Police Commissioner Grant Stevens attends as Dr Richard Harris sworn in as Lieutenant Governor
A South Australian hero has been officially sworn in to his major new role, as the state’s police commissioner stepped back into the spotlight for the first time in months.
SA News
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Police Commissioner Grant Stevens has made his first public return in uniform to commemorate a top new job for Thai cave hero Dr Richard Harris.
Dr Harris, who retired from medicine in 2022 to focus on writing, filmmaking and speaking, was sworn as Governor Frances Adamson’s Lieutenant Governor at Government House on Friday morning.
Mr Stevens attended the ceremony in his first official public appearance since his son Charlie Stevens, 18, was killed in a tragic crash at Goolwa Beach last year.
He and his wife Emma have become close with the Governor over the past two years, with Ms Adamson and her spouse Rod Bunten expressing their heartbreak in the wake of Charlie’s death.
“Rod and I, our hearts go out to the whole family,” she said in December last year.
“We also admire, as many South Australians do, their generosity of spirit and their willingness to celebrate Charlie’s life and to grieve as part of a bigger community that is beyond their family circle and circle of friends.”
Mr Stevens’s last public appearance was at a media conference at the Oaklands Park skate park – one of Charlie’s “favourite spots” – in December last year.
Mr Stevens said the family had been overwhelmed by the flowers, generosity, kindness, company and support of others during the grieving process.
He revealed more than $173,000 has been raised in son Charlie’s name in the wake of his death.
Friday’s ceremony was a milestone moment for Dr Harris, who said he took two weeks to consider the Lieutenant governor role after it was offered to him in an “out of the blue” phone call from Premier Peter Malinauskas early this year.
“I said to the Premier, this is a massive honour – I need to talk to my wife Fiona and think about it, it’s not something I take lightly,” Dr Harris said.
Dr Harris was instrumental in the extraordinary global effort to rescue 12 children trapped in a flooded Thailand cave system in 2018.
“I wanted to make sure I had the time to do whatever would be necessary – and research to see what the job involved,” he said.
“But in the end, we decided, why wouldn’t I take up an opportunity like this to give something back to the state?
“But I am trying to quarantine a bit of time this year from some of my projects.”
Those projects involve speaking engagements, writing and filmmaking, with editing continuing on the Screen Australia-funded feature-length doco Deeper.
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