Just keep calling call me Angus, says Australia's newest knight.
In an Australia Day announcement, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the Queen accepted his recommendation that the former defence chief Angus Houston and the Duke of Edinburgh be awarded Australia's highest honours.
Air Chief Marshal Houston, who served in the defence force for more than 40 years and has since headed the agency searching for missing Malaysian airliner flight 370, said he was surprised and deeply humbled.
The new Sir Angus said it was really a tribute to the many people he had worked with over the years.
"I am still Angus Houston," he told ABC radio.
"Most of the things I have been involved in have involved leadership. I would be very quick to say it's the people that I have worked with that have delivered the outcomes that have been achieved."
Sir Angus said he was comfortable with who and what he was.
"It's a great honour to be recognised in this way. But I'd like people to still call me Angus. That's probably the way I am," he said.
Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8 and even now people were still out searching the Southern Ocean floor.
"Hopefully in the not too distant future, some evidence of what happened to the aircraft will become apparent. But at this stage there's been nothing," he said.
Sir Angus said the ocean was a huge place with very deep water and it's possible it won't ever be found.
Australian Republican Movement chairman Geoff Gallop said it was bad enough that Tony Abbott reintroduced knighthoods, a move even former prime minister John Howard opposed.
That was totally inappropriate when Australia had its own well-run honours system, he said.
"Now to add to that, on Australia Day to nominate Prince Philip as a knight of Australia, it's just ludicrous," he told ABC radio.
"It indicates how we have this dual system. The cultural cringe is back. Paying due obeisance to British establishment is now more important to Tony Abbott than it is celebrating Australians and work they do."
Share
