The truth about Australia Day, 'Invasion Day' and the First Fleet

Tony McGuinness (The Examiner, January 21) suggests Australia Day is celebrated on January 26 because that is the day, through the Nationality and Citizenship Act, enacted in 1948, that we received our independence from Britain.

The date was actually chosen for the Act's proclamation because of its historical significance, namely the arrival at Port Jackson on that day of the First Fleet, led by Captain Arthur Phillip.

A parliamentary research paper, penned by Margaret Harrison-Smith, notes that Victoria and Western Australia celebrated January 26 in the early 1900s, with Victoria adopting the name Australia Day in 1931, adding that since 1946, January 26 " ... has been recognised throughout Australia as Australia Day and a public holiday taken on or around that date".

Then Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell told federal parliament in 1948 that when the Nationality and Citizenship Act became law, "it will be proclaimed on Australia Day, 26th of January, 1949".

Mr McGuinness also claims that Aboriginal Australians had no protection under the law until the 1948 Act. This is not the case. University of Sydney University constitutional law expert Professor Helen Irving points out that everyone born in Australia prior to the 1920 Nationality Act was a British Subject under common law. "The Nationality Act simply put this common law principle into legislation for the first time," she said. The Act did not differentiate between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.

Peter Sanders, Hadspen

Tasmania Zoo is a great Launceston attraction and we are lucky to have it. What isn't so great is the claim by this facility about being wheelchair friendly. I was told over the phone we could easily push my elderly father around the zoo only to be completely disappointed on arrival at how difficult it really was. We struggled to even get into the cafe on January 1 and soon gave up due to the gravel and general uneven surfaces. I was probably expecting too much to have fully paved surfaces this far away from the city but to actually be led astray by the staff and then refused a full refund in such an aggressive and ill mannered way will stick in my mind. I am mainly writing this to warn others about touring the facility by wheelchair. Don't get me wrong, it is a wonderful zoo if you are on two feet but the attitude around wheelchair accessibility clearly needs a rethink. Could anyone provide more discussion on what wheelchair accessibility really means? Or is it something we like to pay lip service to but not actually do anything about?

Mathew Nutting, Launceston

COBALT is absolutely essential for the much vaunted Electric Vehicles and "green energy" in Australia and across the world but is it worth the steep price? Cobalt mainly comes from the estimated 40,000 children, some according to Amnesty International as young as 6 years old, who are forced to work as slaves in the cobalt mines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These slave mines are operated by the communist Chinese government, well known human rights violators, who then pay the Congo's leaders a pittance.

No workers' rights, no unions, no safety training, no health regulations, no holidays or mandated rest breaks etc, just forced, brutal child slave labor.

It is estimated that 40,000,000 Africans today are affected by the slave trade which eclipses the number of the barbaric transatlantic slave trade in the past. The "green energy" lust of the developed world is driving this trend.

All in the name of Climate Change and the woke, virtuous, environmentalist world leaders (and EV users!) simply continue to ignore the children.

Jack Sonnemann, Launceston

ONCE again minister, Nick Duigan, makes a stunt for electric vehicles only available for people who can afford expensive cars he needs to get into the real world maybe he should go back fishing

Michael Robinson, Beauty Point

IT IS hard to read in today's Examiner (January ?) the innocent civilians, men, women, and children who are being killed daily in Gaza, they do not wear a uniform or have a gun, just going about life. Since the genocidal terrorist group Hamas unprovoked invasion of Israel a hundred days have passed. For years Hamas have been killing Israelis by continuing to fire rockets into Israel and then their unbelievable barbaric attack killing and taking hundreds of Israeli hostages. At any level this is a monstrous barbaric assault. Israel's retaliation has been to say the least brutal to totally destroy Hamas causing total destruction of Gaza, creating extreme hardships and death. But when does it stop, when will Israel be satisfied? They have eliminated Hamas, when will the hostage be released, when will the rockets from both sides cease? It defies any level of humanity.

Peter Doddy Trevallyn