ANZAC Day 2009 Australia
April 25, 2009 by Susan Denny
This morning I attended a dawn service honouring the memory of those who lost their lives defending our country. This has special meaning for me because my uncle was lost on HMAS Sydney in 1941 at the age of 19. Far too young to die.
The story of HMAS Sydney is fascinating. One-third of the RAN’s officers and men lost during the war were lost on 19 November 1941 when the Sydney sank with all hands.
The German raider Kormoran, heavily disguised as the Dutch freighter Straat Malakaa, apparently lured the technologically superior warship Sydney into range of its guns and torpedoes. Both ships were critically damaged and sank after the action. 
The loss of the Sydney and of all 645 men – 635 RAN, six RAAF and four civilian canteen staff – on board has generated not only enormous grief but a lot of controversy in the years since. The sudden loss of the Australian cruiser with all her crew; the fruitless searches for both shipwrecks and our dependency on the German survivors for eyewitness accounts of the battle have made it very difficult for many families to accept their loss.
The first serious attempts to locate the cruiser were not organised until 24 November when Sydney was four days overdue. That same evening a British tanker crew reported they had rescued 25 German seamen from a raft. During subsequent land and sea searches off Carnarvon 315 more of the Kormoran’s crew of 393 officers and men were rescued. 
A badly damaged RAN Carley float (life raft), now in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, and two lifebelts are all that have definitely been recovered from the Sydney.
A permanent memorial has been set up at Geraldton WA in the shape of a dome. The dome of the HMAS Sydney Memorial incorporates 645 seagulls, a gull for each life lost.
Real Life Morals
April 11, 2009 by Susan Denny
A teacher gave her class of 11 year olds an assignment: To get their parent to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it.
The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories.
Ashley said, “My father’s a farmer and we have a lot of egg-laying hens. One time we were taking our eggs to market in a basket on the front seat of the car when we hit a big bump in the road and all the eggs got broken.
“What’s the moral of that story?” asked the teacher.
“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!” “Very good,” said the teacher.
Next, little Sarah raised her hand and said, “Our family are Farmers too. But we raise chickens for the meat market. One day we had a dozen eggs, but when they hatched we only got ten live chicks, and the moral to this story is, ‘Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched’.”
“That was a fine story Sarah.” said the teacher. “Michael, do you have a story to share?”
“Yes. My daddy told me this story about my Aunty Sharon. Aunty Sharon was a flight engineer on a plane in the Gulf War and her plane got hit.
She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a bottle of whisky, a machine gun and a machete. She drank the whisky on the way down so it wouldn’t break and then she landed right in the middle of 100 enemy troops. She killed seventy of them with the machine gun until she ran out of bullets. Then she killed twenty more with the machete until the blade broke. And then she killed the last ten with her bare hands.”
“Good heavens,” said the horrified teacher, “What kind of moral did your daddy tell you from that horrible story?”
“Stay the heck away from Aunty Sharon when she’s been drinking!!”
A Win To The Liquor Industy In Australia With The Government Overturning The ‘Alcopops’ Tax
March 19, 2009 by Susan Denny
From “The Australian” 19th March 2009
THE Rudd Government will be forced to hand back $300 million to distillers after the Senate voted down the 70 per cent tax increase on alcopops last night in the culmination of another chaotic performance from the Opposition.
After a Coalition senator failed to turn up for the vote, the controversial alcopops tax was defeated in a second ballot when Family First senator Steve Fielding sided with the Opposition.
The Government introduced the tax hike by regulation in April last year with 12 months to win approval from the parliament before having to refund the revenue raised. With the defeat of the Bill last night, the tax will have to be refunded.
The Opposition offered a way out by voting to validate the taxes already collected.
“The last thing we want to see is a bad outcome out of a tax grab that has gone terribly wrong,” Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton said.
To underline its political point, the Government has rejected the move, which will cost $1.6 billion in the budget forward estimates.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon said: “If the Liberal Party didn’t want to return this money, they should have supported this bill.
“We believed this was a sensible tax putting all spirits on to the same base, closing a loophole created by Mr Costello (former treasurer Peter Costello) that saw the consumption of these products skyrocket.”
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said last night that although the distillers had suggested the $300million in collected taxes be spent on alcohol rehabilitation programs, legally the Government did not have an option.
“The legal position is clear,” Ms Gillard said on ABC’s Lateline. “Our obligation is to return the tax dollars to the distillers.”
The Senate rejected the alcopops tax after a day of low farce and high drama. Senator Fielding voted with the Coalition after his ban on television alcohol advertising during sporting programs in children’s viewing time was rejected by the Government, giving opponents of the tax the numbers.
Senators were stunned when a count showed the Government had won the vote.
The Opposition leadership team and whip Stephen Parry went into a huddle.
Moments later a sheepish Country-Liberal Party senator Nigel Scullion got to his feet to beg the forgiveness of the Senate. He had missed the vote, he explained, because of “an inadvertent error”.
“I was caught in a stairwell having an impromptu meeting,” Senator Scullion said. “I didn’t hear the bells.”
To compound his error, he was not carrying his pager. Following convention, the vote was held again – but not before harsh words had been exchanged.
Senator Fielding blamed the Government for his decision. “We all know that alcohol is linked to sport and that needs to be broken,” the Family First senator said.
“The Rudd Government has missed an opportunity to break that link. It’s crazy.”
Senator Fielding claimed the concessions won by his fellow crossbenchers, $50 million of health funding measures to cut alcohol abuse and mandatory warning labels on bottles and cans, could still proceed.
Ms Roxon said these had been lost with the bill. She called the advertising demand “a decision for government, not Senator Fielding”.
“A decision to change advertising that affects the sporting industry, the broadcasting industry and many more should be one that is taken properly in a considered way,” the Health Minister said.
The Distilled Spirits Industry Council of Australia welcomed the vote.
“The senators who made the right decision in rejecting the Government’s tax grab on RTDs realised that a tax was not a solution to problem drinking,” the council’s research manager Stephen Riden said.
“Now is the time that all parties start working together to create a community-wide, comprehensive approach to the issue.”
Mr Riden said the Government should heed the Liberals’ call and keep the revenue raised to tackle alcohol abuse.
What’s Xmas All About?
November 27, 2008 by Susan Denny
Xmas to me is joining the crowds to shop for gifts for the people I love, cooking a plum pudding and a Xmas cake and organizing the food for that special day. It’s about Xmas decorations, putting the tree up and singing along to Xmas carols.
It’s a day, when we as a family, all get together to eat, talk and laugh, and enjoy each other’s company. We reminisce over past years and the highs and lows of each year.
We remind ourselves that we have a great family and that they all want to share Xmas Day with us. I know of many families who are estranged from some of their family members, so I am grateful that my children and grandchildren love coming to our house.
It’s not only immediate family that we catch up with. I speak to my 3 brothers and their families, who all live some distance away from us, as well as my husband’s family. We catch up with friends we sometimes haven’t spoken to for over a year or more as well as our International friends.
So what is Xmas all about? To me it’s all about family and spending time with them, catching up with what’s been happening in their lives and making plans for the year to come. It’s also a time for reflection over the events of the past year so that we can look ahead to the New Year with anticipation.