Praise for our Accident and Emergency department at LGH

People are all too quick to put in bad reports so I just wanted to say thank you to the staff that were working on Friday evening and during the night for the care and attention they gave to my Dad and myself.

The only complaint I would have is that the government should be getting them more help and more space to accommodate the high numbers of people who visit the A & E Department.

Heather Edwards, Youngtown

WHO on Launceston City Council is prepared to take responsibility for the $2m loss on the Birchalls building?

The retiring CEO, headed for another plum job in Hobart, (no doubt at a higher salary)?

Or many of the other Managers at LCC?

Will they all still be paid performance bonuses, and if so, will we see these announced in the Annual Budget, or commented upon by the Mayor? I, for one, would like an answer to these questions. Over to you Mr Mayor.

Andrew Whitehead, Launceston

HAVE you tried to claim a Medicare Rebate recently? Gone are the good old days when you went to a dedicated Medicare shop in the CBD and were given an instant cash refund. Now you must traipse over to the Centrelink Offices in Boland Street, wait for ages to be served, only to be told that it will take at least four weeks for the rebate to be paid into your bank account. What an appalling system.

Estelle Ross, Riverside

THE Examiner reports TasNetworks wants its customers to finance a $792 million power line from Palmerston to Georgetown (November 24). Well frankly TasNetworks, that is simply not on.

You can instead apply profits made over time from sales to offset the establishment costs.

I believe on all accounts there is an electricity under supply in this state.

Then where is the extra supply to come from and how come other businesses have been knocked back asking for more power?

If this extra amount is to be sourced from Victoria's coal fired generators then it certainly is not clean or green.

Ron Baines, Kings Meadows

THE Australian Power Regulator has knocked back an application to allow an upgrade of the state's power grid for the proposed Hydrogen plants. Why is this a surprise? The mainland, who are the regulators, want all the power they can get from Tassie and this state attracting big power using industries like Hydrogen generation or Sun Cable is not on their agenda.

The quicker we resign from the national grid the better, or we run the risk of becoming nothing more than the puppet who has green power.

We need development to attract more families to this state, housing crisis and all, because if we can't get a younger demographic moving here we run the risk of becoming the country's biggest retirement village. Trouble is where are we going to get the staff to look after us old farts?

Ken Terry, Bridport

JACK Redpath makes compelling arguments for Tasmania to rapidly shift to electric vehicles ("Fuelling a switch makes financial sense", The Examiner, November 27). Tassie runs on clean hydro energy, meaning that the transport emissions reductions of driving electric vehicles are even more significant than elsewhere in the world. The lower fuel and maintenance costs of electric vehicles are also better for our hip pockets. Further, Jack Redpath failed to mention the big health benefits of electric vehicles. According to the University of Melbourne, up to 11,000 Australians die prematurely every year due to air pollution from vehicle emissions. With no tail-pipe, electric vehicles don't pollute our air, so locals, particularly those with lung conditions, will breathe easier in an electric vehicle world. Tasmania should definitely be trading exhaust for an electric charge.

Amy Hiller, Kew