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The 2024 Australian of the Year awards were handed out this evening, with the following people receiving the top honours.
Australians of the Year: Professor Georgina Long AO and Professor Richard Scolyer AO
Senior Australian of the Year: Yalmay Yunupingu
Young Australian of the Year: Emma McKeon AM
Local Hero: David Elliott OAM
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For those just learning about the remarkable story of Professor Richard Scolyer and Professor Georgina Long, the 2024 Australians of the Year, we’ve got you covered with plenty more you can read about the pair.
In September last year, Tim Elliot wrote an incredible story on the pair’s work and Scolyer’s cancer treatment for Good Weekend.
In the piece, Scolyer describes his decision to pursue Long’s audacious treatment plan:
The stuff we developed for melanoma, the [pre-surgery] immunotherapy, the drug therapies, it’s never been tried with brain cancer. It could kill me early or it could make what time I have left less enjoyable, and then there’s also a small possibility that I could be cured. But I’m not up for palliative care. F--- that. I want to push the boundaries. This is a one-off opportunity to try something really experimental. So why not give it a crack?”
The 2024 Australians of the Year, Professor Georgina Long and Professor Richard Scolyer, brought tears to the eyes of the audience with their moving speech.
“We have dedicated our lives to saving lives from cancer. But eight months ago, the stakes became personal,” Long said.
“I stand here tonight as a terminal brain cancer patient,” Scolyer said. “I’m only 57, I don’t want to die.”
The melanoma experts have been applying the principles of their breakthroughs in that field to treat Scolyer’s stage four brain cancer.
Melanoma treatment pioneers Professor Georgina Long AO and Professor Richard Scolyer AO have been named the 2024 Australians of the Year.
The Sydney pair’s partnership as co-medical directors of Melanoma Institute Australia has saved thousands of lives from melanoma.
Long and Scolyer’s immunotherapy approach to advanced melanoma, which activates a patient’s own immune system, has made what was once a terminal illness into a curable disease.
The Northern Territory’s Yalmay Yunupingu has been named Senior Australian of the Year.
Yunupingu, 68, worked as a teacher and linguist for forty years, teaching at Yirrkala Bilingual School before her retirement in March 2023.
Yunupingu pioneered a bilingual teaching approach, translating books at the community library into her local Yolngu Matha language, starting with Dr Seuss.
In 2005, she was awarded a ‘Teacher of Excellence’ by the Northern Territory Department of Education and was an Honorary University Fellow at Charles Darwin University.
Swimmer Emma McKeon AM, the most successful Australian Olympian of all time, is the 2024 Young Australian of the Year.
The 29-year-old Queenslander first came to Australia’s attention at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, where she claimed medals in all six of her events.
Her success only grew, peaking at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where she won seven medals in a single Olympics, the first female swimmer to achieve that feat.
She has broken Olympic and world records.
In 2022, McKeon was made a Member of the Order of Australia, and in 2023 she was named Gold Coast Young Australian of the Year.
Queensland’s David Elliott is the recipient of the Local Hero Award for 2024.
Elliot is the co-founder of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History.
According to the Australian of the Year Awards, Elliott’s chance discovery of a dinosaur fossil during routine sheep mustering in 1999 led to the revival of Australia’s palaeontology field – and the creation of a palaeo-tourism industry that put outback Queensland on the map.
David and his wife Judy founded the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History in 2002 as a not-for-profit charity.
As is tradition, the ABC broadcasts the Australian of the Year award ceremony on the eve of Australia Day.
This year’s show starts at 7.30pm on ABC and ABC iview. The ceremony will include the announcement of the Australian of the Year, the Senior Australian of the Year, the Young Australian of the Year, and the Australian Local Hero.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will announce the four category awards and deliver a speech. Leigh Sales will host the program, featuring performances by Jem Cassar-Daley.
If you can’t catch the show, follow along as we bring you all the updates from Australia’s biggest awards night.
We’ve been keeping you up to date with all the news out of Canberra as Anthony Albanese announced Labor’s changes to the stage 3 tax cuts. Here’s what we learned today.
Stay with us as we bring you live updates from the Australian of the Year awards ceremony.