General News
11 November, 2025
A Mum's World: Remembrance Day
As the wife of an ex-serviceman and student of history, marking Remembrance Day this week makes me proud of our Australian heroes – hard workers willing to contribute time and passion.
As the wife of an ex-serviceman and student of history, marking Remembrance Day this week makes me proud of our Australian heroes – hard workers willing to contribute time and passion.
My awareness of the sacrifice other Australians have made to ensure my freedom and peaceful lifestyle enriches my appreciation of these gifts.
The word ‘entitled’ is used often to describe the youth of our nation, indicating they may have less understanding of how blessed they are.
We are each born into our own generation though, and we have no choice about that.
Our generation has the responsibility to train up the next one – helping them to recognise their place in the world and how they arrived here.
Although there has been way too much revision of the truth in recent years, artificial intelligence hasn’t been used to completely edit it out yet – the truth can still be found.
Our Australian way of life has changed dramatically in the past century.
My family recently celebrated the life of a dearly loved and admired man – my dad’s brother and my uncle – David Colbert.
Working on the land farming and shearing, he prioritized carving out time to devote to his community through local government.
A sportsman and family man who lived long enough to enjoy great grandchildren, he was passionate about improving our rural life for the next generation.
His investment in his community has had a lasting impact.
In his lifetime, this regional Victorian farmer and town councillor saw an influx of migrants welcomed into the area, with Karen refugees now a thriving and beautiful part of Nhill’s heart.
The brilliant eulogy delivered by his son looked back with laughter to a time when Uncle David took his children to watch a real Italian toss a pizza base in the big smoke, where he had to explain both what a pizza and an Italian were.
Uncle David’s eulogy included stories of moving mobs of sheep great distances on foot with his trusty sheep dog Pip, and the introduction of more farm machinery, bigger and better throughout the decades, for a agriculturalist whose father used draught horses for everything before the first tractor was suspiciously welcomed.
David’s physical energy was invested in land improvement, increasing our ability to feed and clothe our nation.
Much of the change my uncle oversaw in his lifetime led to positive improvement to our region.
Today though, many farmers in this part of the state are involved in the fight to ensure our farming land - which has taken generations to build up - is not overtaken by a completely different industry.
Near me, beautiful farmland has been covered in gravel and glass for solar panels.
I’ve seen enough of Australia to know that there’s plenty of ground between here and Alice Springs that could be used for such a project – being an easy target isn’t a good enough reason to destroy a great thing.
Rural communities and regional lifestyles are worth fighting for; we shall remember them.