The choice of cave diving double act of Craig Challun and Richard Harris as Australians of the Year is sure to be popular for anyone who followed Thailand’s cave rescue last year.
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It was the most gripping, triumphant story in a year of bad news and chaos - a tale of human ingenuity, generosity, good luck and the ultimate powerlessness of humans in the face of nature.
Twelve smiling boys and their coach, rescued from a near certain death, unharmed, and two diffident Aussies right at the heart of it all.
But there’s another, equally deserving winner also announced on Friday - Canberra’s own Sue Packer, named Senior Australian of the Year.
But the work for which she is being lauded could not be further from the high-profile heroics of Drs Challun and Harris. Dr Packer has spent her career working with abused children and babies to prevent child abuse with the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.
The stories she hears, and the people she deals with every day, are the types of things that would make most of us deeply uncomfortable. It may be becoming increasingly difficult for us to ignore the domestic sphere when it comes to abuse and neglect - gone are the days when such things were considered strictly private - but it takes courage and energy in spaces to bring them into the open.
Especially on behalf of children, the most vulnerable people in the community. Dr Packer began her career as a paediatrician in 1972, working with community groups and children who had been abused, and had behavioural problems or learning difficulties.
This led to a lifelong interest in the lives of Australian children, and what they had to tell us about the country as a whole.
She has said repeatedly, and adamantly, that Australia excels in only one thing when it comes to children - vaccination. This is the faintest of praise; even in Canberra, she says, there was much room for improvement.
"In many ways you feel the ACT should be able to manage better: we don't have the tyranny of distance, we don't have very varied populations in widely spread places," Dr Packer has said.
It’s a sobering thought, in a ceremony otherwise filled with pride and achievement.
But Dr Packer, while lesser than known than the duo who risked their lives for the Wild Boar soccer team, is an achiever and a hero.
She was made a member of the Order of Australia in 1999 for services to child welfare, paediatrics and the public, and has a long list of voluntary roles, all dedicated to the improvement of the lives of children.
And she has maintained all along that her main role is one she cannot walk away from. In this, she has plenty in common with the Thai cave duo, but in her case, the victims she works with are otherwise unheard and unseen. And unlike the hapless soccer team, the world is not watching these children.