Part of that interesting history is shown on Anzac Day when we gather to honour those who risked everything to protect the people at home and to protect our country from invasion.

Watching those most impressive Anzac Day ceremonies, however, the niggling thought kept going through this old scribe’s mind – do we still have that same willingness to sacrifice a little of our impressive lifestyles for the sake of others?

And where would we get the same sort of leadership that was shown back during WWII?

Who among our elected decision makers would even acknowledge that the world population cannot continue to grow without serious damage to our planet? And there is also climate change which is actually happening, proven by science, but our leaders don’t want to know about it.

For example, imagine how our present leaders would react if they were faced with the same situation as the leaders back in WWII had to face.

Would our shock jocks and our major newspaper chain simply deny that the Japanese army was approaching? Or would their news reports say that “Malaysia is enjoying a tourism boost with thousands of young Japanese men on holidays” and “Storms have created great damage to Darwin with some people being killed. The damage was so impressive that Japanese tourists have been chartering plans to fly over the town to inspect the damage caused to Darwin.”

The business pages would, however, report big increases in the price of steel, mainly for export in the shape of bombs and bullets. The parliamentary leaders would simply deny any hint of war and, in fact, would get rid of those pesky experts who tried to warn the population of the impending advance of the Japanese through the islands to the north.

The members of the Federal Opposition are coasting. We don’t hear much from Labor. But who can blame them? They don’t need to be a team of smart, hard-working pollies with folders full of good ideas for a future Australia or even an attack-dog gnarling at the ruling Coalition Government. The Coalition is doing that job for them.

But Australians need the option of being able to elect a somewhat left-wing Labor Government or a somewhat right wing Liberal/National Coalition without being fooled into thinking that is what the Liberals are offering.

The trouble is that no-one really knows what the Coalition stands for. The Nationals played an important role when they were the Country Party and every town had its active branch but it changed its name, moved further to the right and then lost direction.

Then there were the Liberals, named by Sir Robert Menzies as such because it had quite a few liberal thinkers in its midst – but today any liberal thinker is brutally shoved aside by the hard-right, non-liberal Conservatives who appear, to the voter, to be great chums with those in power at the big end of town but would like to squash any unions.

The Hard Rights had their chance when Tony Abbott was elected by enthusiastic voters who were looking for a fair alternative to Labor, looking for an honest, uncomplicated somewhat right wing group – and that’s what they expected from Team Abbott who promised a ‘steady as she goes – no surprises’ government but, when elected, proved to be (in this ancient scribe’s view) the most dishonest and extreme right government in Australia’s history.

That might be wrong, Team Abbott might have a worthy agenda – but they should not pretend they are in the same political spectrum that Menzies had envisaged.

Your ancient scribe is lukewarm about this ‘feminist’ business because he is old enough to remember when life was really tough for females – that was until the creation of the contraceptive pill.

Women today seem to have no concept of the advances that have been made in just a few decades, back to a time when any sexual encounter could lead to pregnancy. This was in an era when a girl needed a man to ‘provide for and protect her and her children’. So any sex outside the bonds of marriage could lead to a catastrophic future for the girl and sometimes they were actually kicked out of the family home because of the ‘shame’.

Even the lives of married women were restricted because they never knew when or if they would become pregnant again and really big families were not unknown.

The feminist organisations should create a special day to give thanks to the creators of the Pill for changing their lifestyles and giving them a freedom that, until then, never existed.

The transformation from ‘girl’ to ‘mum’ is a delightful wonder. I marvelled at this transformation particularly with my daughters and granddaughters when they became mums themselves. Here we had a person whose interest was centred mainly on clothes, socialising and being able to sleep at 10am even while a vacuum cleaner was going flat out in the bedroom.

Then, she becomes a Mum and will wake at 3am to the sound of a tiny whimper and that beautiful dedication to that child is one of the marvels of nature. Really good mums not only protect their child but are vital to their off-springs’ health and education and can also become great Nanas. Here’s a toast to all the great mums. Hope you get lots of cuddles on your special day.

Ray Williams has been a Post columnist since retiring from the newsroom in 1993.