The children's concert was part of the 90th anniversary celebration of the hall and its neighbour, the Civic Theatre ('Carnival atmosphere for Civic Theatre and City Hall's birthday', Herald 2/3).

The piano is a marvel of musical engineering, and well worth the $280,000 it cost to buy and import from Germany.

The important thing I have learned since I bought my piano is that these instruments need to be worked to, over time, produce their best music. And this one is already showing great promise. The council must utilise it more for the sake of both music lovers and the piano itself.

I call on the council to ensure it is not left to languish for lengthy periods.

Frequent concerts performed by recognised pianists could be organised to display this magnificent instrument in Newcastle City Hall which itself is a musical treasure.

THE loss of 42 jobs at Educational Experience (Herald 29/2) is extremely upsetting especially when a business has been in operation for 43 years. The original founders of the company were Central Coast boys who attended Erina High School.

They built the business from scratch to being the number one supplier of educational toys and support products in Australia. The business was based at Bennetts Green. However the new owners, a Sydney-based organisation, centralised the distribution to Sydney. When will Sydney based organisations learn the true value of the Hunter? As a former schoolmate of Stephen, Tony and Murray and a close friend, I know how hard they worked to make Educational Experience number one in Australia.

I BELIEVE Scott Hillard displays his myopia in opposing government support for the burgeoning electric vehicle industry, arguing that motor vehicle production costs are prohibitive in terms of labour and energy and therefore not attractive to investors (Letters, 2/3).

That argument is at odds with international experience, where it seems that investors are queuing up to invest in electric vehicles. As for his concern about high energy costs (and this is where I believe the myopia really stands out), Australia has a natural advantage through its renewable energy potential pending serious government commitment.

Mr Hillard concludes by suggesting that subsidies should be withdrawn totally to "allow industries to rise and fall on their own merits". Would he extend withdrawal to the mining industry, agriculture, transport, electricity, communication, education, health, aged care, religion? His "market forces" rationale went out the window years ago.

It is now seen by governments, especially by conservative governments, as part of their role to encourage and support worthwhile projects under development through taxpayer subsidies, as well as providing longer term support for a range of essential services that cannot survive unaided.

SHOULD government subsidy be forever when it can be avoided?

Glenn Jones (Letters 25/2) questions the removal of subsidies from the auto industry when many other subsidies still exist that don't give the same return as the auto industry. Those he mentioned are mainly public necessities, which I believe give a humanitarian return larger than the money invested in them. They are not a large American corporation bleeding the system.

My intention in my preceding letter (Letters, 21/2) was to raise the issue and ask whether most people working for the average wage or less in many circumstances want their taxes used to pay factory workers twice or more what they are earning?

Mr Jones' concern that these workers will be far worse off because the government stopped the subsidy is what I forecast, but in my opinion he appears to not accept the fact if they worked for the average wage they may have saved their jobs, the Holden brand and all associated industries without taxpayer subsidy.

What I find amusing but not surprising is the silence from the unions. Should they be blamed for Holden's end?

WHAT a puzzling mob we citizens of The Land of Oz are. Many of us cannot get enough trivia about the goings on of the royal family, while studiously ignoring the history of issues important to Australia; issues decided upon by the Queen and Buckingham Palace.

Most of us are up to date with the in-fighting occurring within the royal family. We know, for example, that the family feuding has resulted in Harry, Meghan and baby Archie jumping ship in Canada.

The media has exposed absolutely nothing about the Australian High Court challenge by historian and author, Jenny Hockings to have the correspondence between John Kerr and the palace prior to him dismissing the Whitlam government on November 11th 1975 released to the public ('High court hears palace letters appeal', Herald 4/2).

This possibly controversial correspondence has been kept from the Australian public 12 years past the normal period of time for the release of confidential documents. Reasonable people would pose the question, why? It is, after all, an important piece of Australian history. But hold the presses: baby Archie has a new tooth.

I WONDER what will really happen if we are subject to a real crisis or pandemic in Australia. I am a registered nurse now working in the disability sector in the community and we are having trouble obtaining a doctor to accept our clients, not because of their disability but due to the shortage of doctors in our area. The federal Liberal government has now changed many areas' classification so they are no longer categorised as regional areas and do not attract extra funding for doctors. I have been attending a medical practice for over 10 years and my treating GP has now retired.

Upon requesting a visit to renew my scripts and to treat suspected skin cancer, I was informed that I must write an application to the manager of the practice to see if any other doctor will see me due to their doctor shortage.

I also recently spent 14 hours in an emergency unit with one of our residents who was then sent home due to shortage of beds. How will we cope in a real emergency situation in our country? Don't get sick.

I READ that Ivan Milat's family wanted his ashes scattered across Belanglo State Forest. How do they think his victims' families would feel? I don't believe it.

IN support of Robin Wilson (Letters, 3/3) in my opinion City of Newcastle should be ashamed at the skanky state of our public facilities. In King Edward Park there aren't even toilet seats, they are permanently filthy, dark, dank. They scream run away children, this place is not safe.

CAN the climate change denialists please use their skills to eliminate the coronavirus? It may be a fact that biological science has proven the virus exists and the predictions of its dire threat to humanity if we don't act immediately are scary, but with some selective cherry picking of biological facts you should be able to deny the disease away for us. With your skills, you'll be able to dredge up a doctor that doesn't agree with the reality of the virus from somewhere in the bowels of the internet. After all, humans have always had coughs and colds, hey?

ALL Australia were rightly disturbed when the Iranian legal system jailed British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert ('Iran digs in over jailed UK-Aust academic', Newcastle Herald 29/12). It's a chilling example of what happens when a country's judiciary is hijacked by tyrannical power only interested in an agenda rather than the rule of law. Who could ever have imagined that in the trial of Julian Assange we would see what I believe to be the same ('Assange hearing widens despite US aims', Herald 1/3)? Regardless of what you think of him, we cannot stand for this. Are we going to sit by silently and allow them to dish out Iranian-style justice to an Australian citizen?

NSW National party leader John Barilaro is popular with Coalition voters because he says what many of them are thinking. Instead of the party moderates trying to come up with a way to get rid of him, they should be embracing his ideas. Moderate; a lovely word that in my opinion really means left leaning. Many Coalition supporters are getting sick of these left-wing politicians like Malcolm Turnbull and now Matt Kean and others joining the Liberal party when really they would be better off as moderates in the Greens or Labor. The Liberal party needs to be careful it doesn't lose its supporters because of these moderates hijacking the party and its core values.

I RECENTLY stirred something of a hornet's nest by suggesting that media outlets should no longer publicise the views of climate change denialists. I thought the reasons I offered were sound, but Peter Dolan (Letters, 2/3) manages to make them somewhat redundant. He rejects a mountain of peer-reviewed scientific evidence from the world's foremost experts that the planet is warming primarily because of human activity on the basis that he simply doesn't believe it, and the travel exploits of Viking Erik the Red in 985 AD. He rests my case.