Our TasTAFE is a precious public education provider and has a demonstrated track record of delivering industry training packages that are relevant, industry-accredited and meet the "just in time" requirements of a modern workforce.

TasTAFE is also a lifeline for people in our community who are vulnerable such as migrants, refugees or people needing to retrain and develop new skills.

To say that TasTAFE is not flexible or fit for purpose is simply not true.

The Australian Education Union's TasTAFE members believe that out of the eight dot points of change that the current proposal suggests, only one cannot be achieved already.

It speaks volumes that the only unachievable change would be to move staff out of the public sector and onto the Fair Work Act.

A business model for education is not the way to go.

We have seen what happens in other states when they try to move TAFE away from the state sector and it isn't pretty.

We can't allow this to happen in Tasmania. Privatisation of public educational institutions simply does not work.

WHAT a blast from the past. I read with interest your article regarding the Launceston library (The Examiner, October 3).

As a 19-year-old I worked there for a large part of 1971, cleaning the books and placing them in boxes, ready to transport them to the new library.

As the position was only temporary I lost contact over the years with a wonderful bunch of people and fantastic working atmosphere.

I RECENTLY saw the film Nitram here in Geelong, at the Pivotonian Cinema.

All I can say is, what a fantastic film in every way. Actors brilliant, story brilliant, photography brilliant, anti-gun message brilliant.

I highly recommend seeing this soulful, touching, sad portrayal of a young man's tragic growing up with severe intellectual and social disabilities.

A film to be embraced and talked about, not avoided.

So to the victor the spoils. The Liberals are best so they deserve the donation of chocolates.

Labor, the Greens and Independents suck, so be like the Liberals or suffer (The Examiner, October 7).

Alan Leitch has exquisitely captured how power and corruption work in tandem. You donate to have influence - pure and simple.

It is naive to pontificate, as Alan does, that judgment on who is best to govern and the money that accompanies it, is done out of objective, altruistic motives about who has the best policies and best people.

A lack of transparency and a refusal to be held accountable have become the order of the day. Powerful political donations left unscrutinised and uncapped are part of the problem not the solution.

ALLOCATION of funds for health in Tasmania has become a joke.

This is pork-barrelling at its best (or worst) by our Liberal politicians in Tasmania, with the ALP not far behind.

Although it seems like a single hospital for the North-West, making three majors, would be the best for everyone, Health Minister Jeremy Rockliff persists with the whale of the Mersey Community Hospital and Premier Peter Gutwein has said it will never close.

The AMA says Launceston General Hospital is facing beyond a crisis into disaster due to the lack of funds, hospitals facing their worst-ever demand. There is ramping, long wait times for EDs, patients in hallways on trolleys, etc, and yet this government can throw $37 million on a MCH upgrade.

The North West Regional Hospital can only manage a "review" for maternity which "may" be $3.6 million - big difference. Complicit in this are all Liberal politicians on the North and North-West coast from whom we never hear a whisper.

It will take some bravery from our representatives to fix the system and we look forward to that.

HAVING recently spent 10 days in the LGH with a lung infection I was amazed at the situation there.

There were nurses working double shifts, no backup, and doctors walking around not sure what they were doing.

It seemed a bit odd that nurses had to do double shifts, while I observed a janitor clean out a toilet room four times in an hour.

After a few days, when I was transferred to a ward, things got worse.

The toilet and shower in the ward was filthy, with wound dressings laying on the floor along with toilet paper.

I would have to clean the toilet myself before I could use it.

Someone left a disposable pan in the toilet bowl, and it took three requests before it was removed.

In this ward some of the nurses were not good. One went to give me a clotting agent that I had already had five minutes before, then the blood nurses had no idea how to get blood, but still tried for hours, and left both of my arms black.

Then there was a doctor that came around one morning to check my leg instead of my lungs.

I had six canulars break while I was on the antibiotic drip, so it just ran down my arm on to the floor.

All in all not a good place.