Not many families can lay claim to having both a brother and sister being honoured in two different countries but one Wellington family can.
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Marie Cornish OAM was awarded Australia Day Honours in 2008 for Services to Cricket and the Wellington Community. This year her brother, and former resident of Wellington, Mitchell Lutschini ML (Member of the Order of Logohu) joined her on the Papua New Guinea New Year’s Day Honour List for Services to Commerce and Sport through his involvement in Civil Construction and the promotion of cricket, both as a player and administrator.
Mitchell has been a resident of PNG for many years. He now lives in Port Moresby and is currently a managing director for Hebou Constructions Pty Ltd and is in his second season as Deputy Chair of PNG Cricket.
He did his diesel mechanic’s apprenticeship in Sydney then moved to PNG where he married had two children, Stephen and Ayehsa, with wife Trish.
They came to try life in Australia for a short while working but soon moved back to PNG. It was not long after
that Trish sadly lost her life when the children were very young.
He now has three more children with Inali- Bon Bon, Jamie and Triar- and when the owner of Hebou’s Construction also lost his life three years ago the son asked Mitchell to take over the company with him as a managing director.
Mitchell’s cricketing career began in Wellington. As a youngster he represented Macquarie Valley, Western Zone and then played first and second grade for the Sydney Cricket Club during his apprenticeship.
After that he played cricket wherever he went working and even had the occasional game in PNG when anything was on.
So it was from these games in PNG that his and Hebou’s partnership with sponsoring PNG’s Cricket Program began.
His stints to date as Deputy Chair of the Cricket Association have allowed him to continue his passion for the game mixing with the current PNG Cricket Coach Andy Bickell (both men’s, youth and women’s), Alan Border and many more named former Aussie players who visit to coach.
He has also had the honour of being the PNG representative at the under-19s World Cup in New Zealand two years ago and Tests or One Day Internationals in Brisbane.
Through the PNG government, Hebou, and no doubt his influence, they now have a state of the art indoor and outdoor practise facility as well as a number of turf wickets in Port Moresby.
His sisters Marie, Pauline, Veronica and their families were extremely proud to hear the news of Mitchell’s Award, even though he wouldn’t tell them directly.
He sent a text in the early hours of New Year’s Day for them to “Check the PNG OnLine Paper there is some news in it you might like to read”.
But unknown to him they hadn’t updated the net with the latest items because of the holidays and after some phone calls and more texts he had to divulge the great news.
Unfortunately their parents didn’t get the chance to share these momentous occasions with both their children, having passed away before Marie received hers.
Congratulations Mitchell from everyone in Wellington.
