Australia has lost another wonderful woman to breast cancer with the passing of Jane McGrath, wife of ex-Australian Test Cricketer Glenn McGrath and mother to James and Holly, this morning.

Image courtesy of news.com.au

This news is just devastating to us Aussies who have watched Jane’s long battle with cancer over the last 11 years, and been amazed at her courage, dignity and will to live. Not only was she beautiful, but she was articulate, funny, and a tremendous example of humility and concern for others.

Her compassion for others was exemplified by the founding  of the McGrath Foundation which had two clear aims  “to raise money to place McGrath Breast Care Nurses in hospitals throughout rural and regional Australia as well as educating young women to become ‘breast aware’. ”

The Foundation has no doubt brought comfort to many, and saved other lives through early detection of breast cancer and is a tribute to Jane’s tenacity and determination to beat the disease not only for herself, but all mothers, sisters, aunts, and daughters.

If you don’t do anything else today, do one thing. Go here and pay tribute to Jane in a way that I believe she and Glenn would want.

RIP Jane, you are an inspiration to us all, and will be sorely and sadly missed.

So this weekend in Canberra, our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is having an intimate get together with 1,000 of Australia’s best and brightest, in a debate on our national future. Among the invitees are actors, sports people and business types like James Packer. During the festivities, the rest of us who are presumably Australia’s worst and dimmest, are doing the grunt work that makes this country great. We’re at home cleaning in our jammies, we’re out playing the pokies, we’re at the footy, we’re posting on our blogs, we’re racking up more on our already overburdened credit cards and generally having a fine time.

While the summit goes all weekend, the actual time for debate amounts to about about 4 minutes and 20 seconds for each delegate - one hopes they can all speak very quickly. Still, all is not lost if some good ideas are put forward, albeit speedily, and then implemented. The word’s “implemented” Kevin, none of this is any good at all if it’s not put to good use. I know that’s not always the forte of a government in power, but try anyway will you, there’s a good chap.

I find it surprising Cate Blanchett is attending just 6 days after having her 3rd baby, and looking fresh as a daisy. Is she brave, has she got this motherhood thing down pat, or is she still just nuts on drugs from the hospital? Then again I guess, why not? He’s portable, and just needs feeding and changing and some sleep - he’s not going to disrupt proceedings by crawling around under tables and trying to pull himself up to stand using Kevin Rudd’s legs or demanding to watch The Wiggles or whatever it is little people demand to watch nowadays. Thing is, I recall after having my sons, the last thing on my mind would have been attending a political summit. Attending my bed to get some sleep was about all that was high on my agenda. But then, I’m not “our Cate”.

You can bet I certainly wouldn’t have called my kid Ignatius, either.