Bob McMillan receives Medal of the Order of Australia for charity work

The former owner of McMillan Print, which was sold to Blue Star in 2007, told ProPrint that he had been involved in a lot of charitable activities over the years, including charitable printing.

McMillan is on the board of the charitable trust behind the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse at RPA, named after the cancer specialist who passed away in 2009.

"I joined the board with the aim of building a cancer centre. We had a task of raising $200m to build that centre. Unfortunately [Chris O'Brien] died last year but the board kept going and we raised the $200m. We have now started building the centre," said McMillan.

He added that he didn't know who had nominated him for the honour, but that he was "shocked and surprised - it is very good".

McMillan believed the honour was also partly to do with his charitable printing, and thanked all those other who had been involved. "A lot of times, the people of McMillan also supported these endeavours. Sometimes the apprentices would work on projects or the paper companies would help."

Click here for the latest headlines from across the printing industry.