Australia Day 2015 honours and awards for South Australians
HERE they are, the people that make our state great — and keep it running. People whose work often goes unacknowledged. Today that changes — here are SA’s recipients of the 2015 Australia Day honours.
HERE they are, the people that make our state great — and keep it running. People whose work often goes unheard of and unacknowledged.
Today that changes — here are SA’s recipients of the 2015 Australia Day honours.
For those who go out in a blaze of glory
Greg Napier and Darren Chapman
Australian Fire Service Medal
THE heroic efforts of the state’s Country Fire Service volunteers — highlighted during the Sampson Flat bushfire — can never be underestimated.
But for firefighters Greg Napier and Darren Chapman, the hard work starts before any bushfire is ignited.
Mr Napier, who is captain of the Port Lincoln CFS brigade, has been fighting fires since 1998, and his experience has been credited with successfully stopping the spread of the Proper Bay fire in January 2009. He said his Australian Fire Service Medal was a testament to the teamwork of his brigade, for which he feels most proud.
“It’s an absolute honour and while it comes across as an individual honour ... it’s a reflection of the team I work with,” he said.
Mr Napier has earned the respect, trust and admiration of his brigade.
Tea Tree Gully brigade member Darren Chapman has worked with the CFS for more than 38 years and is an industry expert in structural firefighting.
As state training officer, he has shared his extensive experience with interstate fire services and taken a disciplined and professional approach to personal development and training for all firefighters.
Mr Chapman said he was honoured to be recognised.
“The Australian Fire Service Medal is a very distinguished medal within the emergency services and to be nominated and successfully receive the medal, I’m 100 per cent honoured,” he said.
Metropolitan Fire Service firefighters Rodney Campbell and Glen Cook also have been awarded the Australian Fire Service Medal.
Mr Campbell was recognised for his positive and encouraging leadership, while Mr Cook was rewarded for his providing support and assistance to colleagues’ families in their time of need.
— Steven Rice
Top gong for a top shot
Yvonne Hill OAM
YVONNE Hill spent Christmas Day monitoring the state’s coasts through emergency radio frequencies for the South Australian Sea Rescue Squadron.
The 12-hour day comprised scanning marine radio channels for any sign of distress.
“I had no family coming over for Christmas this year so I took my husband and a hamper of food down to the sea radio base at West Beach and did radio duties,” Mrs Hill, 77, said. The Paralowie woman has been volunteering with the Squadron for more than 30 years.
It is this level of dedication to the community — and her love for shooting — that has earned Mrs Hill the Order of Australia Medal in this year’s Australia Day Honours.
She represented Australia at the Moscow Olympics in 1980 and the Brisbane Commonwealth Games in 1982.
She also managed all shooting disciplines in the World Police and Fire Games in SA in 2007. Mrs Hill said receiving the Order of Australia Medal was a “very big surprise”.
“There are many more, far more deserving people than me, I’m sure,” Mrs Hill said.
She has also been the coach and manager of multiple sporting teams, including the Australian Paralympic Shooting Team in 1995, the Smallbore Rifle Team at the Commonwealth Games in Canada in 1994, and Shooting World Championships for the Disabled in Austria in 1994.
— Sarah Rohweder
Major role in promoting SA
Bill Spurr AO
BILL SPURR has worked his way from lowly cadet to an influential and widely respected role in the state’s tourism and education success during a 50- year career.
Mr Spurr, 67, has been appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia.
He was acknowledged for distinguished service to tourism, to education, particularly through international marketing, to the arts and sport as an administrator of institutions and events, and to the community of South Australia.
“I’m deeply honoured and feel very humble because you haven’t done it by yourself, but rather in working alongside a lot of very committed and motivated people,” he said.
Regarded as genial and accessible, Mr Spurr, has been at the forefront of most of the major tourism achievements in South Australia in the past 20 years.
He credits his success to teamwork, communications and the support of the many great people he has worked alongside.
Mr Spurr was chief executive of the SA Tourism Commission from 1999 to 2007, overseeing one of the tourism sector’s most successful periods. It led to him becoming chairman of Education Adelaide/Study Adelaide for more than 10 years during a period of tremendous growth in which more than 30,000 people have come here to study each year.
His extensive role in the hospitality and tourism industry started when he was appointed executive director of the Australian Hotels Association, beginning his role in promoting South Australia in a variety of areas.
Positions as head of school at TAFE when it started the School of Tourism and Hospitality in 1986, and then as chief executive of the Adelaide Convention Bureau followed in 1992.
When Adelaide lost the Grand Prix in 1995 and the State Government set up Australian Major Events to work out what to do, Mr Spurr was its inaugural chief executive.
— Nigel Austin
Proud to lead the way for women
Rosemary Crowley AO
ROSEMARY Crowley has spent decades agitating as one of the state’s trailblazing feminists and is encouraged to see today’s young women following her lead.
The 76-year-old’s advocacy on behalf of women and service to the Australian Parliament and the health sector have earned her an Order of Australia honour. Starting her career as a health worker and GP, Dr Crowley entered Parliament as a Senator for South Australia in 1983.
She was the first female Labor MP from South Australia to be elected to the federal Parliament, and later the first SA woman appointed to the federal ministry. She was responsible for the family services portfolio and assisted the prime minister on the status of women.
Dr Crowley’s significant achievements include heading an inquiry into women, sport and the media and establishing a long-running study into women’s health.
She helped shape public policy in fields including family services, childcare, child protection, healthcare, mental health and ageing.
Reflecting on the progress made on behalf of women over the course of her career, the still busy mother of three and grandmother of two says there is more work to be done.
“We’ve made great gains but we’ve got further to go,” she said.
“We’ve campaigned since (the era of Gough) Whitlam for equal pay but we haven’t quite got it yet.
“There are many things still to campaign for in terms of contraception, access to good health advice and support.”
The public perception of the value of women has changed but barriers remain, Dr Crowley said.
“There are still people who want to parody women and (use) all sorts of abusive terms,” she said.
“(But) feminist, I think, is a beautiful word. It’s a perfectly useful word.
“A lot of young women I know are very proud to say they’re campaigning hard on behalf of women. They have more opportunities now.”
- Lauren Novak
Jewish leader stood up to attack
Norman Schueler OAM
NORMAN Schueler’s Jewish parents fled 1930s Nazi Germany, where his mother’s family home was in earshot of Adolf Hitler’s infamous Nuremberg speeches.
About 60 years later, the desecration of 60 graves in the Jewish sector of Adelaide’s West Tce cemetery was a watershed moment for the new president of his community.
Mr Schueler, who today is honoured with an Order of Australia Medal, says the targeting of the cemetery in July, 1995, unleashed an outpouring of hidden injustices perpetrated upon Adelaide’s Jewish community.
“It was a watershed in as much as we always kept attacks, negative things about our community, to ourselves, the same as Holocaust survivors couldn’t come out,” he said.
“That made us come out and reveal to the police and the public all the anti-Semitic things that had gone on over the years — the insults, the threats.”
In one taped phone call to the Adelaide synagogue just days after the desecration, a group of partying anti-Semitics laughed and suggested Good Friday should be renamed “gas Friday”, urged the genocide of six million more Jews and declared Jews did not belong anywhere.
Yet, much as Australians rallied after the Martin Place siege, the community and political leaders stood behind Adelaide’s Jewish community and helped raise the $60,000 needed to restore the graves.
“Australia was very kind to us through this,” said Mr Schueler, who received his OAM for service to the SA multicultural community.
Mr Schueler, 67, is now a prominent member of Adelaide’s business community and owner of Ottoway-based Normetals, a scrap metal, steel and chain business which he founded in 1984.
In November last year, Prime Minister Tony Abbott appointed him to the National Australia Day Council.
Mr Schueler is proud of his German ancestry and cherishes the identity and ideals of the country he came to from London as an 18-year-old in 1966.
Mr Schueler, also a board member of the SA Australia Day Council, said it was vital to preserve our nation’s identity and ideals.
“While we have got a pretty rough old world out there, there are certain traits — of friendliness, honesty, rolling up your sleeves, community — that I like to think, while not uniquely Australian, are emphasised here,” he said.
— Paul Starick
Proud custodians of the outback
Joan Osborne OAM
John Osborne OAM
WHERE the Strzelecki Track meets Cooper Creek — 1000km northeast of Adelaide — Joan Osborne is waking up to a special birthday.
One of about 15 permanent residents of Innamincka, Mrs Osborne turns 73 today and has been named in the Australia Day Awards.
For service to the community of Innamincka, she and husband John, 77, each will be awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia.
Although their town is tiny, it services up to 30,000 visitors a year, with March to October the busiest time for its four businesses.
“When the (tourism) season comes into swing they’re all too busy, so that’s where we come in to keep everything going properly,” Mrs Osborne said.
“We benefit in the end because everyone’s happy.”
Mr and Mrs Osborne maintain the town’s water supply, which is piped from Cooper Creek, or from waterholes when the creek runs low.
They maintain the solar and diesel pumps, the effluent system, roads and the tip.
They also provide vehicle accident recovery for tourists, air traffic control for the airstrip and collect camping fees and clean the town amenities.
Mrs Osborne is secretary of the Innamincka Progress Association, which collects $5 from visitors who want to camp on the “town common” and $10 from each pilot landing on the airstrip. That goes into improvement projects, such as new public toilets.
The couple moved from NSW to Innamincka in 1990.
“I’m a painter and we used to come out here so I could paint,” Mrs Osborne said.
“Then we thought ‘why not just stay here?’”
They still get back to NSW, making the 13-hour drive south to Broken Hill once a month to shop.
“(The award) really is a bit overwhelming,” she said.
“We think it acknowledges everybody that does the sort of thing we do in remote areas.
“In a community like this, everybody helps each other.”
- Jill Pengelley
Recognition of her backers
Rachael Sporn OAM
RACHAEL Sporn felt a sense of deja vu when she opened the envelope containing details of her OAM.
“It was a bit like opening exam results,” said the triple-Olympian and 15-year veteran of international basketball for Australia.
“The first time I was selected for Australia, the news came in a letter so it was a bit surreal to revisit that too.”
Sporn, 46, is the only player from the Adelaide Lightning to have been given the honour of having her uniform number (14) retired by the Women’s National Basketball League club, having retired herself after the 2003-04 season.
The shy teenager who ventured to Adelaide from Murrayville in country Victoria hoping for some measure of sporting success never suspected she would be inducted into the Basketball Australia Hall of Fame in 2007.
Or twice be inducted into the South Australian Sporting Hall of Fame.
But Sporn does not see her OAM as an individual honour.
“I feel this recognises the group around me who have helped and supported me along the way,” she said.
— Boti Nagy
A master of court and justice for all
Brian Withers AM
YOU may not know his name but without Judge Brian Withers, the state’s courts would be bogged down by argument and thousands of people would lose their access to justice.
Judge Withers is a Master of the Supreme Court — the judge who settles the debates, checks the paperwork and rules on the evidence before the trials begin.
Today, Judge Withers’ significant service to the law and judiciary will be recognised when he is appointed a Member (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia.
The award also recognises his leadership of the profession through his involvement with the Law Society of SA, the Law Council of Australia and the Legal Services Commission.
“It’s obviously a great honour, and I guess it recognises an interest that I’ve had that was contributed to by the support of my former law partners and my family,” he said.
Judge Withers graduated from the University of Adelaide in 1968 and started practice in 1969, going on to form Johnston Withers Barristers and Solicitors with Elliot Johnston, QC.
He served as Law Society President from 1990 to 1991, and Commissioner of the Legal Services Commission from 1988 until 2004, when he joined the Supreme Court bench.
Judge Withers said he was most proud of his role in creating the Litigation Assistance Fund in 1992. He was chairman of the fund and remains a life member.
— Sean Fewster
Followed in his father’s footsteps
Brian Mattner OAM
THE well-worn saying “like father, like son” rings true in the Mattner family.
Brian Mattner, of Blackwood, has followed in the footsteps of his father, Charles, in being awarded an Order of Australia Medal.
“My father set the path for my service to the community by his own example,” Mr Mattner said.
“He was absolutely my driving force — he got his award for his service to the community through general practice and being a volunteer.”
Brian Mattner, 53, started in the CFS when he was 16 and today is heavily involved in training as a lieutenant in region one at Mount Barker.
At this month’s Sampson Flat bushfires he co-ordinated firefighters from region one to battle the blazes.
“It was an extremely busy, extended period and managing things is quite often 10-to-12-hour days,” he said.
Mr Mattner, a police senior sergeant, is currently the SA Police emergency and major events operations planning co-ordinator.
He has been a member of the Australian Institute of Emergency Services for more than 20 years and helped in Papua New Guinea with disaster management and training in the mid-2000s.
“Our family serve in many ways as a result of our upbringing and we vehemently believe that in giving you receive,” he said.
“It’s a pivotal component and requirement that we work for our community and not as just individuals.”
Mr Mattner said he was “very honoured and very humbled” to be included in the Australia Day awards.
“It reminded me that we are who we are as a direct result of people like our fathers,” he said.
— David Penrose
Telling stories forges important links to past
Pamela O’Connor AM
AT 86, Mount Gambier resident Pamela O’Connor has seen a lot of history in the area.
Her recording of that history for many decades, among a plethora of volunteer work, has earned the veteran writer an Australia Day honour this year.
She is a former president of Kanawinka Writers’ and Historians’ Group, author of 10 books depicting the history of South Australian indigenous communities and the local area, an indigenous history adviser for Mount Gambier Council and a prolific volunteer.
Her nomination for an Australia Day honour would not come as a surprise for the community but it did for Mrs O’Connor.
“I feel very honoured in being selected,” she said.
“My father was a journalist, along with my brother and sister, but I didn’t take it up.
“I was always interested in writing though so it’s nice to be honoured for that.”
Mrs O’Connor, who has lived in Mount Gambier for almost 60 years, has a lust for knowledge which she loves to share with others.
“There’s always interest in the recording of history, especially when the makers for that history are still around,” she said.
“They have a real connection with the place and people often clamber to seek out that history.”
She said her book Out of the Ashes: The Ash Wednesday bushfires in the south east of S.A was her favourite.
“The tragedy affected so many people through loss of lives and homes ... It was a very difficult one to write,” she said.
She still enjoys her history but admits she is now more interested in reading it than writing it.
“I’m still interested but there is a time and a place for writing,” she said.
— Sam Kelton
Services to cancer research programs
Bogda Koczwara AM
ONCOLOGIST Bogda Koczwara is dedicating her place on the Australia Day honour roll to the welcoming academic community that gave her a chance as a Polish migrant 30 years ago.
Now a Flinders University professor, she has been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for her services to oncology by playing an instrumental part in developing cancer services for the southern suburbs.
She also led the development of a program to train oncologists in the Asia-Pacific region to be better clinical researchers.
That program has been operating since 2004.
“I remember thinking if I could see a strong cancer service in the south of Adelaide and start up this program then I could retire,” Professor Koczwara, 49, says.
“But the funny thing is, 10 years later I haven’t retired even though I have done what I set out to in 2003.”
When Prof Koczwara started her career in 1997, there was only one medical oncologist in southern Adelaide.
The number has grown to five today.
She is senior staff specialist at the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer and has been director for both the state and national Cancer Council of Australia boards,
Prof Koczwara said she was shy and had limited language skills when she began studying at Flinders University at 18, three months after relocating from Poland.
— Amy Moran
Guardian angel of grandest ‘parents’
Denise Langton OAM
BROADVIEW grandmother Denise Langton was settling into retirement when life with her young grandson sent her down a new path.
Andrew, who has Asperger’s syndrome, was three years old when Mrs Langton and her husband John became legal guardians in the early 1990s.
“Both his parents had a disability and they weren’t coping so we had to step in,” Mrs Langton said. “My husband had retired and I had retired, hence we went back to work.
“Back then there was nothing for grandparents, nowhere for them to go, but we realised there were all these other grandparents in the same spot.”
Mrs Langton became a guardian angel for grandparents all over the state when she launched Grandparents for Grandchildren in 2004 — a volunteer organisation that advocates and assists disadvantaged children and their grandparent primary carers. She has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia.
“Drugs is the biggest reason why children end up with their grandparents,” she said.
“It’s where children don’t go to school because the parents can’t get up to take them, they aren’t fed because money goes to the drugs and there is usually violence in the relationship.”
Grandparents for Grandchildren has helped more than 200 families and is assisting another 800. Mrs Langton said she was not the unsung hero.
“If anyone deserves any accolades or ... acknowledgment it’s these children and their grandparents because they do the hard yards,” she said.
— Sarah Spencer
Loved to conquer puzzles of life
John Bennett AM
EMERITUS Professor John Bennett was inspired by one of the world’s most famous biologists and geneticists, Sir Ronald Fisher.
The 88-year-old is today appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his service to tertiary education and research in the field of genetics and to the analysis and preservation of science history.
Speaking on behalf of his father, who has just moved into a nursing home, Professor Andy Bennett said the man was a “maths whiz”.
“He loved mathematics; he loved puzzles and he loved the fun of mathematics,” he said.
At just 16, John Bennett began degrees at the University of Melbourne in mathematics, physics and statistics and had completed them by age 20.
He went on to do a PhD at the University of Cambridge in the area of genetics, alongside Sir Ronald Fisher.
Prof Bennett said his father was “greatly inspired” by Sir Ronald, who was viewed by some as the “greatest biologist since Darwin”.
“Ronald invited him to do a PhD with him,” he said.
“There’s a relatively small group of mathematicians who speak that language (and) he published five volumes and another three books on Ronald Fisher’s research.”
After completing the PhD with Sir Ronald, the field of genetics became Prof Bennett’s lifelong passion.
He served as the Head of Genetics at the University of Adelaide from 1956 to 1991 and Dean of the Faculty of Science from 1962 to 1963.
Prof Bennett said his father had a “great sense of humour” and inspired many to study genetics and science.
“He is a very accomplished mathematician and he was well liked by his colleagues,” he said.
— Katrina Stokes
Love for Fiji life
Johannes Meuris OAM
Maria Meuris OAM
HUSBAND and wife Johannes and Maria Meuris have been awarded the Order of Australia Medal for service to the international community through humanitarian aid programs they worked on in Fiji.
The Flagstaff Hill couple have spent about 10 weeks a year working on projects in Fiji since 2005.
Mr Meuris supervised electrical contracting work in a community centre and designed cyclone proof homes and shelters.
Mrs Meuris helped establish a kindergarten for the Fiji Education Department in 2007.
She also taught local people skills including sewing, crochet, jewellery bag making and card making to create jobs in the area.
In 2013 Mr Meuris helped refurbish the kitchen of an education centre in Bomana, Papua New Guinea.
He was also a volunteer on a sanitation and water project in Atabae Timor Leste, last September.
Mr Meuris was president of the Flagstaff Hill Rotary Club on two occasions in 1988-89 and 1998-1999.
— Michael Milnes
Control a privilege
Richard Willis AM
RICHARD Willis says his best work puts people to sleep but he is not offended.
He has worked as an anaesthetist in the state’s major hospitals for more than 25 years.
“You are in a very privileged position where you are in control of the person’s life, which can be daunting for some people but I love it,” he said.
Dr Willis, 70, has been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his years of service in medicine.
The father of four said his achievement was helped by an understanding family.
“I ... didn’t think I would ever be in that (AM) category,” he said.
Dr Willis has worked at Royal Adelaide Hospital, Flinders Medical Centre and Lyell McEwin Hospital.
Cut her new path
Leonie Clyne OAM
A MEDIOCRE uniform turned a young Leonie Clyne away from the police force to a career in business and fashion.
“I had the sleeves changed four times, I didn’t like the ... fit and I didn’t like the fabric,” she said.
She thought she could do better so put her career as a police prosecutor aside and in 1988 opened her corporate apparel business, Angus Clyne. which would eventually lead to an Order of Australia Medal.
Mrs Clyne, 60, of Unley Park, was awarded the medal in recognition of her dedication to business and tertiary and vocational education.
She is Deputy Chancellor of Flinders University and sits on several boards focusing on education and business.
Thirty-five years’ service
Bruce Parker OAM
BRUCE Parker had lived across the road from the South Australian Women’s Memorial Playing Fields for 12 years when he introduced himself to its committee members.
They invited Mr Parker to a meeting the following week. “By the time I left that meeting I was in charge of planting 300 trees,” Mr Parker, 70, said.
That was 1980 and half a lifetime ago for Mr Parker, who was this week awarded an Order of Australia Medal for services to women’s sports ground administration.
He has been a committee member of the fields’ Trust ever since.
Helping hand with home
Renato Coscia OAM
RENATO Coscia knows how hard it can be to relocate and settle in a new country.
Despite initially being reluctant to migrate to Adelaide from Altavilla Irpina, Italy, in the early 1960s, Mr Coscia finally found his feet.
The 71-year-old Newton man has spent more than half his life helping other Italian migrants feel at home in our city.
He is the manager of the SA ITAL-UIL-IL, Patronato, an Italian welfare organisation, which helps those with dual Italian and Australian citizenships keep informed about policy changes in Italy.
Family inspires work
Effy Kleanthi OAM
THE difference between the opportunities afforded to her mother and grandmother in Greece and her life in Australia has inspired Effy Kleanthi to dedicate her life to improving women’s lives at home and away.
Mrs Kleanthi, 55, of Norwood, has been awarded an Order of Australia Medal in recognition of her work with the UN’s Development Fund for Women as a social worker and as a Norwood, Payneham & St Peters councillor.
Mrs Kleanthi came to Australia with her parents in 1961 from Kastoria, in north-western Greece.
Building the future the best reward
Malcolm Haskard AM
PRODUCING well-trained and qualified university graduates is among the highlights for Professor Malcolm Haskard, who today has been recognised in the Australia Day honours
He has been recognised for his significant service to science, particularly to electronic engineering, and to the community.
Prof Haskard, 78, of Humbug Scrub, said he was shocked and honoured when he was notified of his appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia by mail some weeks ago.
“I was shocked and I guess really humbled,” he said. “I never did any of these things for reward, I have enjoyed doing it all.
“My greatest pride is producing a fantastic number of graduates.”
He fell into his career as an electronic engineer after wanting to become an aeronautical engineer, which he said was “the right decision”.
Prof Haskard was also recognised for community work including being a Justice of the Peace, amateur radio operator and founder of Kersbrook District Men’s Breakfast.
— Jordanna Schriever