Every Australia Day and King's Birthday Australians awake to news reports headlined by the names of the great and good who have been acknowledged in this most public of ways by being appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia, Member of the Order of Australia or awarded an Order of Australia Medal or an Order of Australia.
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And then, of course there are the many public servants and defence personnel who receive their own special awards in recognition of services rendered.
These are all, of course, worthy recipients and nobody would question the appropriateness of making former Curtin South Primary captain - and our next Governor-General Sam Mostyn - a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).
She has devoted much of her life to social justice and gender equity and has done sterling work in a wide range of fields.
The same is true of the appointment of chief spy-catcher and the surprisingly public face of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Mike Burgess, who is tasked with keeping the community safe from a wide range of known and unknown unknowns as an OAM.
While Daniel Andrews' AC is causing some controversy given he is a polarising figure in Victoria, he did the hard yards during the pandemic, possibly spending more time fronting the media than any other Australian public figure.
But, at the end of the day, the honours list is not about them. These are people who have already received recognition in many different ways and are well known.
The people the Australia Day Honours list really celebrates are the unknown, and often unsung, saints and angels who walk amongst us touching lives in myriad different ways.
Take, for example, Dr Buuloc (Loc) Lam OAM who runs the Braddon Dental Surgery.
Dr Lam donates her time and skills to patrons of Karinya House (for mothers and babies) in Canberra and regularly travels overseas to work with the Children's Health Aid Team in Nepal and Vietnam.
With timely access to dental care increasingly out of reach in this country and effectively non-existent in many parts of the developing world, her work is changing people's lives.
So, too is the work of Gregory Aldridge OAM who leads EveryMan, a men's support service in the CBD. EveryMan provides housing support and works in the fields of violence prevention and behaviour change.
"I was always drawn to people whose lives were basically messy, I guess, because my life when I was a young was pretty messy too," he said.
And then, of course, there is Sister Jane Keogh AM, a Brigidine Sister who devoted 30 years of her life to Catholic education and was famously arrested during a pro-refugee sit-in at then-senator Zed Seselja's office in 2014.
Sister Jane's commitment to asylum seekers continues.
She is actively raising money to assist refugees now living in PNG.
And, in a very rare move, a poet with a strong environmental bent, was acknowledged with an OAM.
Canberra's Dr Mark O'Connor is passionate about the state of the planet, has written a dozen poetry books and works to demystify the art of poesy for the young.
While space does not permit an adequate tribute to all those who deserve to be acknowledged that is actually the function of the honours list itself.
It is very reassuring to be reminded there are thousands of people in the community who freely donate their time, energy and talent to leaving the world a better place than they found it.
Well done, you.
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