Kangaroos are still our national icons, and number one tourist drawcards. Overseas tourists when they come here desire to see kangaroos everywhere, not just in zoos.

Despite what you may be told, I believe our kangaroos are being shot to extinction in the wild. The same geniuses did the same for the thylacine. It's just taking a bit longer to kill the last kangaroo. Whether our kangaroos are being killed to make motorcycle leather jackets, or just by the kill-anything-that-moves geniuses, the result will be the same. Said Charles Darwin at Port Jackson in 1836: "it may be long before the kangaroo and the emu are altogether exterminated, but their doom is fixed".

Every night of the week those most delightful of creatures, kangaroo joeys, are being ripped from their loving mothers' pouches and stomped or bashed to death.

I personally shall consider any Aussie flag that doesn't show a kangaroo to be an inadequate flag. But I have low expectations of this country, which many rightly call the Stupid Country largely thanks to the prevalence or infestation of so-called men or males of the genius or boofhead kind.

WE have been saturated with the pomp and circumstance with the American politics, the restrictions and everyday challenges of the pandemic, and the ever threatening world problems like starvation and climate issues. Now is your time to make a difference especially to our struggling regional areas that have been exposed to all of the above plus some.

My wife and I have just come back from travelling around NSW regional areas enjoying the local hospitality, food and sights. Do yourself a favour visit places like Lightning Ridge and Coonabarabran, where if you look up you can enjoy and appreciate the stars again like you did when you were a kid. Go to Coolah and have the best country meat pie ever; drive to Walgett and appreciate great country roads while experiencing families of emu in the wild. Go to Lightning Ridge and experience the iconic black hand mine; you will walk out blown away (Google it, you'll be impressed). Witness our iconic sunset at the blue door bluff, meanwhile enjoying and supporting our rural people and industry.

You have no excuses. So what that you couldn't get overseas? Australia has so much more to experience and all you have to do is jump in your car and steer it towards a beautiful country awaiting you and your family. You won't be sorry.

MORE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:

FREEDOMS of speech, assembly and movement are rights that must be exercised responsibly. People like Melbourne lawyer, Serena Teffaha and Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly, are social leaders, whose opinions, whether expert or not, are accepted and adopted by many others. Both of them are vocal opponents of Australia's COVID-19 restrictions on life.

When Australians who are sick of restrictions read the opinions of these "freedom advocates", they should reflect on how things could be in Australia.

Other advanced nations have tried to retain citizen freedoms, principally to minimize economic losses. But, in doing so, they now have the worst of both worlds: economic stagnation and a rampant COVID-19 epidemic. The logistics of vaccine rollout in these nations will mean that many more people will die or have their health damaged permanently, before herd immunity is achieved. These nations' economies will take a long time to recover.

Australia, on the other hand, because of swift actions by our governments, a compliant population, and geographical isolation, has minimised both health and economic damage.

SENATOR Malcolm Roberts believes climate change is "rubbish" and no doubt Hunter One Nation candidate Stuart Bonds agrees with him. Joel Fitzgibbon calls out Labor's reasonably aggressive policy on climate change as "not in their best interests". Both candidates, addressing their own career best interests, offer false hope to Hunter voters by backing coal into the long term future.

Even if Senator Roberts proves right and it's all "rubbish' that still won't stop coal's demise. The dire need to address climate change will have little to do with the death of coal anyway. Cheaper alternatives through rapidly developing research and technology provided by renewables will drive the change. Capitalism and market forces are already favouring renewables because they're cheaper and thus potential profits are higher. The NSW government is investing and building renewable zones and the federal government is backing gas as a "transition to renewables" mechanism. The writing is on the wall.

A Hunter representative who truly has the community at heart would aggressively engage with the renewable revolution and use it to drive transition for our coalfield communities. And it's essential that they'd have strategies in place and operating well before coal packs up and leaves.

I AM a born and bred Novocastrian and as such I take pride in our beautiful piece of paradise, called Newcastle. As a child I swam at Newcastle Ocean Baths on weekends as a special treat. As I grew up and became an adult, I took delight in the pleasure my mum obtained from her early morning swims at the baths. Now, as a mature adult, I enjoy the same pleasure of early morning swims for both health and social reasons.

Sadly, these rituals are becoming less and less for me, due to the poor quality of the water ('Dip leaves swimmers steaming', Newcastle Herald 15/1). It has become so dirty that I find it a health hazard. The baths are cleaned on Wednesday, so I can swim on a Thursday. I have tried a swim on a Friday but in my opinion it's not worth my health to swim in what has grown and festered in the pool in just one day. I then wait until Thursday, when I can swim again.

Really, in this day and age, surely we have the technology and manpower to keep a pool clean for more than one day. I am looking at City of Newcastle to help rectify this situation.

AT the risk of repeating myself, I don't care what date we celebrate Australia Day on. I just want one day of the year when we can all be thankful for all that is so good about this country. Until our Indigenous community can get their heads together and suggest a suitable date the debate is going nowhere. If Cricket Australia think their pathetic attempt to rename Australia Day ('Morrison stumped by cricket's Australia Day marketing call', Newcastle Herald 22/1) will make one iota of difference to the health and welfare (the real issues) of our Indigenous population they have cricket balls in their heads.

POLITICAL correctness really has gone over the top when Coon Cheese has had to have a name change. It was after all named after its inventor, a Mr Coon, and has nothing to do with the Black Lives Matter movement. Now, we read that Coon Island at Swansea is under the blow torch ('Coon Island name review', Herald 15/1) because of some possible perceived offence. Fair dinkum, when will this nonsense end? Next on the list could be Black Hill, Black Ned's Bay, Black Creek, Black Head, Black Mountain etc, and what about all the people with the surname Black, Blackman etc? Maybe someone could start a movement to make them change their names too. The mind boggles.

A HERD of 30 rhinos certainly gives new meaning to light rail ('Tram like stopping 30 rhinos', Herald 20/1). One person has already been killed because of this out of its tree monster; I believe it's only a matter of time before the next. It should have been run down the existing rail corridor as was its original design.

MIKE Ryan and Steve Barnett (Short Takes, 22/1) have a point that environmental impacts need to be taken into account when assessing the merits of renewables. But they conveniently forget that the reason why alternatives to coal are sought is because of the environmental impacts that coal causes. Not only do we have carbon dioxide emissions but coal impacts on other things such as water quality, the very things that the authors claimed renewables were guilty of. Hypocritical, really.

IN response to Steve Barnett (Short Takes, 20/1) not everyone should be categorised as milking the taxpayer. I personally don't drive and have a number of ailments. How can I work in the bush? I would love to be employed.

WITH Australia Day approaching, the expected humdrum repetitious cry of an invasion is almost a certainty. To expect today's generation from many places elsewhere to be held responsible and say sorry for what early settlers may have done is in my opinion no different to today's Indigenous people saying sorry for what their ancestors may have done. The past is the past; it should stay in the past. Nothing is gained by looking back.