Kerry O’Brien has rejected the Australia Day honour he was due to receive on Tuesday in protest at the “deeply insensitive and divisive decision” to give the country’s highest award to former tennis great Margaret Court.

“I believe the decision to award Australia’s highest honour to Margaret Court may serve to erode the hard-fought gains made over decades in reducing the impact of discrimination against members of the LGBTQ+ community,” the veteran journalist and former ABC current affairs host wrote in a letter to the office of the Governor-General, David Hurley.

He added that such discrimination “has caused immense pain to untold people and destroyed lives”.

Mr O’Brien had earlier agreed to accept his appointment as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in Tuesday’s official honours. But on Saturday, he wrote to reverse his decision in protest against Mrs Court’s elevation in an awards system that had already recognised her achievements as the winner of 24 Grand Slam singles tennis titles, and her charity work, with an Order of Australia in 2007.