The 2025 King’s Birthday Honours list had three great honours to recognise the outdoors community. In a happy coincidence it was great news for women, caving and hence the outdoors community generally.
Three honours; an AM & two OAM. (AM – Member of the Order of Australia and the next step up from an OAM – Officer in the Order of Australia). Three special Australians!
Coincidence; how so? For a decade I have been a serial offender in nominating bushwalkers and now also a caver for an OAM. In this time, I have learnt three important lessons about this open but increasingly opaque nomination procedure.
Lesson ONE is secrecy. It is a requirement that your outstanding bushwalker (nominee) and the referees you have selected are all to be unaware of this nomination. Secrecy makes your research a bit tricky but since there is no deadline you can concentrate on gathering good data on your nominee. Remember, results are only announced on Australia Day or the King’s Birthday.
Lesson TWO is time. It takes an unpredictable length of time for a decision. My successful nominations have taken from 13 months to 24 months or more for a decision. Nominations especially for women are encouraged at the online portal but the SUBMIT button just adds your nomination to a pile. After a receipt email there is nothing; with no progress reports. It seems that your nomination has entered a Canberra black hole. It is said that there is no preference in assessing nominations.
Lesson THREE is you don’t always succeed. Not all of my nominations have been successful and no reason is ever given. Initially, I was told of a failed nomination by name but no longer.
The award of Australian Honours is now more opaque. Secrecy is maintained to the very end. Initially, I would be told with a week or so of a successful result.
An obviously generic email is now sent a just few days before a new Honours list is announced with roughly three statements. One; a decision has been made. Two; check the Honours list for your nominee’s name. Three; if the name is not there then thank you for your interest in the Australian Honours system.
Coincidence. I know when I submitted my honours nomination. But in this secretive and unpredictable nomination procedure I do not know when and if one or two persons submitted the other TWO honours nominations.
So, what a great coincidence with THREE successful nominations.
From the Sydney Morning Herald of 9 June 2025 pp. 21-22
Dr Julia Mary James Camperdown NSW for significant service to scientific research, particularly in the field of speleology.
Mrs Dorothy Jean Crabb North Nowra NSW for service to speleology, and to the community.
Mrs Grace Marjorie Matts ESM Bankstown NSW for service to the community through a range of organisations.
(My nomination –
- Grace and late husband, Don Matts OAM are both well known in the caving community as founders of NSW Cave Rescue.
- Grace has served as Treasurer for a number of caving clubs. I know her as a long serving Treasurer and hence part of the Executive of the NSW Volunteer Rescue Association (VRA) where she handled $millions of government funds including VRA squad grants for which she received the Emergency Services Medal – ESM is an exclusive medal limited to the emergency services. In this latest list of ESM recipients there are just seven from NSW.
- Grace also has the St John Ambulance Medal for years of teaching First Aid to affiliated squads of the VRA such as the bushwalkers of the then Bushwalkers S&R.
- Grace has also served several other community organisations.
I was pleased for her.)
Keith Maxwell – Honorary Historian BNSW