Australian of The Year - Awards History - 2000s Onwards

2000s Onwards

Debates about the Australian of the Year award often revolve around the relative balance between sport, science and the arts. Fourteen winners have excelled in sports as diverse as cricket, [swimming, athletics, sailing, tennis, boxing and motor racing. A recurring criticism that sport features too regularly peaked in 2004, when Steve Waugh was the fourth sporting winner in seven years and the third Test Cricket Captain to be honoured. Despite the perception of an over-emphasis on sport, the list of past winners reveals a strong endorsement for scientific achievement; by 2009 thirteen Australian scientists have received the honour, including a remarkable ten from the medical sciences. A long-term view also reveals that Australia’s talented artists have not been neglected; ten winners have excelled in creative pursuits, including six musicians, a dancer, a painter, a comedian and a Nobel Prize winning novelist.

Many Australians of the Year do not fit neatly into categories such as sport, science and the arts. Phillip Adams once described the past winners as ‘an eclectic collection of people who reflect the diversity of achievement in this country.’ Australians of the Year have also excelled in public administration, the military, social and community work, business enterprise, academia, religious leadership and philanthropy. There has been relatively little public debate about the gender balance of past winners. In 1961 several news outlets incorrectly referred to Sir Macfarlane Burnet as ‘Man of the Year’; the mistake was not allowed to continue, as Joan Sutherland took out the second award, but it is certainly true that women are under-represented. By 2009, 11 winners out of a total of 56 were women.

While the selection of a single Australian of the Year is bound to stimulate debate, the awards program as a whole recognises a much wider range of achievement. In 1979 the NADC named its first ‘Young Australian of the Year,’ community service volunteer Julie Sochacki. Twenty years later the veteran country music star Slim Dusty received the inaugural ‘Senior Australian of the Year’ award. In 2003 the NADC introduced an award for ‘Australia's Local Hero’, which honours outstanding contributions to local communities. With four award categories and a system of state and national finals, the NADC now recognises a total of 128 inspiring Australian role models every year.