Divide the health portfolio into two departments. One to manage hospitals and acute health care, the second to take a wide-ranging responsibility for preventive and community health.

This would allow preventive and community health its specific budget and its dedicated staff. It would be a gamechanger for our health system.

Properly run and resourced with health professionals who are experienced and committed to preventative health programs, it would go a long way to solving the unremitting problems presently seen in our hospitals and acute health services.

WHEN is the COVID-19 vaccine delivery going to be standardised?

Yesterday I went for my flu shot and thought it would be a good time to register to get my COVID-19 jab (after the 14 day waiting period), only to be told that I couldn't register yet because the clinic was only allowed to inoculate those over 70, Aboriginals or serious health risk patients.

So now I'm totally confused.

We've had weeks of our televisions and radio stations saying that anyone over 50 was now free to get the jab and even today we have NSW asking for people 40-49 to register in case they have a spare vaccine.

So why all the different scenarios.

My GP has been told one thing by the health dept and the health minister is saying something else.

It's no wonder people are confused.

Jab or not to jab, Astra or Pfizer, am I the right demographic or not? Standardise the rhetoric and end the confusion.

HAVING read the latest of many reports on the state of the Tamar estuary at Launceston (apparently the mud is too toxic to dredge and reclaim). I have concluded that Launceston residents may as well give up and get accustomed to wallowing in mud forever.

It seems that every time someone comes up with an idea there is another so-called expert to tell us why it can't be done.

I am not a resident so it doesn't concern me directly but I can't help but notice it when I visit as I can't help but notice the nightmarish traffic congestion because they won't build a bypass road, but that is another story.

I HAVE had the pleasure of knowing Eric Abetz for about 30 years, all of this time he has been a very loyal and hard-working member of the Liberal Party firstly as State President and for the last 27 years as a Tasmanian senator.

Eric is a man of firm beliefs and principles and has the "guts" to stand by those principles. If you like him or not he must be respected for this. He has been a very hard-working Senator for Tasmania and deserves to be returned at the next election even though the party has seen fit not to reward his many years of dedication.

I ask all fair-minded Tasmanians to show support to a man that has supported Tasmania through his career.