Creative Australia is the – how shall we say it – rebranded Australia Council for the Arts / Australia Council. Under whatever name it has, this is the body that serves as the major arts funding and advisory body for the Australian Government. You can read its history on Wikipedia if you are interested.
The Australia Council Awards were established around 1981, and over time have been offered in various categories, but Literature has been one of them since at least 1987, again under different guises. These awards recognise outstanding and sustained contributions to arts and culture across a range of disciplines, including literature, music, dance, but sorting out a full and proper history of these awards is not easy. They are now named under the Creative Australia umbrella. The writers who have been given these awards include novelists, poets, nonfiction writers and children’s literature writers. They include First Nations Writers, like Ruby Langford Ginibi, Herbert Wharton and Bruce Pascoe as well as Alexis Wright.
In the lists below, links are to posts I have written on the writers.
Creative Australia Awards for Lifetime Achievement in Literature
As far as I can gather, the “Creative Australia Awards for Lifetime Achievement in Literature” dates just from 2023, and acknowledges “the achievements of eminent literary writers over the age of 60 who have made an outstanding and lifelong contribution to Australian literature”.
- 2024: Gail Jones
- 2023: Alexis Wright
Australian Council Awards for Lifetime in Literature
ArtsHub calls the 2021 award that went to Arnold Zable a “Lifetime Achievement in Literature” award, and says he follows writers like Malouf and Garner in receiving this award. Earlier research I did suggested that in 2015 it was also called a “Lifetime Achievement award”.
- 2022: Robert Dessaix
- 2021: Arnold Zable
- 2020: Margaret Wild
- 2019: Helen Garner
- 2018: Bruce Pascoe
- 2017: Kate Grenville
- 2016: David Malouf
- 2015: Thomas Keneally
Previous Award Recipients
You will see that this section of my list includes “awards” and “fellowships”. I could have just included the “award” but decided the fellowships might be interesting too. You might notice that some women are listed under their “married name”, like Judith Wright as Judith Wright McKinney, and Mary Durack as Mark Durack Miller. In the 1990s!
- 2013: Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature: Frank Moorhouse
- 2012: Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature: Herbert Wharton
- 2011: Emeritus Award: Robert Gray
- 2010: Emeritus Award: Peter Kocan
- 2007: Emeritus Award: Christopher Koch and Gerald Murnane
- 2006: Emeritus Award: Alice Wrightson
- 2005: Emeritus Award: Ruby Langford Ginibi
- 2004: Emeritus Award: Margaret Scott
- 2003: Emeritus Award: Don’o Kim and Barry Oakley
- 2001: Emeritus Award: Dimitris Tsaloumas and Amy Witting
- 2000: Emeritus Award: Donald (Bruce) Dawe and John Hooker
- 2000: Emeritus Fellowship: Eric Charles Rolls
- 1999: Emeritus Award: James Henderson and Eleanor Witcombe
- 1998: Emeritus Award: Peter Porter
- 1997: Emeritus Award: Boro Wongar
- 1996: Emeritus Award: Rosemary Dobson and David Martin
- 1996: Emeritus Award: Dorothy Hewitt
- 1995: Emeritus Fellowship: Victor Beaver, Michael M Cannon, Barbara Jefferis, Ray Lawler, Vincent Noel Serventy, Ivan Southall, and Maslyn Williams
- 1993: Emeritus Award: Ivan Southall and Judith Wright McKinney
- 1993: Emeritus Fellowship: Hugh Geddes Atkinson
- 1992: Emeritus Award: Mary Durack Miller
- 1992: Emeritus Fellowship: John Blight, Beatrice Bridges, David Rowbotham, Harold Stewart
- 1990: Emeritus Fellowship: Dorothy Green and Roland Robinson
- 1989: Emeritus Fellowship: Jack Lindsay
- 1987: Emeritus Fellowship: Olaf Ruhen
Whispering Gums 
Speaking of names, 1997 awardee B Wongar is the Serbian (or Serbian Australian) S Bozic who collected and published Aboriginal stories at a time when that was rare. But at least initially he seems to have held himself out to be himself Aboriginal.
Seems a controversial decision to give him an award, especially under that name.
Thanks very much Bill … I recognised that name and knew it had a history regarding First Nations but hadn’t remembered the details.
Very nice 🙂
Haha, thanks Melanie
I didn’t have anything else to add, but I did read your post! ☺️
I can understand that!!
A rose by any other name….!
It’s confusing but you have brought some clarity to the mess of titles. I can’t help but think about all the letterheads, mastheads and business cards that have to be updated everytime a corporation or brand changes names.
Haha, Brona, thanks … at least a bit more clarity. It’s just not reported on enough it seems for it to have a decent history recorded anywhere.
This happens here too: it’s confusing only when you’re trying to track it, trying to make it make sense. I’m sure most people look at the seal on the cover and think “award winner” and that’s that. (And as one Toronto librarian told me, then they look away: she told me the children’s books with the seals were the least popular with kids, in her experience!)
That’s interesting … I sort of understand that. All those stickers can (do) spoil a beautifully designed cover. And I’m a less is more person! Wine bottles are the same … haha … particularly when you look at them and discover that many are like participation awards !!!