For example, U3A participants learned the differences between viruses and bacteria, pandemics and epidemics, innate immunity and adaptive immunity, along with lessons learned from the 1918 flu epidemic which killed between 50-100 million people worldwide. Information is the key. The more information we have available from the medical and scientific community the better prepared we will be. Politicians cannot be relied upon to provide this information, at best they are a conduit only for sound advice from doctors and medical staff.

U3A is a great starting point for the retired and semi-retired in our community to learn new things and I urge people to consider joining. Above all, be informed, don't stop learning, it may save your life!

Time and time again, hoons traveling well over 100km/h on Jervis Bay Road, cross the double lines going to Huskisson and I have seen near crashes with on coming cars. So what is the answer to that? Cameras, etc?

The recent terrorism-related arrest in our South Coast backyard is a timely reminder that we cannot afford to become complacent with respect to the threat of domestic terrorism regardless of how pressing any other issues of the day become.

NSW Police, via the Commonwealth, has an expansive and, to date, effective suite of powers available to it to prevent or respond to terrorism in this state - powers in which I had a hand in implementing while at NSW Police Counter Terrorism Coordination Command in the mid-2000s.

A paradoxical temptation exists to water down such powers when no terrorism incidents take place, the paradox being that it was those powers which helped prevent such incidents in the first place.

We, as a state and a nation, cannot get to the point in which our counter-terrorism agencies, including the police, are only given appropriate powers in the aftermath of a terrorism incident.

The mantra in the current health crisis, "prevention is better than the cure", can equally be applied to the threat of terrorism - a police force properly empowered to prevent terrorism is far better than a police force empowered only to respond after the event. Just as there is no extant cure to the coronavirus, there is no immediately apparent cure to terrorism. Prevention by way of adequate police powers, updated as required to address the evolving nature of the threat, is how we are inoculated against terrorism in our backyard.

We as a society are being tested of late in various ways.

Drought, bushfires and the latest coronavirus is be testing the strength of the social glue that holds our nation, local communities and families together.

Many of us have seen people behave selfishly towards each other in supermarkets and medical centres.

Normal standards of decency, compassion and community spirit at times appear to be non existent.

Hopefully, our social glue is strong enough to hold us together and be able to withstand fear, anger and personal greed.

If the glue breaks the challenges we face may prove too great to cope with and the resulting panic would be unthinkable. Standards must be maintained.