The committee reviewing Australia’s honours system has found widespread dissatisfaction that the system is rewarding too many public servants, politicians, judges, doctors and academics and not enough people who do voluntary community work and women and people from ethnic groups. The committee has received submissions from around Australia and is to report to the Government later in the year. People did not like people getting honours for just doing their job or merely for long service. There is merit in those views.
It often seems that the honours list is in inverse proportion to degree of effort. Some appear to get a top honour for working in business or the public service where they are well paid and get status and respect from the job anyway, while voluntary community workers, especially in rural areas, get the lower awards. That said, the system permits anyone in the community to nominate someone. True, the more highly educated are more likely to know the system, none the less, with broader knowledge of the system, more voluntary workers, women and people from ethnic communities should get nominated. Whether they get the top awards, however, is another matter.
It is true that public servants, judges and academics are well-paid. However, any of them could be much better paid in private industry and the extent of that sacrifice is perhaps worth considering in the honours stakes, but in proportion it is frequently a lower order of sacrifice than found among voluntary workers. Perhaps it would be worth considering abolishing the levels in the order, so there is only one Order of Australia. That way, in classic egalitarian Australian style, the deserving volunteers would have a chance at equal recognition in a system skewed to the society high and mighty.