Australia Day 2008..... Time Tunnel Mural, the light at the end of the tunnel, street art. Artist Astrid Hubert and youth of Kurri Kurri.
The honour, Young Australian of the year, went to Casey Stoner who was from Kurri and is the World MotoGP Champion.
This country doesn't have stupendous burgeoning cities driven by massive numbers of consumers nor does it have seriously ostentatious wealth, in one sense .
But we do have a relatively good lifesyle. Like some others, we have all services and infrastructure.
We have health and welfare and a living wage for each and everyone. True, most wealth is held by a few at the top but that's not the whole story. And I'm writing from the lower end of the economic scale.
Unfortunately we do have some exceptions to this work in progress.