Hedland pioneers David Russell-Weisz and Lynda Dorrington recognised in Australia Day honours

Two high-profile ex-Hedlanders have been recognised for their decades of tireless work for the State in the annual Australia Day Honours List.

Retired arts and culture leader Lynda Dorrington, who was crucial in overseeing the Spinifex Hill Studio in South Hedland, has been honoured with a Member of the Order of Australia, while WA Health boss David Russell-Weisz — who began his career in South Hedland — received a Public Service Medal.

Ms Dorrington stepped away as the executive director at not-for-profit cultural organisation FORM in June 2021 where she was in charge of helping to enhance WA’s creativity through cultural and social capacity-building projects.

FORM’s Spinifex Studio, which Ms Dorrington was instrumental in expanding, has since become a bright, bustling hub for the broader Pilbara region, building a greater understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal culture.

Ms Dorrington said she was the last person in the world to want public recognition but she felt “treasured” nonetheless.

“Recognition is a big thing, when working in the arts sector there’s not a lot of recognition, a lot of hard work and persistent hard work goes into raising money and delivering programs into communities probably struggling so you have to find a reason for doing it that doesn’t involve recognition, for me anyway,” she said.

“You never think people are looking from the outside, but somebody was looking and to be recognised, while I’m the last person in the world to want public recognition, I really am very private, it’s an honour.”

Health boss David ‘Russ’ Russell-Weisz described guiding WA safely through the COVID-19 pandemic as the most challenging time of his 27-year long career.

Serving as the Health Department director-general since 2015, Dr Russell-Weisz has been honoured with a Public Service Medal for his “outstanding public service through leadership and management in response to the pandemic”.

“I’m very humbled and honoured — surprised that I would receive one — it’s been an extraordinary three years that so many people and community leaders across all health systems have been through,” he said.

“Anybody who gets an award because of (the response to) COVID is an award for their families, partners, everybody who supported them. I couldn’t have done it without my wife or kids.”

The doctor said he “wouldn’t gild the lily” but dealing with the pandemic was the “most challenging” time he’s had in his career.

“It was at times unrelenting and very challenging, with one goal in my mind, to give us the softest landing possible. To look after the community, to make sure vulnerable groups were cared for and to be prepared as possible,” Dr Russell-Weisz said.

“We dealt with things that we’d never dealt with before, we looked after hotels, we had outbreaks on ships, we had to get the hospitals ready.”

The health department boss got his start in WA’s public health system as a general practitioner in Port Hedland in 1996.

I look at this as a recognition of the magnificent team in WA health I worked with, there’s no way we could have had the response we did or outcome we did without the extraordinary work by the nurses, doctors, allied health, everybody in the private sector, aged care, disability, mental health, it was a real team effort and the community came with us,” he said.

He said he was most proud of the “organised and adaptive response” to manage variant outbreaks as circumstances changed.

“In November to December 2021 we had the Delta outbreak in the backpackers so it was important to get that under control, we knew if we could and Delta didn’t come in, we’d be ready then for Omicron,” he said.

The pair were among 1047 award recipients on the day.