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January 26, 2026 — 5:00am
Three the state’s newest Order of Australia Medal recipients speak to WAtoday about what it means to receive the Australia Day honours.
A family history of service
Superintendent Geoff Regan felt the call of service from an early age.
With a family history of military service, the current Aide-de-Camp to Governor Chris Dawson joined the WA Police Force in 1992 and has spent the next 30-plus years serving the community in several roles.
A Noongar-Wongi man who grew up in Armadale, Regan’s appointment by the Governor made him the first full-time Indigenous staff member at Government House in more than 190 years.
He also played a significant role in the preparation for the apology for the Pinjarra Massacre, which the Governor delivered in October last year.
However, Regan credits his family for setting him on the path of service in the WA Police Force.
“Service runs deep in the family,” he said.
“I come from a military family. My grandparents served in the Second World War. My stepfather served in Vietnam. One of my brothers served in the military and now my son. So service, and the value of service, is very high.”
During his time as the Acting Superintendent of Aboriginal Affairs, Regan organised the inaugural Danjoo Aboriginal Conference and helped design a new Aboriginal Police Medal, to recognise the contribution of all Indigenous officers.
His accolades include the WA Police Commissioner’s Medal for Excellence in 2017 and the Australian Police Medal in 2018.
Now the veteran officer’s efforts have been further acknowledged after being awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia, an honour that is not lost on Regan.
“Look, it’s very humbling from that perspective,” he said.
“You come to work and do your job. You don’t expect to get medals or recognition or anything like that.
“You just, you know, you just want to do your bit.”
A dedication to water safety
Colin Hassell moved to Australia from the United Kingdom in 1986, but he says his passion for water safety goes back further than that.
“So going back to when I was a young lad, my brother and I were both in Royal Life Saving at a local pool, and we decided to take up lifeguarding,” he said.
“There was a bit of a spike in drownings around the rivers and inland waterways where we live, so we and a few of our mates got together and set up a lifeguard club and started patrolling rivers and lakes and all that sort of thing.
“And then eventually I took it up as a full-time career.”
It is a career that has taken all around the state, from local pools in the Perth metropolitan area to the community pools of the Kimberley and the Mid West regions.
“I was the inaugural manager of Wanneroo water world, then Gosnells Leisure World, then Geraldton Aquarena,” he said.
“And then I’ve done a number of pools around the state, including the really remote ones out in like Fitzroy Crossing, Halls Creek and Balgo. So setting them up so that the community’s got a pool to use, which is really interesting.”
However, one of the most interesting parts of his water safety career included putting a working swimming pool on the back of a truck and driving from Geraldton to Sydney to promote pool safety.
“We went to 47 different towns and villages across Australia and gave the message,” he said.
“I delivered the message to as many people as we possibly could, and it was a brilliant, brilliant thing. Crazy, absolutely crazy. But it worked.”
Hassell said he was honoured to receive the Medal of the Order of Australia for his commitment to water safety and wouldn’t change a thing from his time in the industry.
“Joining the board of Royal Life Saving was a major step forward for me, and then becoming president was just such an honour,” he said.
“You are able to work with people who have the same mindset to make things better,”
A sense of community
After 28 years serving on the Shire of Dardanup council, including two 10-year stints as the shire president, Mick Bennett has always had a strong dedication to his local community.
After joining the council in 1991, he spent five years as a councillor, three years as deputy shire president before his 20-year run as president, although he did take a break for four years from 2005 to 2009.
When he finished his latest term at the end in 2023, Bennett said he thought he would be finished with public service, but the local community have had other ideas.
“I still get stopped in the street with people asking me how they can get things done in the council and who the best people are to talk to,” he said.
“I guess it shows that the community still respects me, and someone must have nominated me for the award so I must have done OK.
“But it really is humbling to know that people still think about you and what you have been able to do for the people in the area.”
Throughout his career, Bennett worked closely with many of the local governments in the South West and said a particular highlight was bringing a recreation centre to Eaton – a key in his original decision to run for council
“We had that big growth in population around Eaton and there was nothing for the local kids to do in the area,” he said.
“Me and one of my mates had worked with what we called a youth centre, and we had a lot of kids from Bunbury riding their bikes to come there.
“So that was how we came up with the idea of creating the Eaton Recreation Centre, and it has been great to see how that has grown over the years.”
