Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm delighted to have the opportunity to speak today on the Australian honours system. Although I can think of a few improvements to the system, I am a great supporter of the Australian honours system. I'd like to congratulate all the recipients of this year's Australia Day honours. For any Australian, receiving an award of this magnitude will undoubtedly be one of the proudest moments of their lives, and rightly so. I'm pleased so many have been recognised for their dedication, commitment and achievement in the fields of education, the arts, sport, science and social work.

In my own electorate of Brand, I would like to make special mention of Mr Gordon Hall of Secret Harbour, who was awarded the Emergency Services Medal for services to the community dating back to 1993, having served with the WA State Emergency Service, WA volunteer emergency services, the fire and emergency services authority, and the SES Volunteers Association of Western Australia. While this award may have come to him as a surprise, I am sure it is no surprise to the community that Gordon has served with distinction for 25 years. Congratulations, Gordon. I join with the rest of my electorate, the community and the rest of Western Australia in applauding your well-deserved recognition.

Gordon was the only person from Brand to be recognised in the 2018 Australia Day Honours, so I will take the opportunity to reflect on the awards system more generally. Of the more than 900 people awarded honours on Australia Day, only a handful of West Australians were recognised—68 out of over 900 recipients. It is disappointing to see WA so unrepresented on the national stage, when I know that there are so many sandgropers who deserve such recognition and who offer services and knowledge that benefit not just their own communities but the rest of Australia.

Also disconcerting is a lack of women recognised by the Australian honours system. Just 18 out of the 68 Western Australian awardees were women. Of all the recipients of Australian honours, less than a third are women, and this rate has remained stubbornly in place for some years. There have been efforts made to increase nominations and awards. There have been slight improvements. Progress is glacial. It is incumbent on everyone to nominate those among us who have achieved in their fields, served in the community and made a real difference to the lives of others. I urge Western Australians to become more proactive in nominating people for recognition and to nominate more women; although nominations alone will not necessarily see more women recognised. The Council of the Order of Australia fails to meet the government's aim of 50 per cent of women on boards and perhaps an effort to redress this imbalance might assist.

The motion presented by the member for Berowra loyally repeats accurately the words on the website of the Governor-General that the monarch instituted the Australian honours system but, of course, in the Australian constitutional monarchy, as it is in Britain, the Queen acts only on the advice of the Prime Minister who leads the elected government of the day, except for that one time also in 1975.

Prior to the Australian honours system, the states and Commonwealth made use of the imperial honours system. Labor governments stopped making nominations to this foreign system in around 1972. The federal Labor government under Prime Minister Gough Whitlam created the Australian honours system, and the Queen in her ceremonial role approved it in the anachronistic way that Her Majesty, her predecessors and successors, by the luck of their birth, are obliged to. The elected Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser retained Whitlam's honours system but in 1976, on the advice of the Fraser Liberal National government—because I bet it wasn't her idea—the Queen created the categories of knights and dames in the Order of Australia.

Thankfully, under the elected Labor government of Bob Hawke, the use of imperial awards to recognise Australians ceased, as did the absurd category of knights and dames. Ultimately, conservative governments made way for Labor governments that recognised an Australian honours system awarded to Australians by Australians and which conferred great prestige and honour upon Australian citizens deserving recognition. With our belief in Australians, Labor knew this could be done without the need to turn to Britain. In fact, it took the Queen herself in 1990 via a private secretary Sir William Heseltine to remind Australian governments that perhaps the time had come for Australia to honour its system exclusively with its own honour system. Sir William, I might add, is from Western Australia, born in Wyalkatchem, now retired in York, and was the only private secretary to the Queen who was an Australian. Perhaps if more Australians had had this role, the Queen might have let us know that, as a mature independent country, we could allow ourselves to appoint an Australian as our head of state.

And let us not forget who sought to diminish the Australian honours system as recently as 2014 with the reintroduction of Australian knights and dames. Yes, Prime Minister Abbott embarrassed the nation by reintroducing the anachronistic honour of knights and dames and awarded Prince Philip, the Queen's husband and consort, a knighthood. Yes, that actually happened. In his tone-deaf approach, Prime Minister Abbott presented the nation and four great Australians with a very awkward situation that never should have occurred. (Time expired)

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