It was my privilege in this, the CWA's centenary year, to attend the Riverina branch's celebration of the event at which Mayor Dallas Tout accepted the branch's centenary gift to the city of a finely crafted garden seat by Wagga Iron Foundry from a mould they already had on a site selected by Henry Pavitt, the WWCC Parks and Gardens manager, alongside the Murrumbidgee River track.

Significantly, in my view, the vitality of the community's support of the CWA's activities was reflected by the strong attendance of Wagga City councillors but significantly by our political representatives, Michael McCormack and Joe McGirr, in their tributes.

McCormack recalled that last year in his final week as Deputy Prime Minister, he took time to honour a CWA stalwart, the late Jan Brill, from Yathella Coursing Park Club, at the end of a particularly rough-and-tumble question time; having arranged beforehand with the Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, to say a few words about Jan Brill's 60 years of dedicated service to the CWA.

McCormack spoke about a fine local who, in her own words, was "just an ordinary farmer's wife" who had been "lucky enough to belong to a wonderful association that has given me so many wonderful opportunities".

Albanese described the CWA as "an integral part of the fabric of country life and, crucially, it is women looking out for other women".

But the condolences by the two MPs nearly did not happen.

Parliamentary protocols did not allow for statements such as this just after Question Time. However, McCormack told The Speaker: "I've told the CWA I'm doing it and Hell has no fury like the CWA scorned".

Another win to the CWA!

McGirr told the crowd of his attendance earlier this month at the inaugural meeting of the Parliamentary Friends of the CWA, an event hosted in this centenary year by his colleague, the Member for Maitland, Jenny Aitcheson, who referred to the CWA as "radicals".

"That might seem odd," McGirr said, "but it struck me as exactly the right word. In my experience, tea and scones means tough, no holds barred questioning".

"The 'radicals' in the CWA have been campaigning for change on behalf of regional and rural women and their families and I applaud them for it.

"This is an organisation that, for a century, has never been afraid to take on the politicians of the day and I very much hope members retain that fighting spirit".

Right now, in a political sense, we could do with more radicalism because a growing percentage of incumbent male representatives of the major political parties could do with a dose of the spirited radicalism of the quality referred to above by McCormack, McGirr and Albanese and exhibited by the CWA members.

This brings me to Gerardine Hoogland, a former executive PA at The Daily Advertiser, who moved some years ago with her husband, Edward, a builder and their family to Queensland.

She is one of the hundreds of Liberals who have left the party in recent years "because the party changed" and will stand for the United Australia Party in the seat of Lilley, the most marginal seat in Queensland based on Brisbane's north-eastern suburbs, currently held by a one-term Australian Labor Party candidate by 0.6 per cent.

Hoogland wrote: "I am not tied to an ideology; rather, I believe in the fundamental values of a liberal democracy - freedom of speech, thought, religion, association and freedom from fear. Without these, we do not have a democracy. I left the Liberal Party after having been a strong contributor to campaigns and policy associations after 15 years. I remain the same person of conviction with the same classical liberal principles.

"Scott Morrison is anything but a classic Liberal - he is a pretender and has betrayed every principle that the Liberal Party once stood for.

"I never intended to run for political office, but the last two years of draconian mandates, coercion and continual extension of emergency powers, fostered by a PM who allowed the state premiers to legislate by stealth, I could no longer stand by and do nothing".

Hoogland has four major issues.

"Restore our Constitution; pay off the (current) $1 trillion-plus debt via a 15 per cent licence on iron ore; end emergency powers and all medical discrimination and segregation and stop the Digital Identity legislation and surveillance state.

"The country needs change desperately. This is the only opportunity we have to get something real done", said Hoogland.