First Nations peoples are not recognised on our flag, and that is a huge and unacceptable gap.

What we need is a joyful symbol of unity flying from our flag poles.

Picture a flag featuring our national symbol, a bright golden sprig of wattle set against a deep blue background, as distinctive as Canada's maple leaf or Lebanon's cedar tree.

Wattle grew on this land long before humans arrived; was a mainstay for the first inhabitants, providing shelter, seeds for flour, implements for hunting, and gum for medication; was chosen at Federation to feature on our nation's coat of arms, and is easily recognised by our multicultural community and the rest of the world.

Instead of Australia Day, with its sadness for Indigenous people, let's celebrate Australia's Day, not Australia Day, and call it Wattle Day - to be held on September 1, the first day of spring, a true symbol of renewal.

Hey, Penelope Upward, Australia Day is not Anzac Day. We are not celebrating World War II. (Letters, January 25).

Yes we want to foster goodwill, but ignoring "outdated hostilities" will not help.

What outdated hostilities? The history of massacres of First Nations people?

Let's celebrate all the people who live in this country.

Rod Matthews (Letters, January 25) seems to advocate a Chamberlainesque "peace in our time" approach; that is if we let the Russians have Ukraine and the Chinese have Taiwan, they'll stop there.

The trouble is the alternative involves players with thousands of highly destructive nuclear weapons. The slogan could well become "the end of our time".

Rather than waiting for the other side to blink, or worse still to push through with their intentions, we desperately need all of the players to take a step back, stop the chest beating, put away their egos and think of the cost to humanity by going down the path they seem to be choosing.

Your editorial of January 25, "Nobody wants another Crimean war" (canberratimes.com.au), while of historical interest, is not the most compelling argument against war in Ukraine.

There are much stronger arguments for Australia to act independently and to urge a diplomatic settlement upon our most unreliable ally.

If level-headed Americans prevail, security guarantees will be given to the Russians as demanded, Ukraine will reign in its ultranationalists and accept multiculturalism, and Ukraine, Russia and western Europe will become integrated over time through trade.

They all have much in common - culturally, ethnically and even religiously.

Russia, like Australia, is replete with natural resources but weak industrially. Economic, political and ultimately military power is based on industrial capacity. China is now the powerhouse of the world and the only threat to the US hegemony.

It is not in China's interests to see the defeat and integration of Russia into the American empire. This would complete its encirclement. War in Europe would drive unprecedented co-operation between China and Russia. The US is likely to up the ante, presumably with trade and economic measures to throttle China. The vast Eurasian land mass may find itself at war against the sea-based power of America and its allies. As with all powder kegs, it takes just one spark to ignite.

Australia has a vital diplomatic role to urge peaceful settlements to this crisis through worldwide détente, demilitarisation, the abolition of nuclear weapons and the end of all empires.

I live in Holt, where I keep a daily rainfall record. Year 2020 = 1110 millimetres. 2021 = 987 millimetres. That was a total of 2097 millimetres in two years.

The airport average is about 525 millimetres. With four years of rainfall in two years, the sodden ground would easily allow a short-rooted gum tree to fall in our big windy storm

I have got used to the noise of chainsaws.

Many of your readers and journalists are criticising the government for not being adequately prepared for the latest wave of this pandemic and opening up too quickly.

I feel this is a bit unfair given we have only had two years experience to draw on so far.

How could the government, with access to all that expensive modelling, be expected to predict that opening up too quickly would result in more cases, hospitalisations and deaths?

And the increase in cases then causing testing queues, worker shortages and supply constraints? Nope, that was far too hard to for anyone to predict.

It is interesting that even an organism as small as a virus can outwit all our politicians.

It shouldn't be difficult for Scott Morrison to reprise his old "So, where the bloody hell are you?" overseas visitor campaign.

Directed now at backpackers and tertiary enrollees, its script could continue along the lines of: "Our café orders won't take themselves, nor our café dishes wash themselves, nor our fruit and veg pick themselves, nor our meal orders and parcels deliver themselves. And our once thriving wage theft, cash-in-hand and superannuation-withholding industry has practically collapsed! So ... c'mon down!"

Well said Glen Hyde ("Cross Over Bridges", canberratimes.com.au, January 16).

It is essential that completely new (and sustainable) bridges and boardwalks are built in Umbagong District Park, Latham, to replace the rotten and damaged bridges which have been closed for the past 10 months. Residents and users have been too patient.

I doubt that our neighbours in their Greens-Labor Ginninderry development would be made to wait as long for infrastructure repairs; in fact they are building many new bridges, right now.

It would be nice to cycle or walk the dog on new, safe bridges on one of those hot, sultry summer evenings but the Greens-Labor government has yet another surprise for Latham residents. It is proposing to replace (remove) two "forever home" copses of mature, healthy native trees and build sewer "stink vents", aka Odour Control Units, within the Umbagong District Park adjacent to cycle/walking tracks and within 25 metres of houses and 100 metres of a day care centre.

We hope our Greens-Labor government's local MLAs heed Glen's warning. Currently the bridges, just like the chance of flooding of the Kippax Brook, asbestos, heavy metal and water table contamination and leaked hydrocarbons onto Kippax Playing Fields, are disasters waiting to happen.

While I understand that rapid antigen tests give a quick result, the danger is that you are more likely to get a false negative from a RAT compared to a PCR test.

Examples of this include a person I know living in Melbourne who was suffering COVID symptoms in late December and feeling very ill. However, two RAT tests indicated he was negative each time. A quick follow-up with a PCR test revealed he was in fact positive with COVID.

Others who have received false negatives after experiencing COVID symptoms include singer Anthony Callea, and tennis players Nick Kyrgios and Novak Djokovic.

To add weight to this, the Australian Medical Association's vice-president, Dr Chris Moy, publicly stated in December that "the advantage of this rapid antigen test is that it's really convenient and you get the results really quickly, but its disadvantage is it's got a much higher false negative rate", and "this means you may get a test result which comes back negative but, in fact, you actually have COVID".

I could not agree more with Margot Sirr (Letters, January 15) on aged care package delays. The whole process has caused me a great deal of stress, the amount of forms and departments telling me different things and so on.

That journey has finished for me now. All I can say to Margot is just wait until you get to the residential aged care facility journey.

That's double the stress for people already stressed from caring for elderly loved ones.

Barnaby reckons there aren't any RATs because nasty FOMO types are hoarding them under their beds. When does prudence and foresight become hoarding? People were advised to stock up on tests before Christmas, and many followed that advice.

Any correspondence regarding Ukraine loses credibility when the name of the nation is not presented correctly. [The definite article does not apply, its use implies a lack of sovereignty.]

The majority of tennis fans in Melbourne for the Australian Open want to see serious, high-level tennis. A small minority are there to watch a circus sideshow, encouraged by a couple of Aussie players who are treating the AO as an exhibition tournament. Perhaps these two should start up a tennis version of the Harlem Globetrotters, to show off without having to bother with actual tennis.

On the ABC on January 23 there were, sadly, reports of various people who had an untimely end. Only one had an adjective attached to their age. That was "elderly" for the 75-year-old. I think this sets older people apart from the rest of society and encourages ageism.

Going by the number of COVID deaths in each state, I think Dominic is doing a far worse job than Mr McGowan. I would suggest he's not the smarter of the two.

Dave Kelly's letter, listing the people who hate Australia (Letters, January 24), could evoke a response reminiscent of Monty Python's Life of Brian: "So, apart from the Chinese, the Serbs, the Indonesians, the French, the Pacific Islanders, the Afghans, the Iraqis and our own expats, who hates Australia?"

For a couple of weeks now, the federal government has started the weekly media cycle by saying that "millions" of RATs will be arriving next week. It reminds me of the sign displayed in many pubs and bars: "Free beer tomorrow."

The federal government has become a puppet in the hands of some big business organisations in regard to JobKeeper. The Labor member for Fenner, Dr Andrew Leigh, has been trying hard, but the federal government won't do the right thing by pressuring big businesses to return money that is morally due.

Ukraine is positioned to become a buffer zone of neutrality between burgeoning democratic and communist forces. Both NATO and Russia have repeatedly said they do not want to invade Ukraine. Accordingly, designating Ukraine as a neutral state is the logical solution.

That means no NATO membership, nor Russian control of Ukraine.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: