Paddi Creevey says the individual honour of an OAM is testament to the first-rate work of her colleagues.
AROUND the turn of the 20th century, the Scottish-American entrepreneur and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie is said to have noted that teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
For City of Mandurah Mayor Paddi Creevey, teamwork is the fuel that resulted in her being awarded an Order of Australia Medal last month for dedication to her community.
“Those awards are not given lightly,” Ms Creevey says. “But if you look at the citation you’ll see that it is about the community and the council.
“To be recognised in that way is very humbling, and I feel extremely honoured because I know that you never do that on your own.”
The Order of Australia, instituted in 1975, was established as “an Australian society of honour for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service”.
Ms Creevey, who has lived in Mandurah for nearly 28 years, has performed ‘meritorious service’ for myriad community organisations, ultimately culminating in her election as Mayor in 2005.
With a background in social work, she spent more than 10 years working in both the psychiatric and medical wards at Royal Perth Hospital.
Ms Creevey was instrumental in initiating and establishing the Mandurah District Support Service, a care service to assist elderly and disabled people, established the Peel Women’s Health Committee and set up NETWORK, an organisation that assists parents of children with special needs.
A City of Mandurah councillor since 1994, Ms Creevey helped ensure the success of the once-contentious canal developments, which today are so much a part of the town’s identity.
“It was a very difficult period because people had a fear that the canals would damage the Peel-Harvey estuary system, which is really the lifeblood of the community,” she says.
“There was a great deal of concern and also some early canal developments in Western Australia had not been great successes.
“But they have brought a lot of economic benefit to the community and they have brought people who have chosen to come and live here who really do value the place.
“They also are an attractor; overall they are very much accepted as part of what we are now as a more modern city and they offer that point of difference.
“You would rarely hear an adverse discussion about canals now, except that it gets very busy during the Christmas lights season.”
With 30 years of experience on various committees and in a range of community organisations, Ms Creevey says she understands the needs of the Mandurah community better than most.
“There has always been a very strong approach of ‘we can do this’ in this community,” she told WA Business News.
“The biggest challenge is to ensure that people feel included in the community, that they feel part of it and have a way to participate, because we’re talking about people and we’re talking about families, we’re not talking about statistics.
“The second thing is, for people to participate, they have to have facilities that enable them to do that and we’re talking very basic facilities, like meeting places, community halls, facilities for junior sport, even toilet blocks. It’s not streets paved with gold, we’re talking about very basic facilities.”
Including time spent serving as mayor, Ms Creevey currently spends up to 60 hours each week serving on various committees, including as chair of the Challenger Institute of Training’s governing council, a member of the Peel Region Planning Committee, and a member of the Local Government Advisory Board, among others.
“Part of my enjoyment is that I’ve had the opportunity to live and work and play in this community and I just love it,” Ms Creevey says. “I’ve met so many great people and it’s not hard to be involved here.
“Every day I see people who are doing extraordinary things in the community and you can’t help but enjoy being around that.
“That’s the secret, in all of these roles you have the baton for a short period of time and the people that have gone before you have done courageous things or had a vision for the community.
“The current council has the baton and we are doing our bit to look after things now, but to set the city up for the future, whether that’s economically, whether that’s to adapt to climate change or whether it is to make sure people feel they are part of a community, they are all the things that, on our watch, that’s we are trying to do.”
Favourite thing about Mandurah?
The waterways.
What’s Mandurah missing?
Sufficient facilities for young people.
One million dollars and one day to spend it?
I would use half of it to set up a youth leadership foundation to develop the capacity of young people. I would also use it to set up an environmental fund and I would buy a very nice caravan and travel around Australia.
What could you not live without?
My boat and my fishing rod.
Ideal weekend?
Going crabbing, then coming home and eating the crabs with a bunch of friends, then on the Sunday going off to Dwellingup for a picnic.
How would you like to be remembered?
As somebody who was fair, who had a good sense of humour and really cared about people.
