To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
BRACEFIELD, Mr Rodney Keith
For services to Search and Rescue and aviation
Mr Rodney Bracefield has been contributing to New Zealand Search and Rescue and aviation for more than 60 years.
Mr Bracefield was integral in New Zealand’s membership of the international emergency distress beacon organisation Cospas-Sarsat, consisting of 45 nations and agencies, detecting and locating emergency locator radio beacons activated by persons in distress. He was instrumental in the building and commissioning of New Zealand’s satellite ground station for the detection of these beacons across New Zealand’s 30 million square kilometre search and rescue region. He helped establish the Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand which delivers 24-7 Search and Rescue (SAR) coordination services for land, sea and air. He has recruited and trained staff, and has represented New Zealand at international meetings to continue to improve the international distress beacon system. He served with the Royal New Zealand Air Force for 24 years, serving in Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and Vietnam. He has been the Project Manager for several key projects for Maritime New Zealand, including the installation of two Geostationary Satellite Ground terminals in 2016. Until recently, Mr Bracefield was the Operational Support Manager with Maritime New Zealand’s Rescue and Coordination Centre New Zealand, testing a MEOLUT ground station with teams from Australia and the United States of America.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
CREE, Emeritus Professor Alison Marion
For services to herpetology, particularly tuatara
Emeritus Professor Alison Cree is a leading zoologist and herpetology expert who has worked to enhance conservation outcomes for herpetofauna.
Professor Cree helped found the Society for Research on Amphibians and Reptiles in New Zealand in 1987, bringing together scientists, conservation managers, and the community to achieve research outcomes and projects to advance understanding of New Zealand’s herpetofauna. She served as President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Secretary and Council member with the organisation during her 34-year involvement. She released the 2014 book ‘Tuatara – biology and conservation of a venerable survivor’, providing guidance on best practice field protocol and captive breeding guidelines for tuatara, and ensuring the place of tuatara as taonga and the role of Māori as kaitiaki was honoured. She has published more than 135 scientific papers and contributed to more than 100 reports, magazine articles and presentations. She provided leadership in coordinating the transfer of tuatara from Cook Strait, in which Ngāti Koata escorted their taonga tuatara into the care of Kāti Huirapa Rūnaka ki Puketeraki of Kāi Tahu. She has been a member of the Department of Conservation’s Tuatara Recovery Group for more than 28 years and co-authored the first Tuatara Recovery Plan. As a member of a university’s Kaiāwhina Māori network, Professor Cree has run multiple workshops and training sessions to integrate the Māori Strategic Framework into departmental practice.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
DALZIEL, The Honourable Lianne Audrey
For services to local government and as a Member of Parliament
The Honourable Lianne Dalziel has contributed to national and local government in New Zealand for over 30 years.
Ms Dalziel was involved in the union movement in the 1980s, advocating particularly for low-paid women workers. She was elected as a Member of Parliament in 1990, representing the Christchurch Central and Christchurch East electorates. She held several Ministerial portfolios including Immigration, Commerce, Senior Citizens, and Women’s Affairs. She was elected the Mayor of Christchurch in 2013, serving three terms before stepping down in 2022. She played a key leadership role in Christchurch’s recovery following the 2010-2011 earthquakes, including helping set up the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust and the Christchurch Foundation, building strong relationships with Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and developing co-governance arrangements with mana whenua. She led the Council’s response to the 15 March 2019 terror attacks, forging strong relationships with the city’s Muslim communities. Along with her late husband, Rob Davidson, she has supported the Aranui Community Trust for more than 20 years and has been appointed their first patron. She served on the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s Parliamentarian Advisory Group from 2012-2013. Ms Dalziel has recently joined the global board of directors for the Resilient Cities Network and continues to be an internationally recognised champion of resilience and post-disaster opportunities.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
FRENCH, Distinguished Professor Nigel Peter
For services to epidemiology
Professor Nigel French began his career as an epidemiologist in the United Kingdom before moving to New Zealand, where he was appointed Professor of Food Safety and Veterinary Public Health at Massey University in 2004.
Professor French pioneered the use of genomic sequencing to trace the source of outbreaks of food and water-borne bacteria, community infections, and controlling Mycoplasma bovis in livestock. His research in 2005 pinpointed sources of food-borne Campylobacter infections, informing interventions which halved the rate of infection by 2007/2008. He helped contain the 2016 waterborne disease outbreak in Havelock North and has worked with iwi and the Uawa/Tolaga Bay community to help ensure food and water quality. He founded the Molecular Epidemiology and Public Health laboratory in 2005 and the Infectious Disease Research Centre at Massey in 2012. He was founder and inaugural Director of the New Zealand Food Safety Science and Research Centre. He founded and led the New Zealand-China Food Protection Network. He was a founder and co-director of One Health Aotearoa (OHA). Through OHA and other initiatives, he has led inter-disciplinary research programmes in both New Zealand and the United Kingdom. He has provided technical advice towards New Zealand’s COVID-19 response. Professor French has been involved with international research initiatives, including food safety, infectious diseases and zoonoses in Tanzania.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
GILBERTSON, Ms Deborah Kennedy (Deb)
For services to business, science and technology
Ms Deb Gilbertson has been contributing to the science and technology sectors for more than 40 years.
Ms Gilbertson established Te Kaihau Education Trust in 2006,a consultancy which grows leaders to innovate for a better world. Through Te Kaihau, she was awarded a United Nation’s Alliance of Civilizations award for her ‘Global Enterprise Experience’ contest, for its impact on fostering cross-culturalism, peer-leadership and social entrepreneurship in 120 countries. She founded the Emergent Māori Women’s Leadership Programme and the Women in Agriculture Network, which achieved a membership of 10,000 in its first decade of operation. She designed and ran the National Venture Capital Industry Development Workshop in 1986, which led to significant policy changes and an increase in number of venture capital organisations. She co-founded and was a member of the Wellington Venture Capital Association board and was a member of Te Ao Kotahi Trust board which promotes social and economic development. She established and was a member of the Innovative Technologies Programme board and the Chair of DSIR’s Science and Technological Advisory Council. Ms Gilbertson was a member of the Lincoln University’s Agricultural Economics Research Unit, through which she developed and ran a National Goat Industry Development workshop, which generated $5 million support for the industry.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
GRYLLS, Dr Karen Lesley, ONZM
For services to choral music
Dr Karen Grylls has been the Artistic Director of Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand since 1989 and was Musical Director of the New Zealand Youth Choir from 1989 to 2011.
Dr Grylls led the Youth Choir to international recognition as Best Mixed Choir at the 2007 Cantonigrós International Music Festival, Choir of the World at the International Eisteddfod and Overall Best Choir at Cantat Grand Prix in 1999. She was appointed Kaitiaki of Te Whānau Wehi and Waka Huia in 1999, bringing Māori music to the forefront of choral performance in New Zealand for more than two decades. She is founding director and Conductor Emerita of the University of Auckland Chamber Choir, having been principal conductor from 2006 to 2022. She established the University’s postgraduate choral conducting programmes in 2006. She is co-Artistic Director of the New Zealand Children’s Choral Academy founded in 2022. In 2006, Voices New Zealand won best classical album at the TUI New Zealand Music for ‘Spirit of the Land.’ From 2002 to 2008 she was a Board member of the International Federation of Choral Music and has been a Founding Board member of the New Zealand Choral Federation since 1985. Dr Grylls has been a presenter, artistic panellist and adjudicator at choral competitions and world symposiums for choral music in New Zealand since 1992.
HONOURS
Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, New Year 1999
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
JAMES, Mr Colin Charles
For services to journalism and public policy
Mr Colin James was a political journalist and commentator on domestic and foreign policy and political and social trends for five decades.
Mr James wrote for the Dominion, National Business Review, New Zealand Herald and the Otago Daily Times among others and was a television and radio commentator. Since 1994 he has been an Associate then Senior Associate of the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies (IGPS) at Victoria University of Wellington, for which he chaired forums on public service, then high-level policy-focused forums, principally on climate change. He ran a constitutional conference in 2000. In 2009 he was the Land and Water Forum’s initial Chair. He has written or co-authored eight books, most recently ‘Unquiet Time: Aotearoa/New Zealand in a Fast-changing World’ (2017), small books based on IGPS forums, notably ‘The Tie That Binds: The Relationship Between Ministers and Chief Executives’ (2002) and ‘Making Energy Work’ (2006), and in the 1990s MMP guidebooks for journalists. From 1990 to 2013 he headed the Hugo Group, which interprets and forecasts political, policy and economic trends for senior executives. He was a Trustee, then Chair of Motu Economic and Public Policy Research from 2004 to 2011. Mr James has held two university fellowships and is a Life Member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery and E Tu Union.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
MCPHAIL, Mr Murray Gordon
For services to horticulture
Mr Murray McPhail founded the diverse horticulture business LeaderBrand in 1975, introducing broccoli and bagged salad to New Zealand, leading post-harvest cooling technology, and supporting the East Coast region economically.
Mr McPhail was one of the first to grow and export broccoli and buttercup squash to Asia. He has been an industry leader, building LeaderBrand from scratch into one of the largest produce businesses nationally, with farms in Tairāwhiti Gisborne, Canterbury, Matamata and Pukekohe. LeaderBrand is the largest private sector employer in Tairāwhiti. He continues to support investment in Gisborne, with LeaderBrand undertaking construction of an 11-hectare undercover growing facility and state-of-the-art post-harvest and processing facilities. He supports his team with opportunities for higher education or visiting other successful farms internationally. He has worked the land sustainably, maintaining the soil and working closely with mana whenua. He has sponsored numerous events, charities and community organisations including breast cancer research, surf lifesaving, Poverty Bay Rugby Union, Variety Club, a roadside clean-up programme, and restoration of Gisborne’s Sisterson’s Lagoon. He has been a member of industry boards including the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority and founding Chairperson of the Buttercup Squash Council. Mr McPhail was awarded the Bledisloe Cup, New Zealand’s highest award for horticulture, in 2016 and is a Life Member of Gisborne A&P Association.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
PRIME, Mr Samuel Kevin (Kevin), ONZM, MBE
For services to Māori, the environment and health
Mr Kevin Prime (Ngāti Hine, Ngapuhi, Ngāti Whatua, Tainui) has contributed to Māoridom for more than 50 years, has been a distinguished official for various Crown entities for 40 years, and was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2016 for his services to conservation and Māori.
Mr Prime has been a member of the Waitangi Tribunal since 2021. Having been an original writer of the Resource Management Act in 1991, he was appointed in 2019 as an expert panellist for the Government’s review of the RMA. He was made Life Patron of Ngāti Hine Health Trust in 2019, having been founding Secretary of the organisation established to support the health needs of his hāpu in the early 1990s, which has grown to support all of Ngāti Hine and become one of the largest employers in Te Tai Tokerau. He continues his involvement as a Commissioner of the Environment Court since 2003, as Vice Chairman of Ngā Whenua Rāhui, and Kaumatua of Foundation North, having previously been Chairman. He has been on the governance Board of the Bio Heritage National Science Challenge since 2015, which has sought to solve the issue of Kauri Dieback. His contributions have supported the development of the most successful treatment for Kauri Dieback to date. Mr Prime was instrumental in Ngāti Hine Forestry Trust’s inception and was involved until 2005.
HONOURS
Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, Queen’s Birthday 2016
Member of the Order of the British Empire, New Year 1991
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
SIMS, Professor Ralph Ernest Harper
For services to sustainable energy research
Professor Ralph Sims is currently Professor Emeritus, Sustainable Energy and Climate Mitigation at Massey University.
Professor Sims first gained national prominence for his work at Massey University in the early 1970s in making and testing biodiesel from animal fats, now a part of New Zealand’s renewable fuel mix. He played a key role in 2001, while on the Board of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA), in establishing New Zealand’s first energy efficiency and renewable strategy. He led one of the expert groups contributing to the writing of ‘New and Emerging Renewable Energy Opportunities in New Zealand’ in 1996 for the Centre for Advanced Engineering and EECA. He chaired the panel of experts that prepared the Royal Society of New Zealand’s 2016 publication ‘Transition to a low-carbon economy for New Zealand’. He chaired the 2021 conference ‘Decarbonising New Zealand: supporting organisations to transition to zero carbon’. From 2006 to 2010 he was seconded to the International Energy Agency. He led the writing of chapters in three assessment reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, including that on ‘Energy Supply’ for the 2007 Assessment Report that won the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2013 Professor Sims was appointed to the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel of the World Bank’s Global Environment Facility for a four-year term.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
SPEARING, Dr Ruth Lilian
For services to haematology
Dr Ruth Spearing has led internationally recognised research into blood cancers for more than 30 years.
Dr Spearing was Consultant Haematologist at Christchurch Hospital from 1989 to 2020 and Clinical Director of the Department of Haematology with Canterbury District Health Board for six years. She was the New Zealand Principal Investigator for international collaborative trials into a wide range of blood cancers including myeloma, chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, acute lymphocytic and myeloid leukaemia in partnership with the United Kingdom Medical Research Council and the Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group. The research resulted in significant increase in survival rates across all these diseases and helped to establish pioneering treatments internationally. For example, results of a previous trial in the 1980s had a 13 percent survival rate in acute myeloid leukaemia for those less than 65 years old whereas the most recent trial results are now around 65 percent. The Ruth Spearing Cancer Research Trust was established in 2008, which supports South Island haematology research. She has worked extensively with adolescents and young adults with cancer and was Canterbury Clinical Lead for the Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Service. She was a member of the National Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Governance Group. Dr Spearing was Chair of the Canterbury Hospitals’ Medical Staff Association from 2003 to 2017.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
WICKHAM, Dr Brian Walter
For services to the dairy industry and statistical genetics
Dr Brian Wickham has pioneered the use of world leading animal genetic and breeding evaluation systems to enhance New Zealand’s dairy industry on the international stage.
Dr Wickham studied agricultural science at Massey University in 1966, later completing a PhD at Cornell University in New York. For 22 years he worked for the Livestock Improvement Corporation, holding several roles including Statistician Geneticist, Information Resource Manager, Research Manager and Deputy General Manager. During his tenure, he led the implementation of New Zealand’s National Dairy Herd Improvement Database, widely regarded as underpinning productivity advancement in the dairy industry. The database continues to play a central role in sustaining animal genetic evaluation systems worldwide. He was Foundation Chair of INTERBULL from 1987 to 2000 and Vice President from 1992 to 2000. He was Acting Secretary General in 2014/2015 of the International Committee for Animal Recording, playing a pivotal role in promoting the genetic improvement of dairy cattle on a global scale. As Chief Executive of the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation from 1998 to 2012, Dr Wickham stabilised Ireland’s cattle breeding programme by collating data from diverse sources to create a world class genetic evaluation system, taking Ireland to the forefront of animal genetic improvement on the international stage. The Federation established the Brian Wickham Travel Bursary Prize in 2022.
To be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
WONG SHE, Dr Richard Brice
For services to burn care
Dr Richard Wong She was the inaugural Clinical Leader of the New Zealand National Burn Service (NBS), which consists of the three Regional Burn Units located at Christchurch Hospital, Hutt Hospital and Waikato Hospital, and the National Burn Centre at Middlemore Hospital, Auckland where he was the Clinical Lead until February 2023.
Dr Wong She has been instrumental in establishing and maintaining the NBS since its launch in 2006. He has collaborated with colleagues, hospital management and government officials to develop a highly respected service which has seen significant improvements in both outcomes and survival. He is active in education as Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Burn Association (ANZBA) Emergency Management of Severe Burns (EMSB) course. He has helped develop and deliver this internationally recognised course numerous times both nationally and internationally. He is active in training with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), including nine years as a supervisor of training for Plastic Surgery at Middlemore Hospital. He has presented papers on burn care internationally and is recognised as the spokesperson for New Zealand burn care. He helped develop the National Health Emergency Response plan for a mass casualty burn disaster. Dr Wong She was the lead burn surgeon responsible for managing the victims of the Whakaari/White Island volcanic eruption on 9 December 2019.