In 2025, the 50th anniversary year of the Australian Honours, it’s time to address the inherent structural barriers to equality and overhaul the Honours to reflect a modern and diverse nation.
Honour a Woman co-founders, Carol Kiernan, Elizabeth Hartnell-Young, Ruth McGowan OAM
2025 update
It is time to overhaul the outdated and inequitable Australian Honours. The year 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Australian Honours and awards system in 1975. Despite progress in recent years, disappointingly, the July 2025 King’s Birthday Honours reported that the proportion of women honoured had regressed significantly from previous years.
It is clear that the current nomination and assessment systems and processes fail to maintain sustainable progress on equality. Importantly, this means that women are not valued as they should be, and other characteristics of diversity are not modelled to the community.
The Honours are regarded by many in the community as ‘elitist’ and antiquated, not reflective of Australia’s diversity in education/socio-economic status, gender, cultural background, age or geographical location
Awards rely on motivated and skilled community members taking the initiative to nominate others and outstanding Australians are being overlooked.
Options currently considered by the Government to increase the promotion of nominations do not address the inherent structural barriers to inequality. It is time for change.
In 2025, we call upon the Federal Government to commit to intentionally redesign and modernise the Australian Honours processes. We seek sustainable and fairer nomination and assessment systems that will recognise ALL Australians who have demonstrated outstanding achievement and service to the Australian community.
As a first step, we seek commitment to fund an external review of the nomination and assessment process with a gender and diversity lens to identify barriers and make recommendations for policy and procedural improvements.
Honour a woman does not want the Australian Honours to wallow in elitism and exclusivity for another 50 years. It is time for an overhaul.
Carol, Elizabeth and Ruth
2020 Report Card; a summary of our 4-year achievements
Thanks so much for your support of the Honour a Woman movement. We’re hopeful that, through this advocacy, gender inequality in the Order of Australia continues to be addressed by the Governor General working with Federal and State governments. We will continue to be gender equality advocates in the years ahead, seeking to elevate women’s voices, and of Australians from diverse backgrounds, ensuring that strides made in the past are not lost. We will post any updates on our Facebook page. We invite you to follow us there.
The Honour a Woman movement began in 2017 after 43 years of men consistently receiving over 70% of all the Orders of Australia. With the support of thousands of supporters around Australia, we are working to achieve our goal of 50/50 by 2020.
Exceptional Australian women need to be recognised on the public record through the highest level of public recognition in our country; the Australian honours.
Why, after five decades, are women still underrepresented in the Australian honours?
We believe historical structural disadvantages in the nomination and selection processes prevent women being equally recognised through the Australian honours. It’s time these barriers were removed.
It’s time for equality in the Australian honours.
Our approach is two-pronged; first to support more people to nominate women.
Enough is enough. Will you help us bring equality to the Order of Australia?
You can nominate a woman here, through the Governor General’s official website
OR
Contact your local Member of Parliament and ask them to advocate for a redesign of the Australian honours to make them fairer and more equitable.
About the Order of Australia
Appointments to the Order of Australia are made twice a year to recognise outstanding achievement and service.
Recipients come from all walks of life and are usually nominated directly from the community.
There are four levels in the Order of Australia:
- Companion of the Order (AC)
- Officer of the Order (AO)
- Member of the Order (AM), and
- Medal of the Order (OAM).
The awards are generally announced on Australia Day (26 January) and the King’s Birthday public holiday (June).
For more information about the Order of Australia see the Governor General’s website and the Order of Australia Association.
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Honour a Woman acknowledges the traditional owners of this land on which we stand and pays our respects to the elders, past, present and future, for they hold the memories, the traditions and the culture of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
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