New dame’s big surprise
Newly appointed Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit Joan Withers kept her recognition secret and ditched initial celebrations with immediate family for a pre-planned overseas work trip.
Withers told Stuff she felt “overwhelmed”, and said it was “hard to know how to react because I haven’t told absolutely anyone, not even my husband, and I don’t intend to do that – I’m just going to let people find out”.
The “humbled” recipient said “the overwhelming thing is that if someone from my background can get an award like this, then I hope it’s a signal to a lot of other people who come from less than privileged backgrounds”.
“We came from the north of England, we emigrated when I was 5 nearly 6 ... If my parents hadn’t made the decision to emigrate, there’s just no way this would ever happen.”
Withers reflected on her hard-working parents, who have now passed, and imagined how her mum have would have reacted to the news. “She would have dined out on it – she was a bit of a typical woman of that generation” and possibly “very vocal in the retirement home”.
The new dame has escaped the at-home celebrations for a pre-planned work trip overseas, and sadly missed the real-time reaction of husband Brian, but was “very much looking forward to the fabulous meal I know he will cook for me when I get back”.
Withers was once the chief executive of Fairfax New Zealand and the Radio Network of New Zealand, along with being a director and chairperson of numerous companies like The Warehouse Group, Auckland International Airport and TVNZ.
She won the Women of Influence Supreme Award, Deloitte Management Award and Chairperson of the Year in 2015.
Her appointment as a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit was for her services to business, governance and women.
“I feel incredibly humbled and grateful, and just hoping that it is some sort of motivation to kids today, many of whom are living in very difficult circumstances,” she said.
Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck and medical professor Peter Hunter, MNZM, are among those recognised in this year’s King’s Birthday Honours.
Hunter is the co-founder and director of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, and has been appointed Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to medical science.
The professor said he felt “astonished” to receive this type of recognition, and wasn’t expecting it “in my wildest dreams”.
“It’s a combination of delighted and humbled, but basically astonished .... The only way I can reconcile it is that it’s the large number of people who have contributed to what we’re doing.”
Beck has also been appointed Knight Companion for his services to the aerospace industry, business and education. Having been the chief executive of Rocket Lab since 2006, he has grown the company into a global organisation that develops and launches advanced rockets, satellites and spacecraft.
In June 2022, Rocket Lab launched a miniaturised satellite to the Moon – as part of a pathfinding mission to support a Nasa programme that aims to put the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon.
Beck was the driving force behind a Technology Safeguards Agreement between New Zealand and the United States, enabling the use and secure management of sensitive US space launch and satellite technology in New Zealand.
Theresa Gattung, CNZM, has been appointed Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to women, governance and philanthropy.
She is one of New Zealand's most wellknown and successful businesspeople, and became the country’s youngest female chief executive of Telecom at 37.
Her awards and honours include being inducted into the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame in 2023 and the RNZSPCA Hall of Fame in 2019. She won the Westpac Women of Influence Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018, a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017, and was appointed Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2015.
For 2024, the 176 recipients also include broadcaster Rachel Smalley, who has been appointed Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to broadcasting and health advocacy.
Wānaka snow legend Mary Lee now has the same title as husband John after being appointed Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to snow sports and tourism.
The only New Zealander to have won the Wimbledon Junior title, in 1975, Chris Lewis, has been made Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to tennis.
Lewis was the second New Zealander to ever make it to a Wimbledon final in 1983 before later co-founding the Brymer Lewis Tennis Academy in California in 2017 – one of the top tennis academies in the US. He won the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame award in 1996, and New Zealand Sportsman of the Year in 1983.
Former Queenstown Lakes District mayor Jim Boult, ONZM, has been appointed Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to local government, tourism and the community. He was appointed Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2015.
Former Silver Ferns captain (from 2005 to 2007) Adine Wilson has been appointed Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to netball.
The woman who led Ngāi Tahu through a tumultuous 12 years, overseeing a more than doubling of the iwi’s assets while steering its 80,000 members through post-earthquake recovery, the mosque attacks and the Covid-19 pandemic, has received a second King’s Birthday honour.
Arihia Bennett (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Porou, Ngapuhi) has been made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori, governance and the community. She was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2008.
Bennett, who resigned in March as the longest-serving and first female chief executive of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, took up the position in 2012.
Before that she was chief executive of He Oranga Pounamu, the iwi’s health and social services arm, managed Ō Tāpara Lodge in Piopiotahi (Milford Sound) for the Ngāi Tahu Māori Trust Board in the early 1990s, was a director of Ngāi Tahu Development Corporation from 1999 to 2002, and chairperson until 2005.
But her first love, and a lens she applies to her work to this day, was social work.
Bennett spent the first decade of her career in residential social work. She said she was still anchored in “working alongside, enabling, building families and working from the community point of view”.
During her years in the job, Ngāi Tahu’s investments grew from about $700 million to just under $1.8 billion, which she attributed to “a huge team” covering commercial elements, the growth and development of Papatipu Rūnanga infrastructure, and building regional capability to enhance self-determination.
Ngāi Tahu’s assets, which have increased tenfold since it reached a treaty settlement in 1998, include forestry, property, tourism, seafood and farming.
Bennett grew up at Tuahiwi, north of Christchurch, the genealogical heartland for Ngāi Tahu whānui (descendants), where she still lives, surrounded by whānau.
“I know the weaving of relationships and papatipu, so while it was a challenge, it was also something I wasn't afraid of it. I think it's probably why I lasted a long time.”
The close to $1b invested in community tribal development since settlement tended to be overlooked for its social and financial impact, Bennett said.
She spent time at postgraduate business school INSEAD in France and Singapore to build up her commercial acumen, but rejected the idea that her social work and community development background was any less strategic.
In 2021, Bennett was appointed chairperson of Kāpuia, the Ministerial Advisory Group to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch terrorist attacks. She describes the role as her most challenging.
“It is entirely emotional ... coming together frequently, we could see that pain.”
Bennett still sits on multiple boards and advisory groups, including the Pūhara Mana Tangata Māori advisory panel to the Ombudsman’s Office, and the University Advisory Group.