Queen’s Birthday Honours: Sydney’s east and inner city recipients
From business moguls and billionaires to historians, medical professionals and community workers, see who made the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for 2020 in Sydney’s east and inner city.
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Household names and quiet achievers from Sydney’s inner city and east have been recognised in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours.
The list includes well known names such as Seven Group Holding’s Kerry Stokes, former Australian cricketer Michael Clarke, former politician Graham Richardson and billionaire investor Gretel Packer, as well as those who fly under the radar such as doctors, academics and charity workers.
Media magnate Kerry Stokes has been honoured as an Officer for the Order of Australia (AO) for his service to business, particularly media and mining, as well as his involvement in mental health advisory for institutions such as Headspace.
The high school dropout’s career began selling Caterpillar tractors and trucks before moving into media, mining and construction with Seven Group.
He is now worth an estimated $4 billion.
Michael Clarke, of Vaucluse, made his name as one of the best batsmen of his generation after beginning his international cricketing career at 23 in 2004 and going on to become Australian Test captain between 2011 and 2015.
Nicknamed “Pup”, Clarke played 115 Test matches for the Australia, scoring 28 centuries. He also played in 245 One Day Internationals.
Clarke, who often had to fight hard to win over the public throughout his career, is also being acknowledged as an AO for his service to the community, as an ambassador for charities such as Life Education Australia, the Cancer Council, and Movember.
Graham “Richo” Richardson, of Dover Heights, has been honoured as an AO for his Parliamentary career, his work as a political commentator for Sky News, 2GB, Nine and Seven networks, and his philanthropic contribution.
Richo joined the ALP in 1966 and became a Senator in 1983, influential in the coup that led Bob Hawke to power in 1983 and helped secure the growing green vote for Labor in the late 1980s.
He resigned in 1992 after using his influence to broker a deal for a relative’s business. That relative was later jailed for forging government documents.
AOs were also awarded to corporate adviser and philanthropist Simon Mordant and arts advocate Greta Moran.
Mordant is the founder and director of the Luminis Foundation, a philanthropic arm of corporate advising company Luminis Partners, and has been chair of the Museum of Contemporary Art since 2010.
Moran family matriarch Greta Moran, of Vaucluse, has headed the Moran Arts Foundation since 1998, a non-for-profit organisation supporting Australian artists.
The eldest sister of James Packer, Gretel Packer, was appointed a Member for the Order of Australia (AM) for her service to visual and performing arts and conservation, through her work in the Packer Family Foundation, as Vice President of the Art Gallery of NSW and Director of the Sydney Theatre Company.
She also established the $160 million National Philanthropic Fund in 2014.
The list also includes dedicated members of the medical community including ear, nose and throat surgeon Dr John Curotta, trauma specialist Dr Tony Joseph, rural medical practitioner Dr Susan Lesley Forster, and surgeon and Emeritus Professor John Mackenzie, who were honoured with the AM.
Dr John Curotta, of Pyrmont, has headed the Children’s Hospital at Westmead Ear, Nose and Throat surgery department since 2005.
He has also worked extensively with indigenous outreach groups in Mt Druitt, Goulburn, Bega, Moruya and Port Macquarie since 2005.
Dr Tony Joseph, of Bronte, has worked in Sydney’s emergency medical departments throughout his career, and is currently the co-director of Trauma at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital.
He has also performed countless educational and advisory roles over the past 25 years, including President of the Trauma Society and Chair of the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine between 2004 and 2009.
Dr Susan Forster, of Dover Heights, has devoted her medical career to regional and rural medicine, with a focus on indigenous medical education.
She is currently positioned as the Dean of Charles Sturt University’s Rural Medical School, and previously as the Associate Dean of the University of New South Wales’ Rural Clinical School.
Professor John Mackenzie, of Woollahra, was the Clinical Associate Dean at the University of NSW between 1990 and 2000, and a former council member at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
He also toiled as the Clinical Director of Surgery at Prince of Wales Hospital between 1990 and 1998.
The late Dr Michele Cotton, formerly of Point Piper, has been posthumously honoured with an AM for her service to Veterinary science including her involvement in the Australian Veterinary Association and Royal Agricultural Society of NSW.
Michel-Henri Carriol, of Vaucluse, has been honoured as an AM for his service to Australian-France relations, including in his roles as current President of French Assist NSW, and former Trade Commissioner to French Embassy in Australia.
John Alan Hall, of Double Bay, has been awarded as an AM for his involvement in psychiatric rehabilitation organisation Flourish Australia, which includes 17 years as chairman.
Lawyer Raymond Laurence Whitten, of Point Piper, has been awarded the AM for his work in legal reform and consumer protection, as Founder and Principal of Whittens & McKeough until 2018 and a Chair and Director on a number of professional work safety boards.
Professor Stephen Robert Garton, of Woollahra,has authored more than 100 publications including Histories of Sexuality: Antiquity to Sexual Revolution (2004) and The Cost of War: Australians Return (1996), and has been honoured with an AM for his service to both history and tertiary administration.
Richard Walsh, Ainslie Cahill, Frank Howarth, Robert Whitfield, and David Vaux, have also been honoured as AMs.
David Graham, from Eastlakes, is among those to be awarded the OAM.
The former deputy mayor and councillor on Botany Council has been awarded for his services to the community.
He has also notably been the director of the Windgap Foundation and President of the Mascot Sub-Branch, Returned and Services League of Australia.
Maroubra’s George Shales has also been awarded the OAM for service to life saving.
He’s been a board member of Surf Life Saving Australia, President of
Surf Life Saving New South Wales and President of the Surf Life Saving Sydney Branch.
More locally he has been heavily involved in Maroubra, North Bondi and Coogee Surf Life Saving Clubs.
Medals of the Order of Australia (OAM) were conferred on Peter Conrad, Colleen Goodwin, Cyril Baldock, and Margaret Bowering, all from Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
David Graham, Diane Kershaw, Peter Chadwick, the late Ernest Bilson, Anthony Venn-Brown, Phillip Cunningham, Robert Whitfield, David Vaux, Judy Hype and John Ainsworth, from Sydney’s inner city, each collect an OAM.
A lifesaving cause
Cyril Baldock has been honoured for his more than 60-year membership of Bondi Surf Bather's Life Saving Club.
He joined the club as a 15 year-old in 1958 and has never looked back, now receiving an OAM for his decades of volunteering.
“It’s been a big part of my life and I’ve been a big part of it,” he said.
Mr Baldock is the only living member of Bondi Surf Bather’s Lifesaving Club with a patrol named after him, and was elected the youngest life member in 1976.
“(The club has) just been everything to me,” he said.
“Most of my friends and associates, in all sorts of ways, have come from there.
“It’s brought me from being a shy little skinny kid to a very active and fit adult.
Mr Baldock was born in a Japanese internment camp, where his mother and father were being held, and arrived in Australia at two years old in 1945.
Luckily for him, he said, when the war ended, his parents chose Bondi Beach as their new home.
“When the war ended, they went back to Britain and there was no work there. It was the worst winter ever and they migrated to Australia,” he said.
In his time with the club, he has won about 17 Australian surf lifesaving titles, and held the position of Club Captain and Club President.
He won the club back the Australian Open Rescue and Resuscitation in 1972 after 27 years, which he called “an obsession” and one of his “proudest achievements” with the club.
His early love of swimming at Bondi Beach carried into adulthood, breaking a record for the oldest person to swim the English Channel in 2014 – a record since surpassed.
But, Mr Baldock says he was faster.
He still competes in surf carnivals and is an active member of the club.
His five children have all been members of the club at some point in their lives and of his eldest granddaughter, who is a promising lifesaver, he says: “reminds me a bit of myself and of her father at the same age.”