea, New Guinea and other areas, even with Pearl Harbour's devastation and the fall of Singapore. We have Lloyd Harding at 98-years-old in the Masonic home at Lindisfarne and Bill Russell in care in Hobart to reflect nowadays after they survived Changi and the Burma Rail and as POWs in Japan, even surviving Nagasakis atom bomb is simply amazing. As Bill said there's a lot to forget or not remember, but if there's another war he's not going.

They never lost their sense of humour.

God bless them both.

Rod Stone, friend of 2/40th, Greens Beach.

THE recently announced skilled immigrants' policy demonstrates that Australia has no intention to uphold the UN Refugees Convention. Clearly if you have the skills we require, but you cannot arrive by boat and must commit to remaining in a regional area of our approval for three years. For you who are fleeing wars and persecution who arrive by the only means available to them welcome to offshore indefinite detention no matter what your skills. Should those who are banished to regional Australia show their expertise would be better utilised in a capital city would they still have to remain for the full three years?

A Carter, Mowbray.

THE proposed gondola soaring across the Gorge is purported to provide jobs and improve disabled access with minimal impact.

Let's drill down a little into these claims.

Comparing it with the present chairlift operation, the gondola will provide perhaps three or four part-time casual jobs for attendants and what happens to the exciting chairlift staff? The net effect may be minimal. How can sweeping over the Gorge be seen to improve access for disabled visitors?

Move a couple of parking spots, install a few small ramps and seal the paths to improve genuine access and pathways for wheelchairs and disabled walkers.

As for the minimal impact, why should we tolerate any impact just for the sake of a theme park ride?

We are already threatening our naturally peaceful and pristine areas for the sake of visitation numbers, creating a death by 1000 cuts scenario. In the word of the Joni Mitchell classic, "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. You don't know what you've got till it's gone".

Malcolm Cowan, West Launceston.

I BEG to differ from Mark Stuart's rose-tinted opinion about the Larter family's enthusiastic spin about the Skyway gondolas in the Gorge (The Examiner, August 31).

I disagree it will be a fabulous addition or a benefit to Launceston.

On the contrary, I would argue this proposed commercial development would be a serious intrusion on a public space universally valued for its quiet serenity.

It's a greatly loved and accessible oasis of peace and tranquillity in the middle of a city. The Larters may well love the Gorge but that doesn't and shouldn't give them, or anyone else, the right to completely alter it.

Given the comparatively compact circuit these cable cars will traverse, their impact must be anything but discrete.

The very serious risk to approving this project would be to the reputation the Gorge currently enjoys.

It's a priceless reputation that shows the Gorge is already globally recognised as a must-see destination, and consistently rates as one of the top three Tasmanian places to visit by so many travel companies and publications.

The vision should be in recognising our good fortune in having such a spectacular and relatively unspoiled natural space, and ensuring its protection from further development.

Anne Layton-Bennett, Swan Bay.