Proud Great Southern boy Richard Goyder named Western Australian of the Year

Tambellup’s own Richard Goyder has received WA’s highest individual honour, named 2021 Western Australian of the Year at a gala dinner at Crown Towers. Mr Goyder, born in Tambellup in 1960, has shown that anything is possible for those from the Great Southern, becoming one of Australia’s most respected business leaders then dedicating himself to philanthropy. It was this latest chapter of life that earned the Telethon chairman the title of Western Australian of the Year. It came just months after he oversaw a record-breaking $46.3 million fundraising total at Telethon. Last year’s fundraiser came at a crucial time for many in the non-profit sector after their coffers were ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. “It still sends shivers up my spine that we raised over $46 million in the middle of a global pandemic, when people were hurting,” Mr Goyder said. “It was mind-blowing and still is.” The lavish Western Australian of the Year awards ceremony in Perth last Friday night was a world away from his childhood on the family farm in the heartland of the Great Southern. He spent his early years on a farm just north of Tambellup in Ulupna, attending Tambellup Primary School. He remembers the dances at the local hall and the excitement of the Tambellup Show. “I have nothing but fond memories of growing up in Tambellup,” Mr Goyder said in an interview with the Herald. “Home is where you live. Perth is home now but I am a proud Tambellup boy.” At age seven, Mr Goyder and his family moved down the road to Broomehill. Now the most powerful man in the AFL as the chairman of the AFL Commission, he fell in love with the game playing junior football in the Great Southern. “I played footy for Tambellup Junior Football Club through to when I was 12 years old,” he said. “We won the under-12 premiership when I was there and I still to this day say it was the highlight of my football career.” Mr Goyder caught the bus from Broomehill to Katanning each day as a Year 8 student attending Katanning Senior High School. He went on to board at Hale School in Perth from Year 9 onwards, but his heart was in the Great Southern where his family continued farming into his 20s. Once in Perth, the teenager’s compass led him down a business pathway, away from his family’s farming background. “I looked at all the challenges my parents had farming ... with the drought in 1969,” he said. “I thought that was hard, so I made sure I worked hard enough to get to university and I’ve since been fortunate to have a business life that has gone well.” “Gone well” is an understatement — and it is another example of the humility Mr Goyder maintained as the low-key farmer’s son rose through the business ranks. Mr Goyder served as chief executive and managing director of Wesfarmers — one of Australia’s biggest private employers — from 2005 to 2017, leading the $19.3 billion takeover of Coles Group in 2007. He was held in such high regard that he was chosen to chair the first meeting of the B20 in Australia in 2014, an annual summit of business leaders from the G20 nations. Since stepping away from Wesfarmers, he has become the chairman of Qantas, Woodside, the AFL, Telethon, the WA Symphony Orchestra and diabetes not-for-profit JDRF. Last Friday night, the boy from Tambellup stood in front of a crowd full of political and business luminaries to accept a heard-earned award. “I’m ambitious, not for me but for the people I work for and the place I live in,” Mr Goyder said in his acceptance speech. “I think we can be better — we can always be better. I think we can be more passionate and tolerant as a community. “I think we can and should be more creative.” Earlier in the evening, Mr Goyder won the Community Award before he was chosen for the top honour among the 36 finalists across seven categories. “I have surrounded myself with people who are better than me. I have engaged with wonderful people, many of whom are in this room who give so much of themselves to this community,” he said. “I hope this award reinforces how important community is, and hopefully it gives the organisations I’m involved in some additional momentum because we all need it at the moment.” Passionate about reconciliation, Mr Godyer said WA had come a long way but the process should be happening “a lot faster”. “Recognition is a big part of that, from the Uluru Statement and the like, and I think as a country we need to move forward,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll have a lot of progress in this next 12 months. “I do think we’ve come a long way from my days at Tambellup Primary School ... how the Aboriginal community was treated back in the 1960s to where we are now, we’ve come a long way. “I just think we should all move to make it even better.” Also recognised on the night was Gnowangerup-born Indigenous performance artist Karla Hart who won the Aboriginal Award — another achievement that should serve as an inspiration for Great Southern communities. Ms Hart was recognised for her pioneering multi-platform role in helping bring Noongar culture to centrestage. Through her dance group Kwabah Djookian and the Wardarnji Festival, she has been instrumental in opening up opportunities for Indigenous dance, music, language and Dreamtime stories to be put on a stage and told freely in the community. She wants to see Noongar language and culture taught in schools and Aboriginal place names recognised across WA. “I’m a country girl. I’m from a little town called Gnowangerup. And, you know, if you can make it from there, you can make it from anywhere,” she said. “Not only that, with our mob, my mum actually lived on a reserve. So my grandmother had her kids stolen. She wasn’t allowed to speak the language, and there was all sorts of things imposed upon her. “So for me to be in this position, it’s a blessing, and it’s a responsibility. And I just think that young people, you’ve got to take every opportunity that you can get and give it your best. And if it doesn’t work out ... just keep going.”