New Year Honours: Distinguished Companions

(Left to right) Don Beaven, Tumu Heuheu and Peter Blanchard.

** The New Year Honours are the nation's way of thanking the men and women whose efforts make New Zealand a better place to live. **

Tumu Te Heuheu

Even the paramount chief of Ngati Tuwharetoa needs a little guidance.

When Tumu Te Heuheu found out he had been nominated for an honour, he asked one of the tribe's kaumatua, Rangihouhiri Asher, if he should accept.

"All he said was that if it's good for Tuwharetoa it's good for you, and if it's good for you it's good for Tuwharetoa."

A week later Mr Asher died.

Mr Te Heuheu, brother-in-law of National MP Georgina Te Heuheu, was honoured for for services to conservation.

He says all he has done is carry on the work of his late father, Sir Hepi Te Heuheu, in conserving the heritage of Tongariro National Park and working to preserve the environment for all cultures.

Since 1991 Mr Te Heuheu has chaired Nga Whenua Rahui, a Government-funded programme to assist in the conservation of indigenous natural resources and last year headed New Zealand's candidature for election to the World Heritage Committee.

He says New Zealand has come of an age where we need to be involved globally in conservation.

"We're too small to be insular. Unfortunately we plan most of the things that happen here but there are many things that are planned without our say so."

He says issues like the foreshore and seabed debate have implications for conservation and can polarise the community, but it is time everyone sat at the same table and talked about the issues.

"Unless we sit together it will always be a difficult task but I think everyone is willing to sit at the same table to work for a common goal."

He heads to the Pacific next year for a meeting with conservation heads from the Pacific nations to start a five-year plan for the region. He will also attend a World Heritage meeting in Durban later in the year, between reviewing the management plan for the Kaimanawa Forest Park and continuing his work on the Waitangi National Trust Board and many other conservation bodies.

Don Beaven

Thirty years ago Professor Don Beaven advised his diabetes patients to rub olive oil into their feet to encourage circulation and help to prevent amputations.

Now, in his spare time, the 80-year-old grows olive trees and remains unrelenting in his fight against diabetes.

Speaking from his home in Christchurch, Professor Beaven, a former Air New Zealand wine judge, said he planned to celebrate his honour by finishing a letter to Cabinet ministers urging them to spend more on diabetes - followed by a long Italian lunch.

"Awareness is growing but there has to be a facing-up to the fact we must invest money. Thirty million dollars a year, $50 million a year might make a difference, but $100 million a year over the next three to five years could probably turn the epidemic around."

When Professor Beaven first started working in diabetes in the late 1950s, it was a "relatively rare and unusual condition" but now 115,000 New Zealanders have type 2 diabetes and the same number again are thought to be undiagnosed.

Professor Beaven, who was foundation chair of medicine at the Christchurch Clinical School of Medicine, helped to set up the Christchurch Diabetes Association and the Christchurch Diabetes Centre to educate people about the disease.

In 2001 he was one of the authors of the PricewaterhouseCoopers report, which estimated that unless more money was spent now, costs could balloon to more than $1 billion a year by 2021.

Professor Beaven, who was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1989 for his services to medicine, was dismayed the Government had taken up only a couple of the recommendations in the report and said it appeared more interested in "short-term fixes", for example spending $200 million on the meningococcal vaccine campaign.

More than 4000 New Zealanders died from diabetes each year, he said. Since 1991 meningococcal disease has killed about 220 people, mainly children.

Education about what was a public health issue was vital as was diagnosis at the pre-diabetes stage because it could be "turned around".

"We are not designed to sit in front of screens all day, do no exercise and eat all that animal fat."

Professor Beaven, who has been a New Zealand representative to World Health Organisation working parties on diabetes, saw his honour as "useful for diabetes" but said there were many more deserving people who went unrecognised.

Peter Blanchard

Justice Peter Blanchard readily admits his books are not light, holiday reading.

With titles like Handbook on Agreements for the Sale and Purchase of Land, they can be "extremely dry", says the Supreme Court judge.

But the books are part of his lifelong work in law, although he is not convinced they had any bearing on his award.

"It's simply a recognition of the next judge in the pecking order who has not yet received an honour. The judges who are senior to me have all been honoured."

He said it was an award to the Judiciary rather than for himself. He was also happy for his family.

But those who went above and beyond their ordinary calling were the true deserving people rather than "people like me where one is being honoured for just doing the job one is paid for".

Justice Blanchard was appointed to the High Court in 1992, the Court of Appeal in 1996 and to the new Supreme Court in 2003.

Before his appointment to the Bench, he was in private practice specialising in commercial and land law. For many years he was a consultant to the Auckland District Law Society's Property and Business Committee.

He is a member of the Council of Law Reporting and has served on the Law Society's Legislation Committee. For two years from 1990 he was a member of the Law Commission and in 1998 he was appointed a member of Her Majesty's Privy Council.

He is married to Judy and has two children - Gregory, a partner in law firm Kensington Swann, and Jacqueline, a photographer.

Joy Drayton

Local body politics have always been a bit like a stage show for Dr Joy Drayton.

As long as there is a willing audience, the actors, or councillors, will play out their parts, she says.

She should know.

At 88 she has been in local body politics for more than 20 years. This honour is not a new one for her - she was made a Companion of the Order of New Zealand in 2000, and says she is astounded she has been nominated again for services to local body politics and education.

"I sort of feel I may be getting a bit beyond it, I think it's quite interesting that somebody has gone to the trouble of nominating me."

Dr Drayton was involved in local bodies in the Bay of Plenty from 1985 to around 1998, is a former principal of Tauranga Girls College and has held positions on the University of Waikato Council as well as being chancellor and pro-chancellor.

Her love however was always local body work.

She said there were councillors and former mayors she woould not name but could only describe as "posers" who, given an audience, would play up to it.

Next year she says she will continue her work with the Elms Foundation, a church organisation, and other community groups she is still involved with but will try to have more time to herself.

Alan Frampton

The fifth person to be made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit is Dr Alan Frampton, the former chairman of the Tatua dairy co-op.