source : the age
They toil diligently in their chosen fields, not expecting reward, but the good works that some Victorians do for us have not gone unnoticed.
Whether it’s raising a fortune to help fund a town’s ambulance service, teaching women self-defence, or bringing murderers to justice, the 2026 King’s Birthday Honours shine a light on some of our community heroes.
Dr Anne Pang OAM
If you were a thug attacking Dr Anne Pang in a dark alley, it would not be your lucky day, because although she’s genial and petite, Pang holds a black belt in the wing chun form of kung fu.
Pang says she wants “to debunk and demystify the notion that women are weak and vulnerable”.
Having practised martial arts for more than 50 years, and run the Anne Pang Self Defence school since 1990, she can still do fast punches and high kicks. And even, deftly, the splits.
For service to the Chinese community of Melbourne, and to women, Pang is the recipient of a Medal of the Order of Australia in the King’s Birthday Honours.
Pang, who migrated to Australia from Taiwan aged 11 in 1970, started learning kung fu in 1974. Now as well as teaching paying customers, she often runs free programs for migrants and refugees.
Outside of martial arts, Pang is involved as a volunteer in support groups for Asian businesswomen and migrants. For her PhD, she researched her great-grandfather, the Christian Chinese revolutionary Huang Nai Shang.
Pang and husband Barry Pang, who runs his own kung fu school, are the parents of actor Chris Pang (Crazy Rich Asians) and the couple also owned a share in the racehorse Fiorante, the 2013 Melbourne Cup winner.
Pang says that in her self-defence classes at the Dandenong and Glen Waverley Snap Fitness gyms, in Melbourne’s south-east, she advises students to use the strongest parts of their bodies to attack the weakest parts of their assailants.
She was proud to hear that an ex-student stopped a carjacker who was climbing into her car through the sunroof, by striking him in the throat with her knuckles.
“I feel so good that I was able to help her, that I trained her to do that,” Pang said.
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Leo op den Brouw OAM
When bushfires devastated the eastern Victorian town of Mallacoota in January 2020, longtime resident Leo op den Brouw put aside his own concerns to be there for others.
As head of the town’s State Emergency Service unit, he volunteered for up to 14 hours a day for over a month, helping authorities organise relief efforts, checking on the elderly and giving updates on local radio. He then helped direct supplies to the vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But it wasn’t a one-off effort. In 39 years in the SES, op den Brouw has worked unpaid, clearing trees from roads after storms, rescuing people from car crashes and searching for missing hikers.
For his work in this area and other groups such as Coastcare, the Sanctuary Youth Centre and community radio station 3MGB, op den Brouw has been awarded the OAM for service to the community of East Gippsland.
In 1979, as a young plumber, op den Brouw moved from the Dandenong Ranges to Mallacoota – where he had spent childhood holidays – because he loved the ocean. He was a paid caretaker and lighthouse keeper on Gabo Island for 25 years, alternating working one month on the island and one month off in Mallacoota.
Of volunteering, op den Brouw says he has learnt new things and made friends, but it’s also what you do in a small town.
“Being a part of an active, vibrant community requires people to step up to the plate, get involved and help strengthen and build a community,” he says. “You only get back what you put in.”
Detective Inspector Dean Thomas, Australian Police Medal
He’s investigated some of Victoria’s most notorious murderers, but homicide squad chief Detective Inspector Dean Thomas says it’s important to keep them in perspective.
Thomas has helped convict everyone from Ashley Mervyn Coulston, who in 1992 killed three young people in cold blood in Burwood, to Bandali Debs, who in 1998 murdered detectives Gary Silk and Rod Miller.
In 2023 Thomas led the successful homicide investigation into Leongatha woman Erin Patterson, who fed poisonous mushrooms to three of her relatives.
Last year, he rushed to the north-eastern Victorian town of Porepunkah soon after Dezi Freeman shot dead two police officers and wounded another.
Thomas said the job could lead to a skewed view of reality – seeing only the bad side of society “if you allow it to”. However, it was only “a very small minority who decide to do the wrong thing”.
“The majority of people are good people.”
The homicide squad chief said it was important for police to stay connected to loved ones, and therefore grounded.
He likes to go water-skiing and to spend time with his children and five small grandchildren.
Thomas, a police officer for 39 years, receives the Australian Police Medal in the King’s Birthday Honours list, but is keen to share the accolade with his colleagues.
“It’s an award for members of the homicide squad for the work they do every day,” he said. “When people are at home in bed, my members are out there working.
“The scenes are often very chaotic, and they then have to piece together what’s happened, identify those responsible, gather the evidence, and hold them to account.”
Police also worked under extreme scrutiny when prosecuting offenders in the courts. “They do it so well and so professionally. It’s a credit to them.”
Thomas is one of five Victoria Police members recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours. Others include Assistant Commissioner Jane Welsh, who established a specialist division within Victoria Police to deal with cybercrime, and street gang investigator Detective Senior Sergeant Danny Travaglini.
Chief Commissioner Mike Bush said the recipients represented the very best of Victoria Police. “We congratulate them on this prestigious and much-deserved honour.”
Patricia Kaye OAM
Patricia Kaye’s work for a regional ambulance service is said to have saved lives, but she is not a paramedic.
For 51 years, the volunteer has helped raise an estimated $700,000 for the service, starting in 1975, when she and other locals sought to fund and equip the first ambulance van in the then-small town of Gisborne.
The state government funded the wages of one paramedic, who was based at his own house.
Today Gisborne, 54 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, has a modern ambulance station, with kitchen, lounge and changing rooms, two ambulance vehicles and 27 paramedics.
And Kaye, who with her partner, David, runs a motorcycle spare parts business, remains the volunteer treasurer of the Gisborne ambulance auxiliary.
For her service to the community of Gisborne, including other volunteering such as 30 years with the Gisborne Artists’ Society, mostly as its president, Kaye is the recipient of the OAM.
She said that before the town had its own ambulance “it could be hours” before paramedics attended an accident or reached a critically ill patient.
Gisborne ambulance station paramedic and team manager Horace Vella said the auxiliary’s efforts, including funding GPS systems and defibrillators, would have saved lives.
Vella described Kaye’s efforts as selfless. “She’s done this to help the community and not for any benefit for herself,” he said.
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