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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-04 Daily Xml
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AUSTRALIA DAY HONOURS

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:21): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women a question about awards and honours.

Leave granted.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: The Australia Day Honours were announced on 26 January 2009. I note that 17 South Australian women and 50 South Australian men were recognised in that list. Will the minister inform the council about what the government is doing to recognise outstanding South Australian women?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for State/Local Government Relations, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister Assisting the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Energy) (15:22): I thank the honourable member for his question. It is with great pleasure that I inform the council that I have launched a new information kit on how to nominate women for awards and honours.

The kit, which is available through the Office for Women, provides detailed information on the myriad of awards available (there are around 14 or so awards currently available), and it outlines how to navigate through the nomination process, where to obtain the appropriate information and also the timing of each of those award processes.

The kit will help ensure that more of the state's outstanding women are put forward for these very important public accolades. Awards highlighted in the kit include the Order of Australia, Australia Day awards, SA Great awards and Young Achiever awards. I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the South Australian women and men who were recognised as part of the Australia Day 2009 honours list.

Being named on the Australia Day Honours list is one of the highest accolades in the country. Like all Australians, I am very proud of and grateful for their very valuable contributions. However, it is disappointing to see that there are still more men than women being recognised for these awards. Between 1999 and 2008, men accounted for 68 per cent of those honoured with the General Division of the Order of Australia. An average of only about one-third of women are recipients. Indeed, we have many thousands of women out there in our community who, as I said, would make very worthy recipients of such an award.

The key reason has been that more men than women are nominated; therefore, more men receive honour awards. That is why it is important to ensure that women are, in fact, nominated for these awards. There are, as I said, many thousands of women across South Australia alone who would make fabulous recipients of these types of awards. It is our challenge as a community to ensure that they are recognised. It is difficult to explain why women tend not to put themselves forward for these nominations; there are lots of theories. Women tend to be fairly quiet achievers, and they tend not to put themselves forward. They tend to be very focused on getting the job done and getting on with it.

The PRESIDENT: Busy nominating the men.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Yes, Mr President. Already 70 per cent of nominations are men, so they are well represented in this awards system. The Governor and Mrs Scarce, who hosted the 2009 Australia Day Awards function at Government House, have also indicated their commitment to promoting South Australians for national awards.

We rely on the community to actively nominate worthy citizens for these honours, and we are hoping that this information kit will assist in that process, that it will make the information more accessible and available to people in our community and easier. As I said, there are 14 or so awards currently available under the Australia Day honours system, and it can be quite a complex maze to work through. For some people it can be quite intimidating and off-putting.

We hope that the kit will be a readily available and accessible piece of information that streamlines not only the awards that are available but for each different award what the award involves and the various processes. Different awards involve different timeframes and processes. So, we hope it will make it much easier for people to follow and we hope to see a greater representation of women in next year's awards round.

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