Come the 18th century and the push to move out from England and Europe and colonise far-flung lands there were a number of likely scenarios for Australia.

Ultimately it was the British who landed here on January 26, 1788.

Relations between our Aborigines and the British were mixed and history records a period of turmoil between both groups.

Through the mid-19th century, the discovery of gold brought another wave of migrants to Australia.

Various world events during the 20th century brought further migrants to Australia and we will continue to be a destination of choice for prospective migrants.

Given this history, Australia will always be a melting pot for the people who choose to call Australia home and the rich cultures that they bring.

Let us embrace our history, the peoples who make up our great land and share in their cultural diversities.

We have made mistakes in the past, we cannot change the past, but we can embrace the future.

January 26 was a significant day in our history and remains a day of celebration and of embracing our fellow countrymen and women.

We can’t undo the past but we can make our future great.

Let’s make that our mission.

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Surely your columnist David Everest has said enough now to be so unrepresentative of your readership as to be irrelevant.

A few weeks ago, just as the rest of the world was hearing about the death of millions of fish in the Darling River, Mr Everest seemed not to realise that this was a spectacular indicator of both water mismanagement and climate change and noted that the Darling River has probably dried up several times in the past

The implication is typical of those who deny that the climate is changing, suggesting that every heat record broken, every major bushfire, every drought and every coastal storm means nothing with no underlying cause or pattern.

More recently, Mr Everest announced that not once in his life, “at work or in organisations”, has he ever seen women discriminated against.

He then notes the incredibly poor female representation in the Liberal and National parties, but he explains this as being simply because at the pre-selection process the men have more merit than the women.

He then moves on to the pre-selection process used by Voices for Indi, which he says was a “woman-only field” but somehow this did not lead to selection on merit.

That sounds a lot like saying that if men win selection then it’s on merit, but if a woman is selected there’s something wrong with the system.

 Finally he turns on renewables, specifically a proposed wind farm in the Western Districts, and notes that “the positive argument of renewables must be offset by the impacts of construction and the emissions this causes.”

Given that the overwhelming advantage of renewables is that on both of these counts they are far superior to non-renewable it seems odd, and very ill informed to think of this as a disadvantage.