By VICTORIA STONE-MEADOWS
FERNTREE Gully resident William ‘Bill’ Murray said he feels like an official Australian after receiving an appointment to the Order of Australia for his many years of work for the Australian grain industry.
Mr Murray and his wife Irene moved to Australia in 1970 and have been residents of Bayswater for six years and Ferntree Gully for 39 years.
He said that receiving this award was a great honour and could not believe it at first.
“I was absolutely astonished,” he said.
“I thought it had been addressed to the wrong person.”
Originally from Northern Ireland, Mr Murray started working with the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) in 1970, in charge of all matters scientific.
Mr Murray worked with the AWB for 21 years and was appointed manager of their technical services division, then director of scientific services.
He has travelled all over the world for the AWB to marketplaces to determine what foreign markets were looking for in terms of grain types, quality, pesticides levels, and similar.
He has visited countries such as Japan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, Russia, and China, conducting training courses and finding out what each marketplace is looking for in their grains.
Mr Murray finished up with the AWB in 1991 and started his own consultancy company.
Mr Murray still works in the grains industry, mostly providing consultancy services for the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and the National Residue Survey (NRS).
Mainly funded by GRDC, now days he still travels internationally to give guidance on regulations to many organisations that satisfies both Australian and overseas grain markets.
He also helped found the National Working Party on Grain Protection in 1973 then came back to it in 1998 to chair that organisation for 18 years.
Mr Murray acts as a conduit in his consultancy business to guide and form regulation in both domestic and international grain markets.
He had no idea his family and friends had organised his nomination and got quite a surprise when the letter arrived in the mail
Mr Murray said he felt like an official Australian after receiving this appointment, despite becoming an Australian citizen in 1975.
“The value to me is I see it, after 45 years in Australia, coming here as a migrant, as an Australian tick of acknowledgement for what I’ve been doing,” he said.
“I see myself very much as an Australian and this is a very nice salute to get from the government,” he said.
Mr Murray’s wife Irene said she could not be more pleased for her husband.
“We’re absolutely delighted, and very proud of him, he deserves it,” she said.
Having never got sick of grain, My Murray has no plans to give up working closely with the Australian grain industry any time soon.
