You know someone has made an impact in their industry when former treasurer Peter Costello mentions them in the traditional Budget breakfast.

Joking that he didn't know what to put in the Budget, he drove down Burke Road, Kew, and saw the sign by real-estate agent Valda Walsh: "Ask Valda – she knows."

Encyclopedic Mrs Walsh has been a director of Walsh Cairnes & Co for 47 years and uses the slogan on her business card. A rare gem in a man's world, she was thrust into running the business full-time when her husband, John, died 27 years ago, and her son, Simon, joined her.

When it comes to accolades, Mrs Walsh, a former president of the Real Estate Institute of Victoria and life member, believes she's an ordinary person running a small business who employs people, pays tax and runs an ethical business.

"I'm honoured and I'm thrilled to bits that an ordinary person doing an ordinary job well has been recognised," she said.

Dedicated to charity work since she was 16, Mrs Walsh operates like a community noticeboard and uses her long list of contacts to help people find work or nursing homes. "Sometimes I think I'm more psychologist or psychiatrist than real-estate agent."

She collects donated clothes and distributes them to Fitted for Work, an organisation that helps disadvantaged women find work. Men's clothes go to the Sacred Heart Mission.

Mrs Walsh joins a special Australia Day club because since 1975, only 35 people involved in real estate have been recognised.

The doyenne of private sales should also have "local identity" on her card because she's quite a character. A woman of a certain age, she zips around in her grey Porsche 911 and has been described as "unscripted" due to her one-liners.

On the Dane Swan nude photo scandal that embarrassed the Magpie, she said: "Who'd want a photo of Swanny nude? I wouldn't want to see one of him dressed."