Wattle Day is the perfect date to celebrate Australia's day

It is a day to celebrate the nation of Australia and all Australians coming together in a recognition of our integrated, multicultural society.

A more natural date, and with no cultural offense to anyone, is September 1, already recognised as Wattle Day, the national symbol and colours of Australia. It is the beginning of spring, with its symbolism of new life and growth and it is far removed from the busy days of Christmas and New Year, including the Lunar New Year. Great for barbecues too.

Could every Australian be fair and seriously consider working towards a day to honour our country without shame or sorrow.

Long before a human footprint left its mark in the soil, wattle trees flourished and by the circle of the sun, awakened the bush with the light of its blooms.

Surely it would be most appropriate to proudly celebrate the first day of spring not as Australia Day but as Australia's Day, on Wattle Day.

Don't those self-opiniated tennis players realize that Australia's top priority at the moment is the health of all Australians?

Send them all home to spread their germs in their own countries. Meanwhile, we will all be able to watch Sky News instead of having The Australian Open pushed onto us, whether we like it or not.

Why are Jack Kershaw's urban planning talents confined to the letters column of The Canberra Times? (Letters, January 18 et al).

How sensible is his comment about the relocation of the Canberra Racing Club into brand new, and presumably more spacious, surroundings at Majura thereby making use of the current location for the Lyneham urban village?

Seems like a win/win situation for all concerned - punters have a brand new "Ascot" facility and the tram usage will presumably benefit from the urban village in the long run.

Jack has also come up with several other well-thought out alternatives to the current urban infill and tram-route aberrations. If Mr Barr had any sense, he would have made use of Jack's talents long ago and put him on his urban planning advisory staff.

The JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran, which Clive Williams seemingly yearns for the USA to return to post-haste ("Until January 20, we must hope Donald Trump forgets about Iran", canberratimes.com.au, January 12) is a profoundly flawed agreement. It only delays Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, with various sunset clauses allowing it to resume currently restricted nuclear activities. There are also gaping holes in the inspection regime, such as exempting anything Iran calls a military site.

There are also no restrictions on missile production and Iran's other rogue-state behaviour, including using terror groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and the Houthis, and various Iraqi militia, to undermine and destabilise its neighbours and spread terrorism worldwide.

The head of this terror proliferation was Qassem Soleimani, who Williams describes as a "revered Iranian general and statesman". That may be the Iranian regime's description, but to most of the rest of the world he was an arch-terrorist.

Williams states that Israel "sees Iran as an existential threat." Israel is far from the only country that sees Iran as an existential threat, and Iran's regime has made very clear that it sees itself as an existential threat to Israel by repeatedly calling for that nation's destruction.

Before the Biden administration rejoins the JCPOA, it should take advantage of the current US sanctions, which are hitting Iran hard, to demand full Iranian compliance, and to renegotiate the deal so that it both genuinely prevents Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, and covers Iran's other rogue behaviour.

As a comic book collector, I take offence to Ross Hydson's sneering comment about Donald Trump's library being dedicated to comic books (Letters, January 21).

This is the sort of snobbery that I thought had disappeared years ago. Maybe he's thinking of comic strips, which are usually one-off jokes.

Personally, I expect Donald's library to consist of books ghost-written for him and colouring-in books. Much more apt.

Mary Samara-Wickrama (Letters, January 12) cites a French report critical of Australia's pollution record and urges us all to pressure our parliamentarians to do better.

I wonder if Ms Samara-Wickrama got to the part of the report which noted that France is 75 per cent (2019) reliant on nuclear power, and that in fact Australia has a higher proportional usage of renewables than France.

Does this mean that Ms Samara-Wickrama is encouraging us all to pressure our leaders to adopt that French policy of near total reliance on nuclear power?

With COVID-19 scything through the world and so many non-young politicians too contracting it, including the middle-aged to old and physically unimpressive heads of the US, Britain and Brazil, one has to wonder how much better hospital treatment is reserved for politicians, who have almost universally survived their infections.

It's partly a matter of always having - of course - a guaranteed ICU bed, or ward, or in the case of Donald Trump an entire wing, reserved for them. And doctors waiting for them at the bedside, and not vice versa.

But one has to wonder at what therapies get thrown at them that statistically are evidently less or not available to mere non-politicians around the world.

Orwell's comment in Animal Farm on greater and lesser states of equality stands true today.

The suspension of public communication is promoted by Adam Henschke ("Banning extremists like Trump is the right call", January 19, p16) to prevent the spread of ideas branded extremist. But who decides what is extreme?.

This is the system used in China. I don't want this system here. The correct response to bad ideas is to rebut them, not to ban them, and force them underground.

In Matal v. Tam 2017, US Supreme Court Justice Breyer wrote "public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers".

At first blush Bill Deane's theory that our perception of someone as intelligent or cunning depends on whether we like [or dislike] them (Letters, January 18) seems both puerile and perverse, but on reflection he may have a point.

Trump and many of his conservative enablers and supporters appear to confirm the premise that as long as you like someone there are no standards or limits, and well-accepted norms, boundaries and meanings can simply be ignored.

If you like Trump, dishonesty and honesty are interchangeable, lies are truth, and invention is fact.

I am critical of the NSW Premier's support for restricting entry to hospitality venues and government buildings to those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19. But who is going to certify that someone has been vaccinated. Do you get two certificates because you need two jabs?

What documentary evidence is going to satisfy all local and overseas jurisdictions? Many years ago we had an international vaccination book that was stamped by your doctor. Will this be resurrected and used again. What about visitors from overseas. How reliable will their "vaccination certificates" be?

Qantas is selling tickets for overseas travel from July 2021 relying on passengers to be vaccinated before they travel. But nobody can guarantee that a person who has been vaccinated is not a carrier.

We need to be a lot more cautious and set realistic parameters for assuring that someone has been vaccinated and is not a carrier before we can safely travel again.

As I read that the UK is setting new records for COVID-19 deaths, I thought "how lucky are we in Australia and New Zealand, being islands so we can avoid the worst of the pandemic". And then I thought "Oh ... wait ...".

History lesson for Scott Morrison; there were 11 ships in the First Fleet, not the 12 he cited on Thursday. Again Morrison is loose with facts, they don't seem to be of interest to him.

Priority should be given to repatriating Australian citizens who are not dual-nationals. Dual-nationals "stranded" in the country of their other citizenship usually have a family support network there and are not in such a desperate situation as single-citizenship Australians. The stranded person's reason for being overseas and the duration of their stay overseas should also be taken into account.

Why would The Canberra Times use a derogatory term used by Trump? ("Sleepy Joe' blitz aims to deliver relief", canberratimes.com.au, January 18). The article might be making a positive point but the headline is disgusting.

Re: Eric Hunter ("Who is Intelligent", Letters, January 19), it's obvious Bill Deane, by definition the hunted in this exercise, will need to be "cunning". But it remains to be proven that Eric Hunter is "intelligent".

I am curious as to why there is such a furore over international travel restrictions. Who would want to go to any country which has more COVID-19 than we do? Stay home, be patient and check out Australia before going overseas. It might be expensive but it is worthwhile.

When Canberra closed some of its streets in the city centre and welcomed the film crews, stunt drivers and props so the final scenes of a feature film starring Liam Neeson could be captured, was I the only person who noted our local media all described the film as a "Hollywood blockbuster"? Surely that label can only be earned once the film is made and it hits the cinemas.

After three score years and ten on earth, one life lesson which has guided me through challenging times is that it is not what you are dealt in life that is important, but how you deal with it. Admittedly, having governments which serve the people and not their vested interests, does help.

Here in Braddon, on Ipima and Ijong streets, there is lots of illegal parking on the nature strips, leaving bare earth, and water erosion, particularly on slopes. I suggest the old power and telephone poles could be laid down to reduce parking and erosion. I'm sure this could apply in areas for most of Canberra