To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
ANDERSON, Professor Brian Joseph
For services to paediatrics and anaesthesia
Professor Brian Anderson has advocated for and led the development of paediatric intensive care and anaesthesia in New Zealand for more than 30 years.
Professor Anderson is a paediatric anaesthetist and intensive care specialist. He was a founding consultant at Auckland’s Starship Hospital and is one of two doctors who co-established the Hospital’s Paediatric Intensive Care Unit. The Unit provides care for critically ill children throughout New Zealand and the Pacific. He set up the Hospital’s Acute Pain Service, the Resuscitation and Trauma Committee and played an important role starting Starship’s Paediatric Cardiac Surgical Unit. He is Professor of Anaesthesiology at the University of Auckland and has taught, mentored and supervised junior doctors, nurses, students and researchers. His research in children’s pharmacology has had a global impact. He has numerous publications in international journals and textbooks, as well as book and journal editorial efforts. This body of work has informed clinical practice of paediatric drug use, anaesthesia, intensive care and pain medicine in New Zealand and worldwide. He is a member of international review and safety committees, grant assessment boards and sits on national advisory committees. Professor Anderson has volunteered to provide paediatric anaesthesia and intensive care assistance to surgical teams working in the Pacific.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
BEAVIS, Dr Vanessa Shona
For services to anaesthesia
Dr Vanessa Beavis has contributed to anaesthesia in New Zealand and internationally since 1993.
Dr Beavis held clinical leadership roles from 1997 at Auckland City Hospital and was Director of Perioperative Services from 2004 to 2020. She helped establish an anaesthesia service in Auckland to facilitate New Zealand-based access for people requiring a liver transplant. She is a Fellow of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) and was a member of the College’s examining body from 2002 to 2014. She joined the New Zealand National Committee of ANZCA in 2004 and was Chair from 2008 to 2011. She has undertaken a range of roles with the ANZCA Council, including founding Chair of the special interest groups Anaesthetists in Management and Perioperative Medicine, driving the development of a new Continuing Professional Development programme, development of ANZCA’s Diploma in Perioperative Medicine, and was President from 2020 to 2022. She has promoted the importance of Te Tiriti within ANZCA, which has had benefits for the cultural inclusion of Australian indigenous people. During the COVID-19 pandemic she led ANZCA to continue delivering examinations and maintain continuity and quality of training. Dr Beavis is inaugural Executive Committee Chair of the International Academy of Medical Colleges of Anaesthesiologists (IACA), which she helped develop and launch in 2021.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
BEECHE, Mr David Kenrick (Dave)
For services to sports administration
Mr Dave Beeche has been Chief Executive Officer of the FIFA Women’s World Cup (FIFA WWC) Australia and New Zealand 2023, leading teams from both New Zealand and Australia to deliver the event.
Mr Beeche served as CEO for the successful FIFA Under-20 World Cup tournament in New Zealand in 2015. He led delivery of the 2023 FIFA WWC, navigating the Trans-Tasman model and the added complexity of COVID-19, to deliver a tournament which broke multiple records. The tournament attendance totalled 1,978,274 spectators across 64 matches, beating the attendance of the last World Cup hosted by France (which attracted 1,131,312 spectators across 52 matches). He ensured the benefits of the tournament were shared across New Zealand, with the four host cities of Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Dunedin and seven-base camps to host the teams in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, allowing regional spread and national engagement opportunities for New Zealanders. The pricing model for the tournament ensured New Zealanders, particularly families, were able to attend while also promoting maximum opportunities to attend matches. Mr Beeche was CEO of Triathlon New Zealand from 2016 to 2021, developing a participation and High-Performance Programme with a range of commercial partnerships enabling a raised profile and participation for the sport.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
BELL, Professor Timothy Clinton (Tim)
For services to computer science education
Professor Tim Bell has contributed to foundational computer science for 40 years.
Professor Bell is known for his work on compression, which transforms text into a format that enables efficient storage and transmission. He co-invented modern text retrieval and data compression techniques in the 1990s, which are now ubiquitous in search engines. He co-wrote books entitled ‘Text Compression’ and ‘Managing Gigabytes: Compressing and indexing documents and images’ accompanied by a public-domain software system, which was influential and required reading for all Google employees in the late 1990s. He co-authored ‘Computer Science Unplugged’, which teaches computer science without a computer, conveying concepts such as intractability, cryptography and open questions of computer science to children of all ages. This has been translated to around 30 languages, including Te Reo Māori. The website for the Computer Science Unplugged project is sponsored by Google and Microsoft. He has worked with the Ministry of Education to establish computer science in New Zealand schools from 2011. He secured funding from Google for annual Computer Science for High Schools multiday workshops for New Zealand teachers. He created CS-At-Home and CS-At-a-Distance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Professor Bell’s work has influenced the introduction of computer science in school curriculums in the United Kingdom, United States of America, Norway, Singapore, India, Switzerland and more.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
BRAKENRIDGE, Mr John Donald
For services to the New Zealand food and fibre sectors and the merino industry
Mr John Brakenridge is recognised as the driving-force behind the transformation of the New Zealand merino industry and uniting leaders of New Zealand’s food and fibre sectors, iwi, and government agencies.
Mr Brakenridge was the Co-Founder and Chief Executive of The New Zealand Merino Company (NZM) and its predecessor organisations since 1995, bringing more than $500 million in additional value to farmers and brand partners. Under his leadership, NZM collaborated with forward-thinking wool growers to disrupt traditional industry thinking and systems-based business models, resultantly launching the premiumisation of a previously commodity-driven product. He created a collaborative systems approach for New Zealand fibre with brands such as Icebreaker, Loro Piana, Reda, Allbirds, IKEA, Smartwool and NIKKE. His leadership has driven NZM from $5 million turnover annually to a $203 million turnover organisation with three successive record years of profit, prior to him moving on in early 2023. At this time, he launched the Brakenridge Impact Group, supporting world-leading businesses as they seek out their own aspirations. In 2012, Mr Brakenridge founded Te Hono, a collaboration between the leaders of the New Zealand food and fibre sector companies, iwi and government agencies into a partnership with Stanford University to focus on shifting New Zealand from a volume to value producer and marketer of products securing high consumer value.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
BYDDER, Professor Graeme Mervyn
For services to medical imaging
Professor Graeme Bydder has made fundamental contributions to medical imaging and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in particular.
Professor Bydder's contributions to MRI go back more than 40 years to the clinical origins of MRI in the United Kingdom. With others at the Mātai Medical Research Institute, he recently developed an MRI technique using bipolar filters which improves the contrast shown on MR images 10 to 15 times and clearly shows abnormalities that are not detected using conventional advanced MR systems. Most of the techniques used in modern clinical MR examinations of the brain were first described by him and his team. He was responsible for the development of the Fluid Attenuated Inversion Recovery (FLAIR) sequence, which is currently included in most clinical MRI examinations of the brain. It is essential for the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, cerebrovascular disease, traumatic brain injury and brain tumours. He co-developed the Short Inversion Time Inversion Recovery (STIR) sequence in 1985. This sequence suppresses fat signals and shows injuries, inflammation, infection and tumours in bones, muscles, ligaments and tendons with very high contrast. Professor Bydder has published more than 300 peer reviewed papers on MRI techniques, clinical applications of MRI and image interpretation, and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Mātai Medical Research Institute.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
CHESHIRE, Mr Philip Maxwell (Pip)
For services to architecture
Mr Pip Cheshire is a distinguished architect who has demonstrated commitment to the betterment of New Zealand’s built environment.
In 1984, Mr Cheshire jointly founded Jasmax Architects. Through this firm, and later through Cheshire Architects, he led the transformation of the Britomart urban renewal project, creating a vibrant space in downtown Auckland and restoring part of the city’s heritage. He was one of three design team members for the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and volunteered his time to document early explorers’ huts in the Ross Sea region in Antarctica. He undertook the master planning and design of the University of Auckland’s award-winning Leigh Marine Reserve campus at Goat Island. He has been a fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) since 2007 and was its National President from 2014 to 2016. During his presidency, he led the development of Te Kawenata o Rata, a covenant between the NZIA and Ngā Aho (a society of Māori design professionals), helping to make the institute relevant to Māori practitioners. He has demonstrated a commitment to young people, education and sustainability through his mentoring, leadership and Adjunct Professor role at the University of Auckland. In 2013, Mr Cheshire was awarded the NZIA Gold Medal, the highest individual award an architect can receive in New Zealand.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
FUGILL, Mr Clive Ernest
For services to Māori art
Mr Clive Fugill (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Rangi Wewehi) is a tōhunga whakairo (master carver) who has produced work of international renown and shared his knowledge of wood carving over more than five decades.
Mr Fugill has had an association with Te Puia / New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute (NZMACI) since he attended his first class in 1967. Following his graduation, he worked as a tutor and lecturer before going on to lead the school from 1983 to 1995 as Tumu Whakarae, Head of the National Carving School. Since 1990 he has also served on Creative New Zealand’s Te Waka Toi panel. The quality and consistency of his artistry saw him recognised as a tōhunga whakairo by his own iwi and throughout the motu. He has designed, adorned or restored structures around the country, including many marae and as a key contributor to the stage for Te Matatini National Kapa Haka Festival, Te Māhau, the largest Māori carved structure in existence. His carvings have been gifted to members of the Royal Family and other world leaders. He published the book ‘Te Toki me Te Whao’ (2016) on traditional Māori tools and carving methods. As an artist, teacher and writer, Mr Fugill has influenced a generation of Māori artists, and worked to uphold the mana of whakairo rākau.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
GARRATT, Mrs Dale Mary Adeline (Dale Mary)
For services to Christian music production
Mrs Dale Mary Garratt (Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri) and her husband David Garratt founded the Christian ministry brand ‘Scripture in Song’ in 1968, producing recordings and music books for worship in Christian churches for more than 50 years.
The songs Mr and Mrs Garratt wrote, recorded and published have been used in virtually every Protestant church and by some Roman Catholic groups in New Zealand. They are recognised nationally and internationally as pioneering worship leaders and modellers of congregational singing, particularly for their contextual application of biblical texts and current musical trends. Their breakthrough double LP ‘Prepare Ye The Way’ (1972) was authenticated Platinum. They have produced more than 30 recordings in New Zealand and overseas, with most released internationally, the most recent being ‘Songs of Blessing’ (2021). In total, 13 of their albums achieved Gold or Platinum status and more than three million song books have been sold. They have promoted indigenous expressions of song, rhythm and dance into their repertoire and teachings, incorporating Māori, Pacific, North American First Nations and Hawaiian expressions into established Western practice, and producing songs of worship in native languages. They have presented at First Nations conferences in Canada, the United States and Australia and have ministered in the US and South Africa. Mr and Mrs Garratt received the Dove Award, the lifetime achievement award from the Gospel Music Association in 1984.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
GARRATT, Mr David Reginald
For services to Christian music production
Mr David Garratt and his wife Dale Mary Garratt (Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri) founded the Christian ministry brand ‘Scripture in Song’ in 1968, producing recordings and music books for worship in Christian churches over more than 50 years.
The songs Mr and Mrs Garratt wrote, recorded and published have been used in virtually every Protestant church and by some Roman Catholic groups in New Zealand. They are recognised nationally and internationally as pioneering worship leaders and modellers of congregational singing, particularly for their contextual application of biblical texts and current musical trends. Their breakthrough double LP ‘Prepare Ye The Way’ (1972) was authenticated Platinum. They have produced more than 30 recordings in New Zealand and overseas, with most released internationally, the most recent being ‘Songs of Blessing’ (2021). In total, 13 of their albums achieved Gold or Platinum status and more than three million song books have been sold. They have promoted indigenous expressions of song, rhythm and dance into their repertoire and teachings, incorporating Māori, Pacific, North American First Nations and Hawaiian expressions into established Western practice, and producing songs of worship in native languages. They have presented at First Nations conferences in Canada, the United States and Australia and have ministered in the US and South Africa. Mr and Mrs Garratt received the Dove Award, the lifetime achievement award from the Gospel Music Association in 1984.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
HILL, Mr Clive David (David), MNZM
For services to literature, particularly children's literature
Mr David Hill is an educator, reviewer and writer and is regarded as a part of the backbone of New Zealand’s children’s literature.
Mr Hill has published more than 50 books over four decades, with 18 published since 2004. His works have been translated for international audiences including France and China, and he has received numerous literature awards. He has had two books listed on the International Youth Library White Ravens list, which highlights books deserving of international recognition for universal themes and/or innovative literary design. He is a current member of the New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Kaumatua Tomata advisory group to the NZSA President, having been an Society member for more than 50 years. He is regularly a mentor and assessor for NZSA’s programmes for emerging writers. He has engaged with thousands of Children through organisations such as Read NZ and Storylines and writers-in-schools programmes across New Zealand. He has advocated for further support for children’s writers and book awards, highlighting disparity of income and prize packages between children’s and adult’s literature in annual awards, and more broadly highlighting issues around lending rights and compensation for broadcast adaptations affecting the income of professional writers. Mr Hill is respected as a reviewer of adult literature, columnist and guest speaker at writer’s festivals.
HONOURS
Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, New Year 2004
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
SORYL, Ms Yolanda Lou-Anne Wisewitch
For services to literacy education
Ms Yolanda Soryl has been involved in education for 41 years and over the past 21 years has specialised in early literacy teaching in New Zealand.
While teaching at a Christchurch primary school in 2002, Ms Soryl set out to develop a successful phonics programme for New Zealand primary and ECE teachers. To show teachers that phonics could help accelerate literacy outcomes and be engaging and fun, she put videos of her lessons on YouTube, wrote training manuals on how to teach phonics, and taught courses across New Zealand, training more than 25,000 teachers and teacher aides. She has produced hundreds of early literacy resources, including a New Zealand-accented phonics app. She has run Early Literacy Clinics to help and inspire teachers. Throughout her efforts to bring phonics to New Zealand classrooms, she continued teaching so her work remained grounded in the realities of the classroom. She developed and advocated phonics education through a time when systematic phonics teaching lacked official government endorsement, but which is now recognised as a fundamental aspect of the Structured Literacy approach endorsed by the Ministry of Education. Ms Soryl is currently a Reading Recovery teacher at Ao Tawhiti School in Christchurch, achieving a success rate above the national average.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
TRENBERTH, Dr Kevin Edward
For services to geophysics
Dr Kevin Trenberth is a New Zealand scientist who is world-renowned in the field of climate variability and climate change.
Dr Trenberth is a Distinguished Scholar at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research located in Boulder, Colorado, and an honorary affiliate faculty at the University of Auckland. He was a lead author of the 1995, 2001 and 2007 Scientific Assessment of Climate Change reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), sharing in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC, as well as receiving many awards for his own work over the years. He served from 1999 to 2006 on the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), chaired the WCRP Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) scientific steering group from 1996 to 1999, and the WCRP Observation and Assimilation Panel from 2004 to 2010. He chaired the Global Energy and Water Exchanges scientific steering group from 2010 to 2013. He holds several Fellowships, including as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He has published more than 590 scientific articles or papers, including 70 books or book chapters and is highly cited. From 1996 until 2017, Dr Trenberth ranked first in the number of highly cited papers by all published environmental scientists, and is listed among the top 20 authors in highest citations in all of geophysics.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
WILKINSON, Ms Jo-anne Edna Mary (Lady Dingle), MNZM
For services to youth
Ms Jo-anne Wilkinson has supported youth with her husband Sir Graeme Dingle through the Graeme Dingle Foundation, established in 1995 to give young people purpose, a positive outlook and tools to self-determine.
Over a 20-year period, Ms Wilkinson was instrumental in developing and securing the Foundation’s programmes, KiwiCan, Stars, Career Navigator, Project K, Kiwi Tahi and MYND. Since establishment, more than 300,000 young people have undertaken a Graeme Dingle Foundation programme. She has driven the organisation’s research and evaluation to ensure the programmes can prove their outcomes and have a direct influence on young people’s lives. She initiated the Foundation’s Community Development Strategy in 2010. She concluded as Executive Director of the Foundation in 2013 and has been Deputy Chair of the Foundation since 2016 and Chair of the Programme Committee since 2012. She chaired Graeme Dingle Foundation Auckland from 2012 to 2014, driving the merger of the five regional trusts into a single body. She has been a Board member of the Graeme Dingle Endowment Trust since 2013. She was a member of the Auckland Museum Trust Board from 2015 to 2019. She was Chair and interim Families Commissioner with Superu between 2014 and 2018. Ms Wilkinson has chaired the Ministry of Social Development’s Grievance Panel and was an Oranga Tamariki Risk and Assurance Panel member from 2017 to 2020.
HONOURS
Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, Queen's Birthday 2011
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
WILSON, Mr James Ross (Ross)
For services to the trade union movement and workplace safety
Mr Ross Wilson (Ngāi Tahu) has been a lawyer and union leader and has held governance roles across New Zealand’s public, commercial and NGO sectors and internationally since the 1970s.
Mr Wilson has been a catalyst for positive change across health and safety, accident compensation, wage campaigns, international representation, and the state sector. He co-authored the leading legal text, Brooker’s ‘Employment Law’, and wrote ‘Health and Safety in Employment’ (2012). He was President of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (CTU) from 1999 to 2007. Internationally he has supported worker and union action as the founding Chair of Unions Aotearoa International Development Trust (UnionAID), and as Chief Technical Adviser for the International Labour Organisation in Myanmar in 2012/2013. As Deputy Chair and Chair of Worksafe New Zealand he played a key role in unifying government, business, union and iwi to support new legislation and regulatory frameworks to support workers’ safety and health at work. He has led union campaigns for an improved ACC since the 1970s and was Deputy Chair from 1986 to 1991 and Chair from 2007 to 2009 of the Accident Compensation Corporation. Mr Wilson was instrumental in the establishment in 2023 of Iti Kōpara – Public Governance Aotearoa, an independent charitable trust providing professional training for current and future Crown entity board members.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
WOOD, Dr Johanna Julene
For services to football governance
Dr Johanna Wood has contributed to women’s football in New Zealand since 2010.
Dr Wood was Chair of Central Football between 2010 and 2018 and a member of the Board from 2006. She was elected to the New Zealand Football Executive Committee in 2018 and served as Vice President, before becoming the first female President in 2019. In her first year of leadership, the Board achieved 40 percent female representation around the board table for the first time, which has since been maintained. She was appointed as the Oceania representative to the FIFA Council in 2019, consisting of 37 members focusing on the strategic direction of FIFA, and was re-elected for a second term in 2023. She led the bidding for the hosting rights of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023, with New Zealand co-hosting the tournament with Australia. She has been a member of the Red Sox Club in Manawatu and was made a Life Member of Central Football in 2020. Dr Wood was the inaugural Chair of FIFA’s first World Cup Legacy Committee, driving collaboration across the Asia-Pacific region, ensuring a lasting legacy for the tournament across New Zealand. The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 was the most attended women’s sporting event in history, which saw a record number of attendees in New Zealand for a men’s or women’s football match.