A former Member for Calare who once had a knife held to this throat at a Blayney Abattoir has been honoured in the King's Birthday Honours for 2023.
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Alexander MacKenzie AM, better known as Sandy MacKenzie, is the founding principal of the former Orange Agricultural College and served three terms as the Federal Member for Calare.
Mr MacKenzie has been made a Member of the Order of Australia for his service to the people and Parliament of Australia in education and conservation.
Mr MacKenzie grew up on a farm in Victoria, before he became the founding principal at the former College of Advanced Education, the Orange Agricultural College, where Charles Sturt University is now located.
"Having spent my childhood on my grandfather's farm at Seymour and as the only child of a war widow, my father being killed in Rabaul in the early stages of the war with Japan - my friends were the farm dogs and horses rather than children of my own age," Mr MacKenzie said.
He has since moved back to the region.
Mr MacKenzie worked at the college in Orange from 1970 to 1975 and said it was part of a new concept in Australia of having a binary system of tertiary education with the colleges directly serving industry and community, while the universities would maintain their more academic programs and research.
He then entered politics and as a member of The Country Party was the Federal Member for Calare from 1975 to 1983.
"Being an MP provided a unique insight into such a diversity of human condition that few others might experience and some real-life experiences that really tested one's fortitude such as having a boning knife held against one's throat at the Blayney Abattoir," he said.
"Perhaps my school vacation work in the Angliss Meatworks in Melbourne had been advantageous."
Mr MacKenzie said in the eight years he served as the Calare MP he also "learnt of how extraordinary so many people were in their adversity" including a woman who spent most of her life in an iron lung after contracting polio as a child, and two homeless men in Bathurst.
Among his more humorous memories was an occasion at the Tullamore Show where during an address to a small crowd, a red heeler belonging to communist leader Wally Curran from the Australian Meat Workers Union, lifted his leg on him.
On another occasion Mr MacKenzie had an appointment to meet a farmer at a crossroads at Ootha, near Parkes. He left after an hour of waiting and when he phoned the farmer later was told, "oh, I don't do daylight saving."
"Dear Bert from Ootha even turned up to our house, teeming with children on a Christmas morning for a chat - he simply said "Well I knew you'd be here," Mr MacKenzie said.
Mr McKenzie came to Orange after studying at the University of New England in the Department of Animal Physiology and lecturing for a few years at the Marcus Oldham College.
Later on, he was given another "rare opportunity" in education to develop the concept, facilities and programs of an international boarding school in the far north of Thailand.
While serving in parliament Mr MacKenzie became friends with Bob Hawke and was appointed The Country Party's spokesperson for The Australian Council of Local Government Organisations and the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation.
Mr MacKenzie has continued to work in a variety of fields to help the community, education and conservation since his parliamentary days.
More recently, he has been involved in Landcare at a local, state and national council level and represented Landcare in the Prime Minister's Summit on Drought, and in 2020 presented to hearings of the Fire and National Disasters Inquiries.
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Tanya Marschke
I am based at Orange and cover a wide range of subjects as well as the weekly business column. I've worked consistently in the the media industry since 2006 including the past seven years at the Central Western Daily. Before moving to Orange, I worked as a journalist at weekly newspapers the Beaudesert Times and the Gold Coast Sun in Queensland, as well as the Scone Advocate in the Hunter Valley. I started my career at the Ridge News in Lightning Ridge while I completed my journalism studies remotely at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst.
I am based at Orange and cover a wide range of subjects as well as the weekly business column. I've worked consistently in the the media industry since 2006 including the past seven years at the Central Western Daily. Before moving to Orange, I worked as a journalist at weekly newspapers the Beaudesert Times and the Gold Coast Sun in Queensland, as well as the Scone Advocate in the Hunter Valley. I started my career at the Ridge News in Lightning Ridge while I completed my journalism studies remotely at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst.
