As is your prerogative, you have afforded Ian Pilsner (CW 18 January) generous space to put his case against changing Australia Day. I won’t presume to seek similar indulgence because Ian’s arguments are mainly repetitive, misleading or just plain wrong. Putting aside his hypothetical speculation on what might have happened had the British not colonised the country, I will deal solely with the key issue I believe is transcendent in the Australia Day ‘debate’.

This is the negative belief we should forget the uncomfortable parts of our history and focus only on the positive. But how does a nation progress unless it discusses and freely acknowledges absolutely all aspects of its past? While we can’t change the past, we should learn from it – especially our mistakes. To do otherwise leads to national ossification. It’s even more unproductive when some, like Ian, claim that those who seek the full truth are somehow in denial of the many achievements that have been made over the past two centuries. This nonsensical canard was dispatched most effectively by Noel Pearson when he spoke in the Boyer Lectures of the three great gifts Australians have been given. First, he said, there is the gift of our unparalleled Indigenous history spanning 60,000 years. Second, there’s the gift of the great British institutions we inherited and third, the gift of our wonderful multicultural communities. These gifts, together, make us a truly unique country.

Finally, those who wish to ‘move on’ from the past in relation to Indigenous matters might answer this question: is this just an extension of the way we glorify mainly the heroic events associated with the phrase ‘Lest We Forget’? Or is it, as historian Henry Reynolds has suggested, a narrow-minded contradiction?

– Eric Hunter, Cook

I agree with Doug Steley (CW 18 January), ‘Let’s be proud to be Australian’. That Australia Day is for celebrating a united Australia not a divided one. But I do not agree that Peter Dutton’s comments were rhetoric, divisive, toxic or ignorant politics. Was Anthony Albanese’s decision to hold a referendum to divide Australians by race, divisive, toxic or ignorant politics?

A survey shows that 97% of Australians want the flags etc because they are proud to be Australian. Peter Dutton, has as much right to state what he did, as Albo thinks it ok to ignore Australia Day. What proof is there that Peter Dutton’s comments had anything to do with the arson attack in SA. If they were that easily persuaded, they may have got into trouble any other way.

It is time that people who decide how we should or should not celebrate Australia Day, because they think it divisive, need to be told. Woolworths were going to fly the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags but not the Australian flag, is this not divisive? If people do not want to celebrate Australia Day, that is their choice, but what gives them the right to tell us how we celebrate Australia Day. If Woolworths stopped stocking celebratory items from other countries or flying the Aboriginal flags, would you think it divisive?-         

– Vi Evans, MacGregor