NZ News
King’s Birthday Honours: Public servant, doctor and rugby coach among list of new dames and knights
Some of New Zealand’s freshly named dames and knights say receiving the honour was incredibly humbling and overwhelming.
Six New Zealanders have been appointed knights and dames: Dame Jo Brosnahan, Dame Teuila Percival and Dame Helene Quilter, Sir Stephen Kós KC, Sir Selwyn Parata and Sir Wayne Smith.
Meanwhile, former prime minister Jacinda Ardern has been made a Dame Grand Companion of The New Zealand Order of Merit.
Sir Stephen told RNZ he was “very much honoured” by the award and it was nice that it recognised the work he had done in legal education.
He helped create a programme to ensure junior counsel can present submissions alongside lead counsel, meaning young lawyers could continue to develop their skills.
“That’s been a very important part of my life and [it’s] very important to me that education brings opportunities to other people and it’s certainly what I’ve been doing for much longer than my 12 years as a judge.”
Sir Stephen said the life of a judge was one of constant education and examination.
He said he arrived on the bench with a “pretty good grasp” of private law but had to continue learning on the job.
“I’m really very grateful to the lawyers and the judges who taught me those skills so I think this honour is a way of expressing my appreciation for the work they have done to assist me.
“Judging is reflective. If you’re good at it, it’s because you have good counsel in front of you, you have good colleagues to deliberate with.”
Dame Jo said she was “entirely overwhelmed” by the award – but it took three weeks for her to see the letter about it.
She said it had gone to her spam folder and it was not until she received a follow-up letter that she found it.
“It was a real surprise,” she said.
Dame Jo said her award was largely for the work she did for Leadership New Zealand – having founded it 20 years ago.
Leadership was her passion, she said, and believed it was important to focus on the diversity of people who had the potential to make a real difference in New Zealand.
“For New Zealand to be able to succeed and create a place that our children and grandchildren want to grow up in then we need collaborative leadership with people who can actually work together in a way that understands and empathises with each other’s perspectives.
“It’s the only way forward, it’s the only way to deal with the wicked problems that we have.”
Dame Helene told RNZ she felt “incredibly humbled” to receive the honour.
Dame Helene Quilter. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
“It was totally unexpected and overwhelming and I read the letter and I was in a bit of a daze. I felt shocked and I thought it must be a mistake so I got my husband to check the letter and confirm my understanding was right.
“So I am of course, delighted to accept it, and also on behalf of the thousands of public servants around the country, who give service to the public every day, we don’t expect this type of recognition so it’s a real privilege to receive it.”
Dame Helene said she was being recognised for 45 years in the public service. She was previously the Deputy Public Service Commissioner of Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission.
She was also a big supporter and participator in New Zealand’s arts sector and currently served as a board member for the New Zealand School of Dance.
“It is such an overwhelming experience because it’s the last thing in the world you think is going to happen and it’s a real shock. When I read the letter it was a real shock.
“I also want to acknowledge and congratulate other honours recipients who will have each achieved so much for the benefit of New Zealand.”
Sir Selwyn was humbled and elated by his knighthood for services to Māori.
Sir Selwyn Parata. Photo: RNZ
He said it was recognition of his elders who shared the values of selflessness, duty and care with him.
“I’m thinking about all those people who have had a part in my upbringing and in nurturing me over the last 40 years in my work with Ngāti Porou across the motu on kaupapa Māori.”
Former Black Ferns coach Sir Wayne has been knighted in the wake of the Black Ferns’ Rugby World Cup success last year.
Sir Wayne Smith. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
When he got the letter, it lingered on his mind whether to accept it or not, but then he remembered the sacrifices his family made.
“Trish [his wife] and I have been together for 43 years, she reckons I’ve only been here for 20 of them,” he jokes.
“Coaching isn’t an easy game, you’re never really on top of everything and you go through some difficult times and it’s your family that suffer the most – through media, through criticism, through poor results – they have to put up with it. You, as a coach, sort of get over it quickly and get on to the next game.”
He was thinking of his mother and sister too, as they saw him grow up playing the game since the age of 6.
“My mum is 92 … she supported me my whole life.
“It makes them proud and I think it’s great for mum to see that I get this award.
“I see it as a huge honour but also I feel a lot of gratitude, because rugby is a team game, you can’t achieve anything yourself, so you’re so reliant on other people, on players, your coaches, your staff, the support you get from your family.”
Over his career, Sir Wayne has been involved in 174 All Blacks Tests, of which he won 143, and more than 200 games.
He has become the only coach to win three Rugby World Cups – as assistant coach in 2011 and 2015 with the All Blacks, and in 2022 as head coach with the Black Ferns.
Dame Teuila received her honour for services to health and the Pacific community.
Dame Teuila Percival. Photo: Supplied/Pasifika Medical Association
She was a paediatrician and researcher who has been an advocate for Pacific children’s health for the past 30 years.
Dame Teuila was a founding member and deputy chairperson of South Seas Healthcare. She was also a founding member of the Pacific Medical Association.
Source RNZ
Latest News
Opportunities to mitigate multi-million-dollar RNZ budget blowout likely missed – experts
Multiple opportunities to identify and mitigate a multi-million-dollar budget blowout at RNZ appear have been missed, according to the former executive director at Audit New Zealand.
The public broadcaster on Monday revealed a near $12 million shock financial loss after a litany of financial blunders, which will now lead to sweeping job cuts.
The $11.8m loss is more than 25 times the $470,000 RNZ had expected to lose over the year to June.
CEO Paul Thompson took responsibility for the result, and said internal reports gave an inaccurate picture of the finances, meaning the scale of the loss only became clear in October.
RNZ’s former chief financial officer Hilary Parker resigned unexpectedly in early October.
The board said it would commission an independent review into what went wrong.
Independent contractor Stephen Walker, who left the Audit Office earlier this year, said the size of the loss was surprising, as was the length of time it took to identify it – months after the financial year ended.
Supplied / OAG
“Probably more of a concern is that they had seemingly been unaware that they were running up a significant deficit until they were in the preparation stage of their annual report in October.”
Walker said public entities typically produced monthly financial reports.
An interim audit also took place before the end of the financial year, he said, but if the organisation hadn’t identified significant losses at that stage, the auditor could also be in the dark.
“It seems that there’s a real weakness in forecasting and budgeting that’s occurred here and that the monthly accounts, when they’re produced, either haven’t identified these significant variances against budget or the magnitude of them really hasn’t come to light until right towards the end of the financial year,” Walker said.
“And really at that point, there’s no opportunity for the chief executive, the leadership team to take, and the board to take, any corrective action because the year has effectively been completed.”
Walker said the “significant miss” was difficult to account for given it was more than 10 percent of RNZ’s total funding.
He said based on RNZ’s annual report, financial complexity didn’t appear to be a factor.
“This $11.8m loss isn’t made up of one particular item … it seems to have been contributed to by a number of separate expense lines running over budget. So I don’t think it’s necessarily to do with complexity.”
Among the errors, RNZ wrongly counted $2m from land sales as income in its budget. Staff costs also came in $3.2m over budget, including $1.4m in redundancy payments.
Professor at Auckland University’s business school Norman Wong said based on media reports the issues identified were “significant and troubling”.
Supplied / University of Auckland
“But recognising the sale of land as income in their budget is a basic error that one would have expected to have been caught and corrected well before it got to this point.”
With funding reductions at RNZ over the past two years, Walker expected greater scrutiny of financial results.
“Virtually every public entity has had their annual budget reduced. And so you would expect … the leadership team on a monthly basis and board – I’m not sure how frequently the board will consider the information – but you would expect them to be interrogating the results on a regular basis throughout the year,” he said.
Walker said initiating an independent review was the correct course of action and that he’d want to understand what information the leadership team and the board were regularly receiving.
He said he’d “love to say” surprising financial results were rare, but conceded they occured on a semi-frequent basis during his time leading the Audit Office.
“The benefit of independent scrutiny by the Audit Office – and the auditors providing that support to the Auditor General – [is] that the reporting is fairly presented at the end of the year, whether it’s good, bad or ugly.”
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