Queen’s Birthday Honours: another golden moment for Dawn Fraser

For all Dawn Fraser has won, it has taken till now for the great sportswoman to become a Companion of the Order of Australia.

Dawn Fraser has been recognised with a Companion of the Order of Australia. Picture: Paul Smith

Let’s call it unfinished business.

For all Dawn Fraser has won, for all that she has done, it has taken till now for Australia’s greatest sportswoman to become a Companion of the Order of Australia.

To understand what it means to her, you need to go back 62 years, when she was just a teenager, standing on the blocks of the Olympic pool in Melbourne, waiting for the gun to start the final of the 100m freestyle.

“I rate this as highly as winning my first gold medal,’’ she says.

Fraser is just one of 1007 Australians to be recognised in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours list. Some are household names, such as Fraser and musician Brian Cadd, others are quiet achievers, such as David Hohnen, a winemaker who established the Cape Mentelle vineyard and awakened our palates to the delights of Margaret River wines.

Fraser’s feats in the pool are among Australia’s proudest Olympic moments: the first woman to defend an Olympic swimming title, the first woman to break the one-minute barrier for the 100m, the first swimmer to win the same event at three consecutive Olympics. ­Fraser set 39 world records and if not for the blue-blazered dolts who banned her after the Tokyo Games, would have surely added to that tally.

Yet it was in 1956, with Australians camped in front of their new televisions and a curious world looking in at this vast, largely unknown land, that Dawn became the vibrant, cheeky face of a modern nation still finding its place.

The diverse list of honours ­recipients this year brings due and in some cases, overdue recognition to pioneers in science, film, sport, business, the military, philanthropy and political and civic life, with six women and four men recognised with the top honour, the AC.

There is the extraordinary tale of professor San Thang.

Dr Thang AC was a member of a three-man CSIRO research team that made a radical breakthrough in polymer technology that has dramatically altered how we make everything from paints to biomaterials to pharmaceuticals.

When Dr Thang became a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, he explained that when he was growing up his family was so poor they couldn’t afford to pay for electricity. “When I was in grade six I had a dream and that dream was I wanted to become a scientist when I grew up,’’ he said.

Like Dr Thang, professor Rose Amal AC couldn’t have imagined receiving Australia’s highest honour when she arrived here as a teenager from Indonesia. She chose the male-dominated field of chemical engineering and has ­established herself as one of the nation’s pre-eminent researchers in catalysis.

Then there is the story of David Hohnen AM.

Having established the Cape Mentelle vineyard in 1969, he later took his talents to the Marlborough region in New Zealand, where he introduced the world to a little sauv blanc called Cloudy Bay.

Mr Hohnen is a moderate drinker but will toast his Queen’s Birthday honour tonight with a pre-dinner dram of whiskey. He says promoting wine is challenging given changing attitudes towards alcohol but insists that when drunk well, it remains a wonderful elixir.

Others to be recognised include judges and footy players, journalists and billionaires, TV ­comedians and film script writers. Some have campaigned tirelessly for social justice and noble causes. Some, like 73-year-old Barry Wilson OAM, have brought a simple joy to a child, many times over.

Mr Wilson’s Freedom Wheels program, based in Hobart’s western suburbs, modifies bikes for disabled children to ride.

“It’s the best thing I’ve done,’’ he says. “Some come in a wheelchair and can’t walk and you put them on the bike and you start to feel them pedal.’’

With staff reporters