'Loves a fight': Maria's work to honour others rewarded with OAM

From French president Emmanuel Macron to multi-national companies and red tape-bound bureaucracies, the Port Fairy researcher has taken on them all, and more often than not, won.

Now her work, which ranges from identifying and protecting lost World War I Aussie diggers lying in foreign fields, to marking the graves of paupers in her local cemetery, has been recognised in the 2024 Australia Day Honours.

Mrs Cameron, 76, was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her service to veterans and to the community.

An incredulous Mrs Cameron said she felt "undeserving" of the award and initially didn't believe it was true.

"I'm still so overwhelmed, I keep thinking there are other people more deserving," she said.

A sceptical Mrs Cameron ignored the initial email last September from the Governor-General's office informing her of her nomination, believing it to be a scam.

It wasn't until weeks after the due acceptance date that Mrs Cameron's daughter Dana Nevitt reassured her the email was legitimate.

"I sent off a reply and I thought, 'that's the end of that'."

So it came as a shock when the confirmation email verifying the award popped up in her inbox earlier this month.

In her typical humble manner, she said her first thoughts were how she could best use the honour to help the community and her work for soldiers.

She's hopeful it might give her some leverage in her long-running funding campaign for a much-needed maintenance shed at the Port Fairy cemetery.

A former chairperson, she has been on the cemetery trust for two decades and oversaw the heart-wrenching effect of COVID-19 restrictions on families burying loved ones.

"People were distraught. I tried to fight for people who were grieving without the support of others. People couldn't get comfort, they couldn't say their last goodbyes," she said. "It really affected me."

It's that empathy and natural instinct to fight for those in need or without a voice that continues to motivate her.

"I think you have to have a lot of empathy to be good at it (the work) because empathy drives the passion."

That passion took her to the World War I battlefields of France in late 2017 to campaign against wind turbines being built on land near Bullecourt over the remains of thousands of Aussie Diggers, many of whom Mrs Cameron has helped identify, along with those in the Fromelles mass grave find of 2009.

Under intense media pressure, President Macron capitulated and scrapped the windfarm plans, a moment Mrs Cameron counts among her most significant achievements.

Another came in 2014, when as a board member of Cemeteries and Crematoria, Victoria, she successfully campaigned to change the law, giving veterans unlimited tenure of cremation sites, increased from the previous 25-year tenure.

It is now known colloquially known as 'Maria's Law'.

Mrs Cameron credits her grandmother Ada Curtin for her lifelong interest in the military, recalling how she would pin the medals of her son Reg Curtin on her jacket as a little girl for the annual Anzac and Remembrance Day marches.

Reg died a POW in Ambon at the hands of the Japanese on May 20, 1945, two years before Mrs Cameron was born.

"I think I helped heal her pain of losing him," she said. "I inherited his medals. If anyone ever inspired me it was her."

Backed by a love of history and two years of human genetics' study, that inspiration remains as strong as ever. Refusing to accept payment for her work, Mrs Cameron said the gratitude of family members of those she researched was reward enough.

"I do it for the soldiers," she said.

"They served for us and died for us. Morally, I couldn't take money for it. The happiness I get is seeing the recipients of my work be happy."

Among her other community work, Mrs Cameron is a life member of the Port Fairy Genealogical Society, hosts Port Fairy Cemetery ghost tours, is a former member of Moyne Health Service's Yambuk Auxiliary and a supporter of the Codrington Fire Brigade.

Mrs Cameron will spend Australia Day with friends and family celebrating her OAM, and Dana's birthday on January 26. Her only regret is that her late husband Max, who died in 2019, is not here to share the accolade.

"Max was very proud of me," she said.