It is incredibly frustrating that after years and years of campaigning for gender equality, the Order of Australia is as male-dominated as ever.
As Governor-General Sam Mostyn puts it: "Every Australian regardless of their gender, social, cultural or economic background should be able to look at the honours list and see themselves."
Which would be lovely. I mean, at least we count gender in the honours list. God knows how the rest of it looks. We know very little about race and ethnicity and we can only deduce class by looking at the postcodes.
As the GG's office points out, the gender imbalance that persists in the Order of Australia will only change if more people from across the broad Australian community nominate exceptional women for recognition.
So yeah, apparently, it's our fault. Exhausting (as is the process of nominating).
So much to take responsibility for, so often. Yep, we ordinary, nominating Australians do not do a good enough job. From December 1, 2025, through to April 30, 2026, only 37 per cent of nominations received were for women, slightly worse than the historic average over the 50-year history of 64 to 36.
Apart from the fact that we don't nominate enough women, there's also a backlog of men because the former governor-general was trying to get honours lists to equal in his lifetime (in the job).
Nominations overall are still consistently running about 60/40 in favour of men and sometimes it's as unbalanced as 70/30. When you've got nominations like that, you get a result like this year's King's Birthday Honours, where just over 67 per cent of recipients are men.
Which is so strange. About seven or so years ago, nominations were approaching equal. Happy days - 1200 in 2019, nearly 40 per cent. What happened in the meantime? Did men suddenly become greater and more deserving of nominations? Haha. That would be a definite no.
Here's my analysis. Back in 2019, the fledgling advocacy group Honour A Woman was just hitting its stride. Founders Ruth McGowan, Elizabeth Hartnell-Young and Carol Kiernan were pretty much out there full-time, teaching people how to write applications, gently nudging politicians, visiting community groups such as Zonta. At the same time, the then minister for women in Victoria, Natalie Hutchins, also appointed a dedicated awards officer to work with groups such as Honour A Woman.
That person's job was to organise an additional 200 nominations of Victorian women each year for gender balance. As I wrote at the time, "It's thrilling to see what an actual affirmative action strategy will achieve".
Thing is, the Australian Labor Party knows all about affirmative action strategies, because it has one that works. This year, the extraordinary Emily's List turns 30. Emily's List turned the Australian Labor Party from a cock-forest to a party which resembles Australia, equal numbers of men and women. Ah, actually it's over 50 per cent in cabinet.
And the now federal government which was then in opposition said it would get honours to women up to 40 percent and then 50 percent of all awards ASAP. It is nowhere near its own target.
So what we need is an Emily's list for awards, maybe a NOW list. Nominate Only Women.
Why the backlog? A previously hugely understaffed secretariat. In December last year, more funding was sent its way. It now has an additional 13 staff members trying to deal with the backlog of nominations, currently running at over 6000. Rob Ayling, the newly appointed director of honours and awards secretariat in the Governor-General's Office says he is absolutely confident the backlog will be cleared by June 30, 2027.
Elizabeth Hartnell-Young, one of the co-founders of Honour A Woman, welcomes the extra funding and the refresh of staff within the secretariat - but she's pretty blunt when it comes down to it.
"In 2019 Labor went to the election with a target of 40 per cent for women in the Australian honours by 2020, moving towards 50 per cent," she said.
"And Labor is the party of affirmative action for women, look at the cabinet.
So why, she asks, are there not targets for honours?
Kiernan says the Australian government must step up.
"We must recognise that we don't celebrate our leading women nor our outstanding diverse Australians by plaintively calling on the community to nominate them.
"We need pro bono committees in each state and territory to identify those who should be honoured and are not being recognised," she says.
The federal government can do this. As Kiernan points out, the gender equal cabinet didn't just materialise by plaintively calling on women to enter parliament. Emily's List made it happen. It organised.
Yes, yes, we need to organise too. But it's never going to happen without an overarching plan - and maybe that includes encouraging every peak body to nominate equal numbers of men and women.
Honour A Woman does a fantastic job - but this needs something even bigger. The founding members of Honour A Women met with the Minister for Women Katy Gallagher earlier this year.
An Order of Australia isn't for everyone. I'm sad to hear that Nyadol Nyuon, lawyer, activist, writer and advocate for African Australian communities, is handing back her OAM.
There have been 39 resignations from the Order since 1975, including four in the last financial year. It's a don't ask, don't tell sitch.
Sometimes it is for personal reasons, others choose to make it public, other times it could be advice from the Official Secretary that the Council of the Order of Australia is considering an individual's ongoing membership and that their appointment/award may be terminated or cancelled. There have been 57 terminations since 1975, including Mike Pezzullo and Dyson Heydon.
