I also remember when I was onboard the marine board tug "Maitland" with my grandfather Captain Samuel James Bassett when they towed the rakes to clean the yacht basin. You can replicate this operation by shutting down the 5 per cent producing power station at Riverside, open at the gates at the dam, then start the raking as before.

If they can open up the gates for the white water rafters, why can't they do it for the benefit of our once beautiful Cataract Gorge.

It's not rocket science. How sad that the future citizens of this town will never experience the beautiful white water rapids our generation remembers.

IN RESPONSE to Michelle Freeman's opinion piece (The Examiner, February 24) I would hope that she and the Institute of Foresters devote their considerable expertise to developing and managing plantation forests. The clear fell logging of native forests is now seen worldwide as totally unacceptable.

These products are a luxury our planet can no longer afford. Our political leadership, still lost in economic rationalism, is now out of step with a better-informed public who are listening to truly wise men like David Attenborough. Preserving biodiversity and habitat protection is the most important responsibility we have as human beings. All native forest logging must stop.

WITH the iceberg freeze between federal Treasurer Josh Freydenberg and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg thawing due to a mediated agreement, will the cold winds of corporate America initiate another blizzard-like whiteout of social media due to self-interest and a want for a worldwide, unregulated social media market?

CONGRATULATIONS on your essay/opinion piece regarding the future of AFL in Tasmania, this foundation state has been ignored enough (The Examiner, February 20). Time for a line in the sand.

IN RESPONSE to the piece regarding yet another racing greyhound death. The Tas Racing spokesperson states: "This financial year to date, four greyhounds have been euthanised on track". These are the figures for on track, but how many are off track?

ONCE again the inhabitants of the Canberra bubble have shown just how out of touch with reality they are.

Not only is the increase in Jobseeker a mere pittance, it is an insult to the unemployed. Now they have to meet more conditions to receive payment than the average villain out on parole.

Don't forget, it's not their money in the first place. As Sir Winston Churchill once said: There is nothing the government can give you that it hasn't taken from you in the first place.

THE Royal National Agricultural and Pastoral Society lost the best opportunity to survive and thrive when it spurned the offer for the Tasmanian government to build its Velodrome (now Silverdome) on its Elphin site.

Had that occurred the Elphin site would have consolidated a top order sporting/events venue of national standard.

Chronic under performance and a lack of a credible finance/ business plan forced the society to subsequently sell Elphin for Newstead College and housing.

With massive government patronage, the society moved to the Inveresk railyards and, in spite of initial management rights to the entire Inveresk railyards site, it again failed and lost it, and was cramped into decrepit relocated sheds at the northern end and forced to try and survive on the income from a weekly flea market.

Even then that failed and their valuable very long-term lease was, in the end, flung aside and they joined Launceston's homeless. How ironic, that they now trumpet the Agfest site, an event that successive society boards refused to accept was credible opposition to the Royal Launceston Show. Really? Well who's smiling now?

A case of the petulant child expecting to be given everything, deserving nothing but continuing to exude entitlement. Let's watch this latest experiment that is, sadly, too little too late.

LAUNCESTON Show should be simultaneously held along with Agfest. This would broaden the appeal of both events.

THE natural place in my opinion would be the Launceston racecourse.

This venue could be the permanent hub for our show, complete with traditional grand parade and equestrian events in the centre, I would also suggest that the lost Esk Market also move to this site.

Open up this underused area for the people of Launceston.