A year after his death, Archie Roach – singer, activist, and one of the country’s “most important storytellers” – has been recognised with a 2023 Australia Day honour.
The Gunditjmara-Bundjalung elder has been appointed a companion of the Order of Australia (AC) “for eminent service to the performing arts as a songwriter and musician, to Indigenous rights and reconciliation, and through support for emerging First Nations artists”.
Roach’s nephew, Shane Evans, said he and his family will reflect on Roach’s life, and the pain and suffering their people endured, on 26 January.
Roach was able to “lighten the load” of that suffering through “sharing the stories with his beautiful ballads”, Evans said.
“And he was able to do that with his lifelong partner, my dear aunty Ruby.”
Of the 1,047 honours and awards, 736 are in the general division of the Order of Australia, including six appointed ACs.
The 47 appointed officers of the order (AO) include the former Liberal NSW minister and sex discrimination commissioner Pru Goward, while the 177 appointed members of the order (AM) include the restaurateur Kylie Kwong, physician and broadcaster Norman Swan, and actor David Wenham. Some 506 people were awarded medals of the order, (OAM) including actor Claudia Karvan, with 77 Australians included in an ongoing Covid-19 honour roll.
The youngest is 37 and the oldest 102.
Some 48% of those recognised were women, the highest level since the introduction of the system in 1975.
And 30 people were recognised under the military division of the order of Australia, 217 were given meritorious awards, and 64 distinguished and conspicuous awards.
The governor general, David Hurley, said the Australians recognised “go above and beyond, are from all over the country, and contribute every day in every way imaginable”.
“They’re the first to show up and the last to leave,” he said.
Jill Shelton, Roach’s longtime friend and manager, said music gave him the will to live through his long illness.
“He dug deep,” she said.
“He loved Australia. He loved this country, loved getting out, loved his audience, and loved singing. That was keeping him going when all the doctors predicted he wouldn’t make it. They called him superhuman.
Shelton said Roach would be “humbled and thrilled” about his appointment. He had thought deeply about the ambiguities of accepting an Australia Day award, she said, back in 2015 when he was up for an Order of Australia.
“Archie was a deep thinker, he understood the complexities, the troubled landscape of being forcibly removed and his own journey as a member of the Stolen Generations and everything that meant,” she said.
“He always saw awards as honouring not only him … it was an award for all his community, brothers, sisters, artists everywhere.”
Evans, who is chair of the Archie Roach Foundation, said the foundation would continue his uncle’s legacy.
“We embarked on a journey together of strong cultural education, where kids, young people, children, young Aboriginal men and women who are locked up could have access to uncle talking about his life and story through song, along with good old uncle Jack Charles,” he said.
Charles, the late actor, and Roach would talk to children who were locked up in institutions, “inspiring young people at the crossroads of their lives”. The foundation also nurtures First Nations artists, provides teaching and learning resources based on Roach’s song Took the Children Away, along with other youth justice programs.
“There’ll never be someone like him,” Evans said.
Shelton said she misses him, terribly.
“What a privilege to walk alongside such a great man, one of the most important storytellers for this country,” she said.
“His message was ‘let love rule’. Everything Archie did came from a place of love, which is extraordinary, considering everything life threw at him.
“He wasn’t ready to go. He had so much more to do.”
The headline on this article was amended on 26 January 2023. An earlier version said it had been a year since Archie Roach’s death, which is incorrect. It has been six months. The description of Norman Swan was also corrected, from GP to physician.
