{"id":266650,"date":"2025-11-06T14:04:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T14:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/266650\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T14:04:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T14:04:17","slug":"australian-of-year-nominations-for-taking-healthcare-to-regions-creating-indigenous-job-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/266650\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian of Year nominations for taking healthcare to regions & creating Indigenous job opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Coolbellup man creating job opportunities for Indigenous people and the founder of a Jandakot business bringing healthcare to regional areas are among nominees for the WA Australian of the Year Awards.<\/p>\n

Kennedy Lay has been nominated as the 2026 Australian of the Year for WA, and Frank Mitchell, of Coolbellup, is in the running for the 2026 Local Hero for WA award.<\/p>\n

Mr Lay has been nominated for his work in combining aviation and healthcare to bring allied health services to rural and remote Australia.<\/p>\n

He is a physiotherapist and in 2020 decided to pursue a commercial pilot\u2019s licence.<\/p>\n

Using his new-found skill, he flew to Narrogin, almost 200km from Perth, to deliver physiotherapy services.<\/p>\n

Mr Lay then founded Fly2Health Group and added new locations and services including psychology, speech therapy, occupational therapy and general medicine.<\/p>\n

\"KennedyCamera IconKennedy Lay from Fly2Health Group. Credit: Supplied<\/p>\n

Today his team of 145 professionals help 6000 families in more than 95 rural and remote communities across Australia, including four Aboriginal communities. This means clients can stay in their communities rather than drive hundreds of kilometres for care.<\/p>\n

Mr Mitchell is a proud Whadjuk-Yued Noongar man and co-director of Wilco Electrical and co-founder\/director of the Kardan, Baldja and Bilyaa companies in the trades and construction industry.<\/p>\n

His commitment to change was shaped by early lived experiences of suicide and the loss of best friends.<\/p>\n

As a young single father, being offered an electrical apprenticeship felt like a profound opportunity. When he became a business owner in 2015, he pledged to create the same opportunities for Mob.<\/p>\n

\"FrankCamera IconFrank Mitchell Credit: Supplied<\/p>\n

Starting with just eight staff and a $1.5 million turnover, Mr Mitchell and his partners have created more than 70 Aboriginal upskilling positions in the electrical and construction industry, including 30 electrical apprenticeships and awarding more than $11 million to Aboriginal subcontractors.<\/p>\n

All four companies collectively employ more than 200 full-time staff.<\/p>\n

Other nominees for the 2026 Australian of the Year Awards for WA include a doctor developing medicines for Australia\u2019s rarest diseases, a choir director and a wellness platform founder.<\/p>\n

National Australia Day Council CEO Mark Fraser congratulated the nominees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nominees for the WA awards are extraordinary people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are entrepreneurial in their approach to helping others, changing public perceptions, creating positive futures and bringing people together.\u201d<\/p>\n

They are among 134 people being recognised across all States and Territories.<\/p>\n

WA award recipients will be announced on Thursday, November 13, at Government House in Perth, which will be available to watch online at australianoftheyear.org.au.<\/p>\n

They will then join other State and Territory recipients as finalists for the national awards on January 25 in Canberra.<\/p>\n

Lifeline 13 11 14<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Coolbellup man creating job opportunities for Indigenous people and the founder of a Jandakot business bringing healthcare…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,155775,137,500,44,46,8080,45],"class_list":["post-266650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cockburn","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-news","tag-perth","tag-south","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}