Dear Cornflower,

Two things:

1) Post World War II -
immigration history is often distressing,
but it does enable us to know and understand
the enormous contribution that the immigrants
made at a time when Australia needed it most.

2) Historical material is easily and readily
available - on that period - and can be
verified. I listed some of the material
for you.

I'll now leave it up to you to do your own
research - if you're still interested in
the topic.

My family lived through that period -
and their actual experiences are primarily - what I'm judging
that period of history by - not my so called "pampered
life-style,"as you suggest.

The Western Suburbs of Sydney,
was not considered a "pampered" lifestyle.
At least not in the period in which I grew up!

And I'm sorry if my sense of humour is a bit
biased - but when you've consistently been put
down all of your life because of your "weird"
surname, and called "unpronounceable,"
instead of by your real name - it does tend to
affect you - just a little.

But hey, I'll join you for that cuppa.
Just make it a "cappa-cheeno," grazie!
And I'll even do better then a smile,
I'll give you a big hug as well!

I'm NOT at all happy with the notion of replacing the flag simply do get rid of the current one because of it's origin - such sentiment smacks of a cultural cringe that speaks of a lack of balls to accept who we are and where we came from and quite frankly makes me ashamed to be an Australian.

To replace the flag out of positive sentiment such as to have something that speaks of who we are now and looks forward to who we WANT to be - and which "New Australians" might feel more a part of than a flag that speaks of a history they haven't been a part of - I would be fine with (as long as we thus move forward whilst still holding with respect and reverence into perpetuity the memory of the old flag and it's role in bringing us to where we are today).

And as far as the specific design should we eventually decide to replace it: IMO it should stay right away from any themes of race or ethnicity - it should be something very "pop-icon" style such as a Qantas style kangaroo shape in gold on a plain green background.

I support a new Australian flag for the simple reason that it's not the only flag in the world consisting of the southern cross and commonwealth star stamped on a navy blue background with the union jack in the top-left corner- not by a long shot!

A flag that doesn't have to be checked twice to make sure it's not one of the many dozen vaguely different pacific commonwealth flags is always a good thing.

I'm only worried that the rights to design will go to some idiot- as most of our major public projects get handed to- a swishy pen stroke in the vague shape of an artsy kangaroo will NOT be tolerated!

For me, either the Aboriginal flag triangularly in the corner, or Eureka.

Thank you King Hazza for invading my head space and stealing my thoughts - there should be some kind of law.

While I am very fond of both the Indigenous flag - great colours, cool design and the Eureka flag - "under the southern cross" - both carry a great deal of political history that are displeasing to certain members of the Australian nation. Personally, I couldn't give a rat's wotsit about these "certain members" however, a complete new design would probably cause the least prolonged arguments and be representative of all - even the die-hard royalist wing-nuts.

The Candadians got it right. Simple, effective; definitively Canadian - no mistaking it for another commonwealth nation.

I would also like to point out that many Australian soldiers fought and died under the present flag, who couldn't even vote until 1967 when a national referendum finally gave equitable political rights to people who had long been responsible for this great land.

An inclusive flag is long overdue.

I stand by what I've said regarding the design of a new flag - having the "Aboriginal" flag as part of the design - along with notions of the Eureka design - are so cliched it's embarassing - quite apart from the fact that I personally am not comfortable with logos that to me - in the case of the Aboriginal flag (I wasn't aware traditional / tribal Aborigines actually had a flag) look basically like the German flag or in the case of the Eureka flag will mean exactly nothing at all to the world at large.

"A flag that doesn't have to be checked twice to make sure it's not one of the many dozen vaguely different pacific commonwealth flags is always a good thing."

- surely the Kangroo is ABSOLUTELY unmistakably Aussie - right now I'd bet more people worldwide would recognise the boxing kanga America's cup flag than our proper one. Having a patchwork quilt of german flag / eureka flag / gosh knows what other Aussie "in" reference logos we can think of thrown onto the thing will indeed give us exactly a flag that looks like "any one of the many dozen vaguely different pacific commonwealth flags".....

"The Candadians got it right. Simple, effective; definitively Canadian - no mistaking it for another commonwealth nation."

- hmmm... for whatever reason, the Canadians at some time in the past adopted red as their national or at least institutional colour - much like we use green and gold - and the maple leaf is their national symbol in much the same way the Kangaroo is ours - so I personally see our using the Kangaroo and Green/Gold as pretty much going the same way. Yes indeed the Canadians got it right and so can we...

I also need to make it clear that overall I support a simple logo style design similar to Canada's idea - the actual logo of course needs careful thought!

I've made the mistake of holding a position on the kanga design I never intended to even attempt to maintain and I used the kanga simply as a thrown up example - tho it does have merit. A Qantas style kangaroo is probably a bit cartoonish - but a more stylish yellow outline design could surely be designed. The point is that we want something that consists of as few colours as possible, is as simple as possible and is unmistakable. Having seen comments about the Southern Cross being a symbol all Australians can comfortably stand under I'm thinking of maybe a yellow Southern Cross drawn on green background...

Simplicity of design means not only clear identity but also kids can draw it easily - I remember being quizzed by a teacher when I was about 6 as to why the Nazi Swastika flag was drawn all over my books etc. (yes I shudder now but at the time I had no idea what it was or what it meant) - my honest reply: "because our flag is too difficult to draw."