AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR

I received a stylish invitation in the mail today to attend a real true blue Aussie function.

Prime Minister John Howard will be there and so will that professional Australian John Williamson.

The occasion? The launch of the search for the 2003 Australian of the Year – to be announced on Australia Day, 2004.

There’s Australian of the Year, Young Australian of the Year, Senior Australian of the Year and a category called Local Hero.

The cover of the invitation said: “Nominate an Australian who makes you proud”.

And, do you know what? I couldn’t think of anybody. I ran it by my radio programme producers and they couldn’t either. And that’s terrible.

Are we all that jaundiced? That disillusioned? That cynical?

These award things are always fraught with danger anyway. Time magazine for decades had its Man of the Year until Women’s Lib blurred the lines.

Time’s criteria included what that man had done for good or evil in the World. That’s how Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler won.

They chickened out though after September 11. After much internal fighting the Time editors and management decided NOT to give the recognition to the man who did more to affect the world in 2001 than any other person. His name? Osama Bin Ladin.

With the twin towers turned to dust in Time’s hometown of New York they felt it too soon and too close to home.

Here in Australia our list of Australians of the Year has been too heavily weighted with sporting heroes in my view. Especially in recent years.

But then the award-making Australia Day Council has been heavily weighted with sports figures. John Newcombe was chairman for many years. The current occupier of the chair is Lisa Curry Kenny.

My bent for winners in past years would lean towards heart expert Dr. Victor Chang, IVF stalwart Dr. Carl Wood and maybe Lois (now Louija) O’Donahue for her work for Aboriginal people.

This year I have no idea. And that’s a terrible admission or indictment.

A quirky postscript and an admission of a peripheral involvement in the voting procedure.

In the 1980s my then-wife Jacki Weaver was on the Australia Day Committee.

There was much speculation about who would get the Australian of the Year award in our 1988 Bicentennial Year – the year we should have become a republic.

In a bit of sworn-to-secrecy pillow talk she told me the winner: John Farnham.

A few days later, and only a couple of days before the fanfare and the announcement, I casually questioned whether or not our Bicentennial Australian of the Year was actually an Australian citizen.

Many urgent phone calls. Much ado about something. Whispering Jack, born a Pom, became an official Aussie only days before receiving the ultimate accolade.

Wednesday, July 2, 2003

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2002