As it stands, the current Australia Day and national flag (the 1954 version with Union Jack) hinders social cohesion.

The choice of January 26 is both a historically incorrect marker of our nationhood, irrelevant outside NSW and provocative to our Indigenous people.

In fact, the January 26 celebration is fast becoming Australia's own version of "Brigadoon". It too miraculously reappears for one day and has an exclusive "us and them" flavour to it. However, our Brigadoon reappears out of the summer haze annually and the whole nation becomes the village.

Symbols and celebrations must bear the truth of who we are now and our future aspirations. The reality is Australia is a multi-cultural, urban nation with a dynamic service economy aligned with the Asia-Pacific region. No amount of mid-20th century reminiscence will change that. Public celebrations of identity are by nature conservative and change only at a glacial pace, and rightly so.

Yet the challenge of our age is to discuss these openly with reason and facts, setting aside fear, anti-intellectualism and feigned disinterest. Only then will we realise the potential of Australia's most important resource – ourselves.

Rohen Conners, Dickson

Crispin Hull's article ("Are Australian national characteristics a myth?" Forum, January 23) was a good read.

Maybe MythBusters should dedicate a program to busting the myths of Australians having a high regard for mateship and a fair go. Consider just a few facts. The toadying Howard government allowed David Hicks to be tortured and imprisoned for five years without a proper trial, whereas less subservient and more caring nations that had citizens in the same situation insisted on their return.

The Australian Federal Police, with the authority of the Australian government, after learning that the Bali 9 may possess drugs, informed the Indonesian police. The AFP knew full well it could mean the death penalty, and there was no reason they could not have been arrested at an Australian airport.

Mateship? A fair go? Pardon me if I vomit.

Rodney Campbell, Calwell

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has left the building ("Abbott target of anger in the ranks", January 22, p1).

The Liberal Party is in disarray. Nobody is articulating a vision that has captured hearts and minds of voters. The Coalition has no solutions that it can persuade the voters to accept.

Those in the Parliamentary Liberal Party calling for budget reform, tax reform, healthcare reform and education reform are so utterly boring that no one, especially in the wider electorate, will pay any attention.

Victor Diskordia, McKellar

As a life long supporter of the Liberal Party I am in despair.

I have supported the party almost all my life, even becoming president of the Kambah branch in the 80s.

How could a party who professes to have the whole nation's interests at heart, finish up so wide of the mark?

They started with such great promise and now, through their lack of understanding of the electorate, they face defeat in the next election. They have betrayed all the little and vulnerable people in such a shameful and callous way, with no regard for their wellbeing.

Okay, so the budget has come back to surplus and the mess left by the Labor Party has to be fixed. But throwing the nation's poor and vulnerable out with the bath water is not the answer.

Attacking the easy targets is the coward's way. Try getting those who can afford to, to pay their fair share – a better and fairer option.

Mr Abbott, Mr Hockey and the whole cabinet need to take a cold shower, face up to the fact that they have got it all wrong and start again, before it's too late.

The most contentious item I can't understand is the so called co-payment that the government has dressed up as the saviour of Medicare. But the funds are not going to Medicare, rather to a magical Research Facility Fund. I thought that was what the CSIRO has been doing for the last 50 or so years, and has just been decimated by funding cuts.

George Lyne, Kingston

Why blame domestic cats?

I refer to the proposed legislation to keep cats indoors.

The greatest cause of loss of species is humankind through destruction of habitat, pollution, over exploitation of food sources and human-induced climate change.

Human activities such as migration and global trade have greatly accelerated the movement of living organisms.

M. S. Amar, Phillip

According to our new Chief Minister, Mr Fluffy is the scapegoat.

He is the reason for the ACT budget woes, not poor management, the Rattenbury railway line, the cost of politicians and their support services, benefits and overseas trips.

A close look at our ministers shows little in the way of qualifications to manage a complicated set of revenues and staggering costs. Amateur alley with more long term debt for the long suffering people.

Alan McNeil, Weetangera

There seems to be little hard evidence that cans and bottles are a litter problem yet we are toying with a container deposit scheme.

If implemented, the plan would have the effect of encouraging people to drive with small quantities of cans and bottles to collection centres. This would inevitably increase our greenhouse gas emissions.

This makes me ponder all those trips we make now with our green waste. Regular kerbside green waste collections would efficiently recycle compostable material, help reduce the load of flammable material in our suburbs, and minimise the losses inherent in thousands of cars carrying small amounts of green waste to collection points.

The residents of Queanbeyan, Braidwood, Goulburn, Albury and Batemans Bay all have green waste collections. Why not Canberra?

Isn't it time Labor and the Greens pushed for something truly environmentally useful rather than trying to tinker at the edges of third order issues?

Greg Baker, Giralang

The action of the Prime Minister in nominating the Duke of Edinburgh for an Australian knighthood has stirred much unnecessary debate. Those who discuss the work of the duke and whether he deserves such an award seem to forget one remarkable achievement by him, the foundation of the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme in 1956.

Started in Britain, it has now spread to more than 100 countries across the world and involves hundreds of thousands of young people in activities designed to increase their initiative and self-confidence.

In the Canberra school where I taught for many years, the "D of E", as it was called, remains immensely popular. No one will ever know the full extent of the benefits of this imaginative programme for youth.

Robert Wilson, Deakin

Jack Waterford characterises Tony Abbott's decision to give a knighthood to the Duke of Edinburgh as a sign, variously, of his "poor judgment", his "tin ear", his "impatience", and even of a lack of tough staffers who could keep him on a "short leash" ("Abbott displays deficiencies", January 28, Times2, p1).

Yet the deeper point about Abbott's decision is not that we the people don't like it, or that it was a mistake of some administrative or policy sort; it is that what we think doesn't matter.

Abbott didn't make his decision unaware of the likely negative reaction of the public and his colleagues – he made it in spite of knowing it because, above all else, it is the approval of the British royal family which matters to him most. Like Menzies before him, Abbott actually holds ordinary Australians in utter contempt.

What matters to Abbott in every sphere of public life is to kowtow – and be mates with – those in power.

He's good, though increasingly transparent, at token gestures like spending a few days in outback Australia or jetting off to Afghanistan (which just coincidentally allows him to avoid being in Queensland for the election campaign) but this is all just show.

Economics is helping the plutocracy. Health is about getting poor people to stay at home and suck it up. Education is about supporting wealthy schools, and keeping universities for the moneyed elite. Defence is about being seen with the US President.

Of course, Abbott's blustering post-decision press conference showed that somewhere in his febrile imagining he did think that, like some naughty boy, he could hide his guilt by pretending that it wasn't his decision alone.

But his deeper reaction is that he doesn't really care what we think.

Chris Williams, Griffith

The knighthood of Prince Philip is such a wrong decision that further epitomises the Abbott government's more gross failures since election.

Tony Abbott has conned many people; he is out of touch with the general community and does not deserve our support.

We should be proud, as I am, of our British connection, but we need to grow as a nation. That means we should reflect the multicultural nature of our glorious society and promote harmony and peace in our community.

Why should we wait so long to obviously include our Indigenous population in the constitution? It is a no-brainer and a shame on Australia.

It also means we should heed Jon Stanhope's recent public advice to his own party about Australia's lamentable refugee policy.

That does not mean we cannot have a close and enduring relationship with the UK and the monarchy. It just means we feel, and are, on equal terms.

Geoff Clark, Narrabundah

We live on a bush block that has Eucalyptus rossii as the dominant tree, in Queanbeyan. These trees are known locally as snappy gum or shit gum. They are loved by local termites, which eat out the centre of the trunk and branches, making them susceptible to wind damage – limbs snap off and whole trees fall over – particularly after rain when the ground has softened.

They do grow nice and straight in the meantime, however.

Good luck with them on Northbourne.

Lyndal Thorburn, Greenlieigh NSW

As an owner of classic cars and a modern car, I say enough of the whingeing letters about speed bumps, parking, pesky cyclists, inattentive pedestrians, light rail and Action buses. Car drivers, you no longer rule the world. Canberra, you have enough roads.

Busted footpaths, muddy tracks, no shelter or seats provide for half the population that doesn't drive. There would be uproar if cars had to bounce along the cracked and non-surfaces the walkers, pedallers and pram pushers have to deal with.

Ray Barnett, Ainslie

The blocking of the $7 co-payment by the ALP and Greens is appalling, when 80per cent of the population are bulk-billed and pay nothing to see their GP.

The remaining 20per cent are between $40 and $50 out of pocket for each visit to their GP.

If we are forced to pay such large "co-payments", then surely the 80per cent can afford to pay $7, which for the majority is really peanuts.

All that was required were exemptions for people on certain benefit cards.

Everyone should be treated the same by scrapping bulk-billing for the 80per cent or ensuring the 20per cent can get bulk-billed.

The government were even more stupid by lowering the Medicare refund by $5, thus leaving those of us not bulk-billed even more out of pocket. I've heard nothing from the bleeding-heart ALP or Greens about the effect on us.

The ALP cost many people far more than the $7 co-payment when they scrapped the Net Medical Expenses Tax Offset. Last year my medical expenses were $9000 but I did get $1400 back due to the tax offset.

In addition, the government is losing hundreds of millions of dollars from self-funded retirees whose pensions, many $200,000 a year, are not taxable income and therefore are not counted for the payment of Medicare and NDIS levy.

As well, the grandfathering of the Seniors Health Card to those who were already receiving it, even though their pensions were well in excess of the $50,000 single/$80,000 couple, was pretty stupid.

David Roberts, Dickson

YES, PRIME MINISTER

Had Sir Humphrey been advising Tony Abbott, no doubt he would have commented, "courageous decision Prime Minister" when told Prince Philip was to be knighted.

Ian De Landelles, Hawker

BUNYIP ARISTOCRACY

Abbott is showing he is a British sycophant, re-creating a system tried in 1853, which became known laughably as "the bunyip aristocracy". Maybe (Sir) Angus Houston is aware of this when he says, "I just want people to still call me Angus."

Keith Croker, Kambah

WRONG ROYAL

Surely Abbott has made a grave error of judgment in awarding the Duke of Edinburgh a knighthood. Anyone can see the Queen has done far more for Australia, so she should have been created a dame.

R. D. Blakey, Belconnen

INSULT TO OTHERS

What a Duke up. What an insult to worthy Australian Day award recipients.

Michael Campbell, Theodore

FORELOCK TUGGING

With a tug of the PM's forelock, we have a new Australian knight in Prince Philip. No amount of spin from the PM or his monarchist fellow travellers can explain away his ludicrous "captain's pick".

Graeme Rankin, Holder

SADLY, NOT A PRANK

Prince Philip? No, it's not April 1. The PM's really lost the plot this time.

Brian Wenn, Garran

VALE TOM

The passing of Tom Uren, POW survivor of Burma Railway, reminded me of his appearance years ago in a documentary. Near tears, he spoke of a fellow Aussie POW reciting The Man from Snowy River for the men. He said, "It made you proud to be Australian". Vale Tom.

Frank Duggan, Chisholm

ON DEATH ROW

If you are jailed in Indonesia, do not try and rehabilitate or help others. It counts for nothing.

Greg Simmons, Lyons

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