2020 Queensland Greats list celebrates our local heroes
From doctors to domestic violence advocates, here are the Queenslanders who have been named as our greatest.
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Some are household names. Others are local heroes burrowed deep into the heart of their community. All of them are the type who make a difference.
They are Queensland Greats, people and institutions whose dedication over decades of service in a host of fields has helped shape and strengthen the state. As we celebrate Queensland Day today, we celebrate the latest crop of Queenslanders bestowed the title in the 20th year of the awards.
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ANGUS LANE, OAM
76, TOOWOOMBA, CHIEF SHOW RING ANNOUNCER
Angus Lane’s deep-timbre, commanding voice is as much a part of the Brisbane Ekka as strawberry sundaes and Sideshow Alley.
It was 1992 when Lane fulfilled a childhood dream to stand in the Main Arena and announce the arrival of the stud cattle, the alpacas, the goats, the horses and the myriad other animals, people and events that help link the country to the city every August.
And if you were there that day, you might have seen Lane walk with his microphone towards Machinery Hill, raise it into the air and give a salute. To honour his mum, Cora.
She was there when his dream first took root. He was just nine, watching the showjumping and listening to the announcer painting pictures with words. When Cora asked her son what he’d most like to do if he could participate – perhaps ride horses, show cattle – he said, “I’d like to take that microphone and be the Royal Show announcer”.
It was an unusual dream for a city boy who sang soprano in Eisteddfods at Brisbane City Hall, but he did have country connections. His uncle and aunt owned a grain and dairy farm in Jandowae in the Western Downs and when Lane finished school at Brisbane Grammar School, he headed out to be a farmer in the early 1960s. By the mid-1960s, he’d bought the farm and in 1967, married Vicki, who would become integral to his almost 40 years of touring the country as a show ring announcer. She collates and finesses all his research on computer.
“I’ve been very blessed to have her with me all the way, it really has been a team effort,” says Lane. The couple has four children and 10 grandchildren.
Lane first took the microphone at the one-day Jandowae Show in 1983 and by the mid-1990s, the couple had sold the farm and were at 52 shows a year, from the regional towns where farmers get their first taste of competition to the royal shows in most capital cities. “It was just mammoth, what we did in those days, driving at night to get to another show.”
Lane is still the voice behind the microphone at a number of shows, although this year, he’s been unplugged by COVID-19.
It’s disappointing, he says, but he is more concerned for the showies whose livelihoods depend on the events and the country folk who work hard to prepare their exhibits, as well as the volunteers who make shows happen.
“Without people, we wouldn’t have shows; without passion and purpose and perseverance and persistence, we’d never achieve,” Lane says.
“Being on the land all those years, I wanted to give the city people an understanding of country people and after growing up in Brisbane, to give the country people an understanding of city life. That was always my dream, to try to bring people closer together.”
The highlight remains announcing the Champion of Champions. “To see the elation on their faces when they win, all that hard work comes together,” says Lane. He plans to be back in the ring, microphone in hand, next year.
His legs might be a bit wearier, he says, but “the passion and the drive is still there”.
LEISA SCOTT
BETTY TAYLOR
71, ORMISTON, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PREVENTION CAMPAIGNER
Domestic violence prevention has come a long way in the past 30 years but with one woman murdered by a partner nationally every week, Betty Taylor has no plans to retire.
When Taylor began her career as an outreach worker in a Gold Coast women’s shelter in the 1980s, domestic violence was not even spoken about, let alone legislated against.
Since then, she has served as the founding manager of the Gold Coast Domestic Violence Prevention Centre, helped form the Domestic Violence Death Review Action Group, and petitioned the government for the Domestic Violence Death Review Board, of which she remains a member. During her time as chair of the Ministerial Domestic and Family Violence Council, Taylor initiated Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Week, which later became a month-long awareness campaign.
“At heart I’ve always been a feminist and I’ve always had really strong ideals about social justice, and the issue of domestic violence brings those things together. It’s about the treatment of women in society, whether we’re talking about inequality in pay and equity right through to rape and murder,” says Taylor, a mother of three sons, who lives in the bayside suburb of Ormiston, in Redland City east of Brisbane, with husband Trevor, 71.
“The biggest challenge we’re still facing is the over-reliance on things we ask women to do – to pack up, leave home, get out, get to safety – but we still aren’t having serious conversations about why men have the proprietorial right to abuse their partners and children. And because we’re not having enough of those conversations, we’re seeing domestic violence as somehow a lesser crime; rape and bashings in the public arena aren’t seen the same way as violence in the home.”
As CEO of The Red Rose Foundation, an organisation dedicated to the prevention of domestic violence-related deaths, Taylor’s current focus is campaigning to strengthen Queensland’s nonlethal strangulation laws and for the establishment of Australia’s first multidisciplinary Strangulation Trauma Centre. “What keeps me motivated is a positive attitude and hope. Yes, I do work at the tough end and hearing those stories can be harrowing, but at the same time we acknowledge that women are not only survivors but thrivers. We’ve always got to work from [a place of] hope but also give people hope,” she says.
Taylor says she accepts the Queensland Great honour on behalf of the thousands of survivors and peers who have inspired her throughout her long career.
“I’ve learnt that we can all be a champion for other people and we need to find the courage in ourselves sometimes to swim against the tide. That can be hard but we can do it. And by honouring the respect we bring to our own relationships we can become a role model just as much as a public figure could.”
LEANNE EDMISTONE
DR JAMES MORTON,
OAM
57, HOLLAND PARK, HAEMATOLOGIST, ONCOLOGIST AND AUTISM ADVOCATE
When Dr James Morton’s two-year-old son Andy was diagnosed with severe autism in 2002, help was limited.
With no dedicated centre in Queensland to assist autistic children in developing essential life skills, independence and confidence, the toddler embarked on a chequered journey.
Not content with the services on offer, Morton held a “meeting of minds” around his Holland Park dining table with wife Louise and other parents in the same situation.
In 2005 the AEIOU Foundation for Children with Autism was born.
Initially operating from a community hall at Moorooka, in Brisbane’s south, with a handful of staff and 12 children, the organisation now has up to 300 autistic children enrolled and 125 full-time staff across nine centres in Queensland and one in Adelaide, with more planned.
It’s not an achievement Morton predicted when he sat down at his table to brainstorm all those years ago, but he’s enormously proud of the outcome.
“We started this up from nothing and it’s been an incredible journey,” he says.
“It is amazing to have been a part of it all and to see how our ideas have evolved and changed lives for generations of children with autism.”
Along with providing early intervention, the foundation is committed to research through the AEIOU Research and Innovation Committee as well as providing a strong advocacy at both state and federal government levels to raise awareness and increase the financial support for children with autism and their families.
“The outcomes are magnificent,” says Morton, a former student at Brisbane State High School and the son of a doctor.
“Nearly all children are toilet trained after three months with AEIOU, 90 per cent are communicating at a year and 60 per cent transfer to a mainstream school on completion of their two years. It changes the pathway, even for those most severely affected kids.”
Remarkably, AEIOU isn’t Morton’s only achievement. The dad-of-three, who works as a specialist haematologist and oncologist at Mater Private Hospital, is also a previous board member of Icon Cancer Care, and the Leukaemia Foundation of Queensland where he was instrumental in the development of the World’s Greatest Shave campaign.
In 2015 he was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his outstanding achievements as an oncologist and founder and chairman of AEIOU.
Now crowned a Queensland Great, Morton says he isn’t as deserving as some.
“It’s a pretty big honour and if I look back at all those who have been Queensland Greats over the years I don’t think I’m in the same category,” he says.
“I think the award gives recognition of the entities that I’ve been involved with rather than my contribution as an individual.”
HANNAH DAVIES
BRUCE & DENISE MORCOMBE, OAM
60 and 59, TWIN WATERS, ADVOCATES FOR CHILD SAFETY
For Bruce and Denise Morcombe, every day is a day for Daniel.
Since their son’s abduction and murder in 2003, they have dedicated their lives to ensuring other children don’t suffer his fate.
The 13-year-old disappeared while waiting to catch a bus on the Sunshine Coast and eight years later local man Brett Peter Cowan was charged with his murder.
While many parents would have been destroyed by the tragedy, the Morcombes are stronger than ever and relentless in their pursuit to make a difference. In 2013, they were awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for their work and this latest award is further evidence that they are succeeding, says Bruce.
“It’s awesome, we are very excited.
“Of course we don’t do our work for honours, we do it because of Daniel. It means his very short life is not wasted.”
Bruce and Denise established the Daniel Morcombe Foundation in 2005 to educate young people on how to stay safe in physical and online environments and support young victims of crime in their harrowing journey to recovery.
Now one of the largest child safety organisations in the country, the foundation is behind the phenomenally successful Day for Daniel and recently launched a new educational board game, Morky’s Safety Mission.
The foundation also directly supports young victims of crime, specifically through its purpose-built counselling centre “Daniel House” at Palmwoods.
It’s been a long but rewarding journey.
“It grew over the years with different projects,” Denise says. “The community really got behind us as well as the people behind the scenes who work for us to make it all happen.
“I think all the team can hang their hats on what we have achieved and be very proud.”
Bruce adds: “We’ve made a real difference in child safety and I would say we’ve influenced the next generation of children.
“I think the one word we’ve focused on most is report. We’ve made it OK for a youngster and an adult survivor to report what’s happened to them. They feel confident to do that, which is in itself a great achievement.”
The couple’s latest project is a new education team running a series of workshops focusing on early intervention of young children at risk of becoming predators. Made possible by Federal Government funding of $1.8 million over three years, it was driven by the coronial inquest into Daniel’s death.
“When Cowan was grilled on his history we found out he [had issues as a child],” Bruce says.
“We started thinking if someone had recognised Cowan had a problem as a child, he could have got help before it escalated into a life of terror. Then Daniel would still be here.”
The couple, who live at Twin Waters and have two other sons – Dean and Bradley (Daniel’s twin) as well as grandson, Winston, 4 – will never give up in their quest for child safety.
“A lot of people feel sorry for us, but we want them to know that we don’t look at the past because we know we can’t change it,” Bruce says. “We feel positive because we have been given a gift. That gift is media interest. It means we can connect with so many Australians and continually pushes us forward to make a difference.”
HANNAH DAVIES
NANCY BATES, OAM
72, JOURNALIST, AUTHOR and COMMUNITY HISTORIAN, MARYBOROUGH
The former long-time editor of the Fraser Coast Chronicle has helped raise the profile of the Maryborough region. She is patron of the Proud Marys, which promotes the city as the birthplace of P.L. Travers, the author of Mary Poppins; wrote a book about Queensland’s first steam train, the locally built Mary Ann, and helped drive the creation of an ANZAC memorial that winds through the city’s Queen’s Park.
REVEREND FATHER MICHAEL LOWCOCK
(FATHER MICK), 71, PARISH PRIEST and COMMUNITY WORKER,
MOUNT ISA
After arriving in
Mt Isa in the early 1990s, Father Mick quickly became an integral part of the fabric of the community, with particularly strong bonds with Aboriginal people. He established the North West Queensland Indigenous Catholic Social Services, which employs 72 people and provides assistance and programs to those in need. He’s known for his good humour and openness to all faiths.
POSTHUMOUS AWARD
RICHARD ‘DARBY’ McCARTHY, OAM
75, JOCKEY, TOOWOOMBA
Born in Cunnamulla, Richard “Darby” McCarthy became one of the nation’s best jockeys during the 1950s and ’60s, riding more than 1000 winners in Australia, Asia and Europe. In 1984, he set up
a horsemanship training centre and apprenticeship scheme in Toowoomba. He died on May 6 this year.
INSTITUTION AWARD
THE PCYC QUEENSLAND
The registered charity has been providing youth and community programs, services and facilities since 1948. Its three pillars – youth development, crime prevention, and community engagement – underpin all programs, focusing on social inclusion and addressing community needs.
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