LION HEARTS
Coralie and Connell Brannelly among the NT’s Australia Day honours recipients
QUIET achievers, including a community leader from a bushfire-ravaged town, have joined celebrities from entertainment, science, business and politics in the Australia Day honours list for 2020.
Cricketer Ian Healy, singer Keith Urban, actor Hugo Weaving and Kath Day-Knight herself, Jane Turner, are just a few of the 1099 Australians honoured in this year’s list, down from a record 1127 in 2019.
Women received 348 awards in the General Division – again down on last year’s total of 422, but an increase in percentage terms from 37 to 41.2 per cent.
Governor-General David Hurley congratulated the honorees, who “exemplify the best of Australia”.
“It’s a diverse list – with the percentage of women recipients in the Order of Australia above 41 per cent – but could be even more so. Over the course of my term as Governor-General, I want to ensure that as many outstanding Australians as possible, from all backgrounds, are nominated,” General Hurley said.
He said similar examples of community service had been evident during the current bushfire crisis.
The number of people appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) was slashed from 18 last year to just five in 2020.
They were NSW Governor Margaret Beazley, the Chief Justice of Queensland’s Supreme Court Catherine Holmes and professors Margaret Gardner, Bruce Robinson and Anthony Thomas.
Four Liberal ex-politicians were among the 59 people appointed as Officers of the Order of Australia (AO) – Ted Baillieu, Campbell Newman, Barry O’Farrell and Amanda Vanstone – while Labor figures Meredith Burgmann and Anne McEwen were among 224 people appointed as ordinary Members (AM).
The Australian Government’s “It’s an Honour” website stresses the honours system is “free of patronage or political influence”.
Exemplifying the quiet dedication and spirit of personal sacrifice of the honorees was 54-year-old Anthony (Tony) Thompson, who was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to the community of Marysville, the small Victoria town ravaged by the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.
When asked what his advice to people in towns affected by bushfires would be, Mr Thompson said: “Don’t rush.”