I have a fantastic working relationship with the renal service at JHH and our patients benefit greatly from this cooperative service but we are independent to a large degree. We all benefit from these type of clinical relationships but not from the current administrative relationships where our highly motivated administrators have to go cap in hand every time we need services. We need administrative flexibility to look after our area.

I have seen us miss out on recruitment opportunities for new doctors where there has been an inordinately slow process offering contracts from Newcastle to good medical staff who wanted to live and work in the New England area. They went elsewhere, for example, Dubbo where they were offered contracts.

Why do our sick cancer patients have to go to Newcastle to get a PET scan, it costs the same if done here or there. I and my colleagues have many , many examples of lost opportunities.

This does not only affect doctors. On a review of nurses practitioners in the HNEAHS last year there were 40 NPs in the Hunter region and three in New England. A large reason for the development of Nurse practitioners was to provide servicers that cannot be provided by medical practitioners. There is a shortage of doctors in our area and yet this resource is largely given to the area where there are most doctors. Please explain.

At the time HNEAHS was set up we were told that rural people could not manage a health district. I have heard and rejected similar arguments across all aspects of rural medicine in my rural career. If we accepted this argument we would not have a cardiac catheter lab, dialysis services, radiation oncology and many other services. Strange how every other rural area in NSW is going OK without having to be managed by a metropolitan area which naturally is always going to put in its own interests first.

I think the Mayors have got it right and we should be administratively separate systems while maintaining our close clinical networks that are based on mutual understanding and trust.

Hopefully the Mayors and our local member Mr Anderson can achieve an amicable divorce as the current relationship can never be one of equality despite what I believe may be good intentions.

These are obviously my views but I know there is strong support for this from my colleagues both medical and nursing and probably other areas although it is understandably difficult for them to express this publicly.

Dr Stephen May, Tamworth

Surely one of the greatest contributions to the defence of a country is to have a good relationship with neighbouring countries.

The present Australian government disregards the effect of fossil fuel emissions on our Pacific neighbours who are severely impacted by Climate Change.

The former President of Kiribati, His Excellency Anote Tong, in response to the latest IPCC report stated that this report confirmed what the people of Kirrabati already experience, flooding and higher king tides. H.E. Anote Tong said "I have watched houses swept away by the sea with no replacements available."

The former Prime Minister of Tuvalu, the Hon. Enele Sopoaga said in part "We are all in the same one boat on climate change. Australians will be deeply affected by climate change too. So my message to all polluting countries is: End our addictions to fossil fuels now. Let's keep our common boat buoyant, or allow it to sink and drown us all." (Information on Kiribati and Tuvalu courtesy of the Edmund Rice Centre Pacific Calling Partnership).

I care just as much for my Pacific neighbours as I do for my family and friends in Lismore who all all impacted by Climate Change.

I responded to the ACM survey and to the member for New England's own survey. Action on Climate Change is my main issue. A wish of mine is that the member for New England would issue more evidence based statements rather than "Mirror, mirror on the wall" utterances.

Robyn Bird, Tamworth

Cost of living has always been one of the Liberal and Labor Parties catch cry - who does a better job of running the country - Australia.

Actually both do a terrific job of running the country into the ground, allowing foreign ownership of Australian companies, allowing manufacturing to go overseas. The list goes on. In all honesty is it really worth voting for a political party to get into power and continue the financial destruction of Australia. With the current debt that the Federal Government has today. The current debt started in 2007 when the Rudd Labor Party came to power (there was around $30 odd billion in the bank called The Treasury) and it has spiralled out of control.

The current financial debt. I will be dead and buried before it is paid off and I find that extremely amusing. Cost of living the unions of Australia want the Labor Party back in power. So the unions can go on a power trip and push for higher, higher, higher wages and then everything will go up, up, up.

Eric John Roberts, Tamworth

For those who have family and friends in the region, it's very worrying to hear of ongoing dangers due to flooding in Queensland and NSW ('NSW not past flood danger yet: SES', March 6th).

While governments focus on the massive recovery process, we cannot afford to lose sight of what is helping to fuel these disasters. The latest IPCC report has clearly stated that the extreme and unpredictable weather events that we are now experiencing, will intensify even more if temperatures rise 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.

We urgently need to reduce our carbon footprint. Yet in the last budget, the Queensland government put aside millions of taxpayer dollars to support fossil fuel projects, while the NSW government has recently recommended approval for the Whitehaven coal mine expansion.

New investments in pollutants like coal and gas are no longer an option. It's about time politicians at both state and federal levels faced this fact and took some responsibility.

Anne O'Hara, Wanniassa

Whilst positive actions, by Governments in the individual Australian states, concerning increasing the use of renewables, and taking action concerning countering climate change in general, are going from strength to strength, the efforts of our Australian Federal Coalition Government, regarding positive actions related to the climate, can only be described as being exceedingly slow and extremely frustrating.

It does appear that as long as Barnaby Joyce remains as Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Nationals, and the Coalition between the Liberals and the Nationals remains in place, any major moves to replace coal with renewables will be near impossible to implement.

As far as Barnaby Joyce is concerned, coal will remain as the dominant fuel to produce energy in Australia for a very long time .Any serious moves to considerably downgrade the use of coal by the Liberals will inevitably meet with serious disapproval from Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals.

It is indeed an ultra serious situation when the elected Australian Federal political party, namely our present Federal Coalition Government, cannot, because of its present Partnership structure, take actions that are glaringly necessary to counter climate change.

Brian Measday, Myrtle Bank, SA

The flood disaster in Queensland and NSW is a reminder that the lessons of the Black Summer bushfires still haven't been learnt. It was entirely predictable that Australia has a high and growing need for civil defence, to protect citizens from such disasters.

All the evidence points to Australia being exposed to more extreme meteorological hazards due to climate change as well as the short-term climate variability we have experienced before.

With Australian lives and even the survival of whole communities at stake, the over-optimism and lack of preparedness amongst the nation's political leadership is unacceptable.

Jim Allen, Panorama, SA

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