The Premier's Excellence Awards 2022 acknowledged individuals and teams who consistently demonstrated exemplary service delivery while demonstrating the South Australian public sector values.

The Office of the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment was responsible for coordinating the Premier's Excellence Awards. Senior public sector leaders including chief executives, agency heads and senior human resource leaders and directors were invited to identify and nominate suitable employees within their agencies.

Chief executives and agency heads were encouraged to submit nominations for employees who were shortlisted as finalists through their own agency-based reward and recognition programs. Chief executives and agency heads were also responsible for endorsing individual and team nominations submitted for consideration.

All of our public servants deliver an extraordinary range of services that help South Australians in their daily lives, and do so without seeking reward or recognition. However, it’s important to pause and take a moment to acknowledge those that go above and beyond.

The winners of the 2022 Premier’s Excellence Awards were announced at an event on 1 March 2023, you can watch the recording of the event here.

The full list of winners  and finalists are below:

Excellence in service delivery

Individual

• WINNER | Thao Hoang – Social work in the Vietnamese community, Department for Child Protection
• FINALIST | Shirley Smith, Department for Child Protection
• FINALIST | Di Moncrieff, Women’s and Children’s Hospital

Team

• WINNER | Reducing Reoffending: 10% by 2020, Department for Correctional Services
• FINALIST | ICT Services Team, Department for Education
• FINALIST | Complex and Restorative (CARE) Service, SALHN

Excellence in service delivery: Emergency response

Individual:

• WINNER | Nan Vasilunas – COVIDKids: Women’s and Children’s Health Network
• FINALIST | Marie Sindarusiba, Department of Human Services
• FINALIST | Andrew Bull, Department of the Premier and Cabinet

Team

• WINNER | COVID-19 Aboriginal Contact Tracing Team & COVID-19 Aboriginal and Vulnerable Community Response Team, Flinders and Upper North Local Health Network
• FINALIST | Biosecurity Response Teams, PIRSA
• FINALIST | River Murray Floods, State Emergency Service
• FINALIST | State Emergency Centre, South Australia Police

Public sector values

Individual

• WINNER | David Francis – Return to Country, Department for Child Protection
• FINALIST | Meet Kansara, Department for Health and Wellbeing
• FINALIST | Jonathan Lambert, Attorney’s General Department

Team

• WINNER | Service SA – Optus data breach response, Department for Infrastructure and Transport
• FINALIST | SA Lung Transplant COVID-19 Response Team, CALHN
• FINALIST | Cadell CFS Flood Assistance, CFS

Making a difference

Individual

• WINNER | Kathy Stanton – Creating braille-based resources for vision impaired students, Department for Education
• FINALIST | Rebecca Hill, SA Health
• FINALIST | Matthew Korcz,  PIRSA

Group

• WINNER | On the Right Track – Helping remote Indigenous drivers, Department for Infrastructure and Transport
• FINALIST | Centre for Clinical Experimental Transplantation, CALHN
• FINALIST | Healthy Coorong Healthy Basin Program, Department for Environment and Water
• FINALIST | Music Development Office - See It LIVE, Department for Industry, Innovation and Science