Of the 27,200 women in the RAAF in WW2, one was Betty Joy Read, my mother, who was a Wireless Telegraphist.

My father Kenneth Alexander Milne was a marine engineer in the merchant navy who was involved in coastal transport around the Australian coast.

He told me once that he had been in convoys where ships were sunk by either German or Japanese submarines and he had seen a torpedo miss the stern of his ship by about 30 feet.

He never spoke much of it.

When I go to vote, I think of those who gave their lives so that I could and cherish the privelige of being able do so. Those that do not vote through indifference have lost sight of all the lives that have been given so they have the the right to vote.