I believe that the majority of Australians are living at a very fortunate point in our country’s history. A time when most, but certainly not all, Australians have a level of material wellbeing, social equality, peace and political freedom that has rarely existed in human history.
I believe that much of that quality of life that we now enjoy is the direct result of the sacrifices that previous generations have made on our behalf.
I am talking here not only of the sacrifices made by Australians in uniform, but of the sacrifices made by ordinary Australians from all walks of life; the teachers and the farmers, the miners and the scientists, the postal workers and the fence post diggers.
I think about the early settlers who used hand held axes to turn Australia’s tough, knotty-wooded, gum trees into fence posts. About how they often had to dig the holes for those fence posts into the hard, unforgiving ground during an Australian summer. All the time those early settlers knew that the fences that they were building could, and often were, reduced to ash in the next bushfire. There were not many fancy restaurants to dine out in, or glasses of chilled wine to savour at the end of a hard days work for these people.
And I think about how many people over the last 200 years have volunteered their time; sitting through endless committee meetings, listening to other people ramble on about irrelevant matters, simply because they believed that through their commitment they could help make Australia a better place.
Many of us now live lives of relative ease and comfort, and yet I am not sure that the sacrifices made on our behalf are fully appreciated or acknowledged.
With Frogwood Arboretum I am trying to create something as beautiful and as long lasting as I can. Something that will, in my own way, show the respect and affection I have for the Australians that came before me, and my appreciation for the sacrifices that they made on my behalf.