Australian of the Year Awards – Motion
Wednesday 14 June 2023
S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (16:08): I rise to support the amended motion. Australia Day eve 2023 was a fantastic evening for South Australia, as not one but two of our nominees in the Australian of the Year categories were successful and I will speak in more detail about Taryn Brumfitt and Awer Mabil soon.
However, it is also appropriate to acknowledge the South Australian nominees who, whilst not reaching the national level, have also made significant contributions to our state. I will take an opportunity before diving into the Australia Day Awards to acknowledge some of the King's Birthday Honours recipients and congratulate them. I particularly congratulate:
Moya Dodd AO, a trailblazing former Matilda, international football player and administrator for FIFA;
John Camillo AM, unionist, for significant service to industrial relations in the manufacturing industry;
Craig Caldicott OAM, who since being awarded his bronze medallion in 1969 has spent countless hours at the Brighton Surf Lifesaving Club, as well as dedicating his time to state and national surf lifesaving bodies; and
Will Sergeant OAM for significant service to the LGBTIQ+ community of South Australia, including as his alter ego Dr Gertrude Glossip.
The night of 25 January 2023 was a special one, as Taryn Brumfitt and Awer Mabil did our state proud. Taryn, a body image activist, director, photographer, writer, speaker and documentary filmmaker, was named Australian of the Year for her decade-long campaign to encourage women and children to embrace their bodies as they are.
She said children started off believing their bodies were strong and powerful before changing their minds. She told ABC radio after her win: 'We really need to help our kids across Australia and the world because the rates of suicide, eating disorders, anxiety, depression, steroid use [are] all on the increase related to body dissatisfaction.'
This is truly shocking to hear, but we know that it is true. Our girls, young women and young men have for too long been defined by their weight, their look, their clothes. I am glad that Taryn is fighting against this, particularly in the age of Instagram and other social media platforms that amplify the pressure on young girls and women to look a particular way. The way that Taryn celebrates her body has changed the way millions of women across the world look at their own. Taryn had achieved the perfect body as determined by society but realised there was a better way to be comfortable in your own.
Taryn shared before and after images of the two looks on social media, and over 100 million people reacted to the post. What started with a simple social media message has had such a significant impact across the world. Taryn says that her focus for the year will be our children and body image for men. She will be addressing the women in leadership symposium to be held during the upcoming Women's World Cup. This symposium, The Power of Her, will be held on Tuesday 8 August at Adelaide Oval, coinciding with the FIFA round of 16 match.
Speaking of football, it is now time to speak about our star Socceroo Awer Mabil. His exploits on the football field inspire young people, particularly young people from refugee backgrounds across Australia. However, this is not why he is Young Australian of the Year. Awer achieved this award in recognition of him being co-founder of the not-for-profit organisation Barefoot to Boots, which aims for better health, education, policies and gender equality for refugees.
Awer and his brother and co-founder, Awer G Bul, grew up in a Kenyan refugee camp after their family fled civil war in Sudan before coming to Australia at 10 years of age. Awer started his charity by taking jerseys and footballs that he had collected from football clubs in South Australia to the Kakuma area in northern Kenya.
Next, the brothers collected equipment from the old Royal Adelaide Hospital and donated it to a new hospital in Kenya while also providing sanitary pads to girls so that they could go to school with confidence. This is all work that Awer did not have to do, but he chose to do it to improve our local community and the lives of children half a world away in Kenya.
Despite all this good work, Awer's own life has not been without further tragedy, losing his sister in a car accident at Andrews Farm. However, it is the experience of hard times, the memory of his sister and the knowledge that young people see him as a role model that drive him. He is a truly inspiring young man and, like Taryn, richly deserving of this honour.
While Taryn and Awer were national winners, there were also many South Australian finalists to represent South Australia on the national stage. The first is lawyer and workplace safety advocate Andrea Madeley. Andrea helped develop South Australia's International Workers' Memorial Day Service, bringing together bereaved families and community members each year to remember those who have tragically lost their lives at work.
Following personal tragedy in 2004 when her 18-year-old son Daniel died in a preventable workplace accident, she has become a tenacious advocate for others affected by workplace death and injury and a powerful voice against unsafe work practices. Andrea has lobbied members of parliament and submitted numerous proposals under Australia's model work health and safety legislation.
Professor Chris Daniels is an environmentalist, zoologist and science communicator who has popularised citizen science in Australia. Chris was a driving force in Adelaide becoming a National Park City and spearheads efforts to connect South Australians with nature. He also uses the arts to promote conservation, has written 11 books, a musical theatre on koalas, delivered comedy for the Adelaide Fringe and advocates for numerous South Australian nature authors.
Margie Fischer AM is a force in the queer community. In 1997, she co-founded the wildly successful Feast Adelaide Queer Arts and Cultural Festival, our state's major not-for-profit queer celebration of pride and diversity. Margie was chair of the board for 11 years and is now a director of Feast Queer Youth Drop In, a vital bimonthly safe social space for LGBTIQ+ young people.
Staying with our queer community, next is football trailblazer Dr Josh Cavallo, who in 2021 made sport history by coming out as gay, making him the first Australian A-League Men's player and the only gay male professional footballer currently playing top-flight football in the world. Josh did not intend to be a trailblazer; he just wanted to be himself but, because of his coming out, numerous other top league footballers across the world have had the confidence to follow suit. Josh is humble, he is outspoken and he is a champion for the queer community, which has taken him from London to LA Pride. However, it has also seen him receive vile homophobic bullying and abuse on social media and during games.
Multiculturalism and helping migrants is something that Eugenia Tsoulis OAM has been doing for 25 years as CEO of the Australian Migrant Resource Centre and founding member of the Settlement Council of Australia, which she has been involved with for 20 years, a significant commitment that has impacted the lives of tens of thousands of new migrants. However, it was in her primary school days that she started helping her fellow Greek migrants settle into life in Australia. Once a week, before school she would act as a translator to help bus conductors deliver Greek men to potential employers around Adelaide.
From new migrants to children in care, Felicity Graham is an author, advocate and CEO of Fostering Change Australia, sharing her experiences of the foster care system to empower children in care who feel forgotten. So many of us cannot imagine living in a home without anyone we know and are connected to, and being cared for by strangers, but it is the reality of so many children in our community, so it is so important that people like Felicity give them a voice and give them hope.
Giving people hope is what Neil Davis has done since 2008 following the death of his beloved son, Sam, in a one-punch attack. Neil co-founded the Sammy D Foundation, which provides one-on-one mentoring for young people at risk of offending and antiviolence education programs to schools, junior sports clubs, and young people who are part of the juvenile justice system. Neil has spoken to nearly 200,000 young people across South Australia, delivering a simple message: violence is never the answer. That is a message we need to spread to all South Australians as we fight against violence in our state.
It is my pleasure to honour all these people in our community who have rightfully received these awards, and I support the amended motion to the house.
