Australia has improved women’s representation in the honours system, but culturally and linguistically diverse communities, particularly CALD women, remain under-recognised despite their central role in social cohesion and community life.

When women became the majority of recipients in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours List for the first time since the Order of Australia was established in 1975, it was rightly celebrated as a significant achievement.

The debate about women’s representation in Australia’s honours system has been important and necessary. For many years, women were underrepresented despite their enormous contribution to Australian society. Through better data, public discussion, stronger nomination efforts and institutional commitment, that imbalance has begun to change.

There is an important lesson in that experience. Representation gaps do not correct themselves. They become visible, they are examined and practical steps are taken to address them.

That raises another question.

Are culturally and linguistically diverse Australians, particularly CALD women, being recognised in ways that reflect the Australia of today?

This is not simply a question about honours. It goes to how Australia recognises contribution and whose stories become part of the national narrative.

Australia has changed dramatically since the Order of Australia was established in 1975. At that time, around one in five Australians was born overseas. According to the 2021 Census, 27.6 per cent of Australians are overseas born, almost half have at least one parent born overseas and more than 300 ancestries are represented across the country.

Multicultural Australia is not a future aspiration. It is the reality of modern Australia.

Yet the available evidence suggests that our systems of recognition may not fully reflect that reality.

SBS reporting found that between 2017 and 2021 only 17.2 per cent of honours nominations came from overseas born Australians despite migrants accounting for almost 28 per cent of the population.

My own analysis of Order of Australia data between 2015 and........

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