Queen’s Birthday honours: Noongar advocacy sees Betsy Buchanan awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia

When Betsy Buchanan needed protection from family violence as a child growing up in the Wheatbelt town of Gnowangerup, it was the local Noongar women who looked after her. She has worked ever since to repay that kindness with more than 40 years of volunteering for the Indigenous community. The tireless advocate for Noongar people has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her service to the community through social welfare groups. She is credited with setting up the first community legal centre in WA in 1976, was a former advocate with the Aboriginal Medical Service (now Derbarl Yerrigan) and has been a volunteer with the Daydawn Advocacy Centre for more than a decade. Dr Buchanan said she was “overjoyed” to receive the honour, which had come like “a bolt from the blue” because she had no idea she had been nominated. While she was grateful to add the honour to previous awards — including being inducted into the WA women’s hall of fame — she said nothing could compare to her appointment last year as an honorary Noongar for her work as an adviser and mentor. In all the years of her work on behalf of Aboriginal people, she said one case stands out — winning the veterans affairs pension for a Noongar widow whose Aboriginal husband had fought overseas.