Venkat Raman (Indian Newslink)
Auckland, June 4, 2018
Women dominate the Queen’s Birthday Honours List released this morning.
Among them are three Dames, many Companions, Officers, Members and Honorary Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DNZM, ONZM and MNZM). Women are also highly represented in the Queen’s Service Order (QSO) and Queen’s Service Medal (QSO).
The Indian community has a sole recipient of Queen’s Birthday Honour. A separate report about Mavis Lata Singh will appear separately.
The Tally
The Queen’s Birthday Honours comprises five Dames, three Knights, eight Companions, 37 Officers, 61 Members and three Honorary Members. It also features three persons to receive the Queen’s Service Order and 68 person to received Queen’s Service Medal and one Honorary QSM. One person each has been selected for the award of New Zealand Bravery Decoration (Michael Scott Riley) and the New Zealand Bravery Medal (Police Officer S).
There were no awardees to the Order of New Zealand, the highest honour since it is restricted to 20 living Members.
Dames Companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit
Catherine Alice Healy
Catherine Alice Healy of Lower Hutt for services to the rights of sex workers.
Catherine Healy was appointed National Coordinator of the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC) in 1989, which was a voluntary role until 1992, and in this role, she has built NZPC into a globally respected public health provider with six branches across New Zealand.
Sex Workers’ Rights
NZPC focuses on sex workers’ rights, HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infection prevention, and education. NZPC offers free sexual health clinics at their community bases. From 1989 she gathered support for a campaign to decriminalise prostitution from a wide variety of organisations including the Young Women’s Christian Association, National Council of Women, and the AIDS Foundation.
In 1996, she established a cross-party grouping in Parliament to work with her and NGO leaders to catalyse law reform.
Model Bill for Review
She coordinated the group in developing a model Bill to safeguard the human rights and occupational safety of sex workers.
The Bill was introduced in 2000 and passed in 2003.
Post-decriminalisation she was appointed a member of the Prostitution Law Review Committee, which reported that sex workers were markedly better off under the Prostitution Reform Act. She has overseen the NZPC for 30 years and has provided personal support to local sex workers.
Health Protection
Ms Healy is a member of the National HIV and AIDS Forum and a consultant for the World Health Organisation in relation to HIV prevention, and is frequently called upon to provide advice to government and non-government organisations globally.
Luamanuvao Winifred Alexandra Laban
Luamanuvao Winifred Alexandra Laban of Lower Hutt, for services to education and the Pacific community.
She was appointed Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Pasifika) of Victoria University of Wellington in 2010 and has since provided strategic advice, direction and support for Pacific students and staff, increasing enrolments and raising Pacific achievement.
She has been Patron of the Wainuiomata Pasifika Education Success Initiative since 2013, and Patron of the Cancer Society Relay for Life since 2008.
She is Patron for the Wellington Pasifika Business Network and Wellington Rugby League.
Varied interests
She has been a member of Creative New Zealand Arts Council since 2014 and was Chair of the Pacific Arts Committee from 2013 to 2014. Since 2017 she has been a member of the Australasian Association for Institutional Research, the New Zealand Institute of Directors, the Commissioner of Police’s National Pacific Advisory Forum, and an Auditor for the Academic Quality Agency for New Zealand Universities.
She has been a member of the National University of Samoa Council since 2012 and the Institute of Judicial Studies Board since 2011.
Associate Professor Laban is currently involved in a project in partnership with Wellington City Council and Victoria University of Wellington to construct a multipurpose fale malae in the Wellington region.
Jocelyn O’Connor
Emeritus Professor Charmian Jocelyn O’Connor of Auckland ror services to education and chemistry. She is internationally recognised for her contributions to chemistry and education.
Professor O’Connor was instrumental in establishing the independent Kate Edger Educational Charitable Trust (KEECT).
Growing the Trust
The KEECT, through its academic dress hire business, is now one of the largest non-governmental funders of women’s higher education in New Zealand.
She chaired the Trust from 2005 to 2013 and remains a Trustee. She has chaired the Trust’s Awards Committee since inception, wrote the Awards Manual, and introduced new awards as money became available.
She has overseen an increase from $75,000 in awards at inception to more than $600,000 across 110 grants and research awards annually for women undertaking tertiary education.
As a Professor at the University of Auckland from 1986 and Emeritus Professor from 2004 she has been a member and chair of a range of the University’s advisory committees and a member of fellowship selection committees.
Roles at MIT, Unitec
She was a member of the Manukau Institute of Technology Council and helped establish a research committee.
As a Ministerial Representative on the Council of Unitec from 2005 to 2014, she played a key role in advancing the construction of the wharekai and wharepaku to complete Unitec’s Marae facilities. Professor O’Connor has continued her involvement with chemistry organisations and conferences at national and international levels.
Julie Bethridge (Jools) and Lynda Bethridge Topp
Jools and Lynda Topp have been recognised for her services to entertainment.
Jools Topp and her twin sister Lynda have performed in New Zealand and internationally as the country music and comedy duo ‘The Topp Twins’ for more than 30 years.
Since their appointments as Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to entertainment in 2004, they produced the albums ‘Flowergirls and Cowgirls’ (2005) and ‘Honky Tonk Angel’ (2009), released five best-selling children’s audio books, and have regularly toured Australia and New Zealand to sold-out venues.
Music Hall of Fame
In 2008, the twins were inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame.
The documentary feature film ‘The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls’ was released in 2009 and won several awards at international film festivals. It broke all previous records for opening day and opening weekend for a New Zealand documentary, and after just four weeks at the box office, it made over $1 million.
‘Topp Country’
From 2014 to 2017 they filmed three series of the television show ‘Topp Country’, in which they travelled around New Zealand meeting food producers and home cooks.
The twins have actively raised awareness of breast cancer, including staging the Recovery Tour in 2007 following Jools’ personal experience with the disease, with a percentage of ticket sales being donated to the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation.
Knights Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit
The Queen has appointed three distinguished New Zealanders as Knights of the Order of New Zealand. They are Hekenukumai Puhipi Busby, Bill English and John Edward Rowles.
Hekenukumai Puhipi Busby
Hekenukumai Busby is a master waka builder and accomplished carver who was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2014 for his services to Maori.
Since that time, Mr Busby has maintained his involved in various leadership and committee positions with such organisations as Waitangi National Trust, The Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii, and Te Tai Tokerau Maori District Council.
Advisory roles
He maintains roles as Senior Advisor to his Iwi of Te Rarawa, Ngati Kahu, Te Aupouri, Ngati Kuri, and Ngapuhi. He is a Kaumatua for Maori Tourism in Northland.
He continues to construct waka and impart his knowledge on waka building and traditional navigation techniques from a school established on his property in Aurere, Doubtless Bay.
He has been involved with the construction of a twin hulled voyaging waka for the Tairawhiti Voyaging Trust in Gisborne, which is intended as a living classroom for youth to learn traditional Maori voyaging skills.
The ceremonial waka Te Hono ki Aotearoa, which was commissioned of him in 2010 and is based in the Netherlands, was most recently used at Menin Gate, Ieper in Belgium to commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Passchendale in October 2017.
Mr Busby remains a member of the Waitangi Day Organising Committee after 36 years and continues to be involved with waka activities during Waitangi Day commemorations.
Right Honourable Simon William (Bill) English
We have posted a separate tribute to Bill English, former Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition earlier today.
John Edward Rowles
John Edward Rowles has been recognised for his service to entertainment.
Mr Rowles is an internationally renowned singer and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1979 for his services to the music industry.
Since this appointment, Mr Rowles performed in the United States and the United Kingdom and has continued to perform in New Zealand, Australia, and Hawaii.
Royal Command Performance
He was part of a Royal Command Performance for Her Majesty The Queen in 1981.
He performed a one off show for charity at the Aotea Centre in Auckland in 1990. His 1994 to 1995 nationwide tour ‘Toys for Tots’ raised money for underprivileged children in New Zealand. He funded and performed the Project Hope Tour in 2007 to raise awareness for issues such as teenage suicide.
More recently, he has had a cameo role in the 2008 film ‘Second-Hand Wedding’, was selected to compete in the 2009 ‘Dancing With the Stars’, and has performed at the New Zealand Music Awards. He performed a farewell tour in 2011 before returning to the stage in 2014 for his ‘I’m Back Again’ Australian tour.
Mr Rowles released his autobiography ‘If I Only Had Time’ in 2012 and his anthology album of the same name in 2013.
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Photo Caption:
Clockwise from top: Jools Lynda Bethridge Topp, John Edward Rowles, Bill English and Catherine Alice Healy (Picture from Government House Website)
