Online exclusive
listener.co.nz celebrates its first birthday today. When we launched a year ago, we did so with an article about the most inspiring New Zealanders – at least in the eyes of our writers. We’re making this listener.co.nz list an annual feature, but this year we looked for the quiet achievers, the rebels and dreamers whose names and faces might not be as familiar as some, but are making a positive impact on their communities. Here goes:
Arts and music
Sam Duckor-Jones: Poet and sculptor
Sam Duckor-Jones decided to think pink and turn an old Greymouth church into a temple of camp. Christened – if that’s the right word – Gloria, the former St Andrews church of Blaketown on the South Island’s West Coast is now the all-pink home to a slowly growing collection of papier mâché parishioners. It’s an audacious concept that has to be seen to be believed. While other churches struggle to attract attendance, Gloria is a pilgrimage-worthy landmark in a class of its own.
Salina Fisher: Composer
Just 31 this year, Fisher works in the classical tradition but according to her website “particularly enjoys collaborating with other artists, including practitioners of taonga pūoro [traditional instruments], Japanese instruments, ceramics, poetry, and film”. Her numerous awards include one for the best composition by a student at the Manhattan School of Music, which she attended on a Fulbright Scholarship, and, back home, the SOUNZ Contemporary Award (twice. Her compositions have been performed around the globe.
Mataaho Collective: Visual artists
Erena Arapere-Baker, Sarah Hudson, Bridget Reweti and Terri Te Tau use traditional Māori techniques to create large-scale artworks. They describe their practice as comprising four brains, eight hands and one author, and they repurpose such unlikely materials as hi-vis orange and grey tubular webbing, or woven reflective truck strops alongside more traditional harakeke. Winners of the My Art Visual Arts Award in the 2022 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate awards, and, spectacularly, the Golden Lion award at this year’s Venice Biennale.
Gemma New: Conductor
Another young achiever, 37-year-old Wellington-raised New is artistic adviser and principal conductor at the NZSO, a role she maintains alongside a busy international career. Enterprising and innovative, as music director of the Hamilton [Canada] Philharmonic she encouraged performances of local compositions. Probably one of the few internationally successful artists in any field who can describe – according to stuff.co.nz - the Michael Fowler Centre as her “spiritual home” and who would name Arya Stark as her favourite Game of Thrones character.
Lissy & Rudi Robinson-Cole: Crochet artists
Finally, crochet gets to take its rightful place among the other arts. Husband and wife Lissy and Rudi’s Wharenui Harikoa/House of Joy is not just a home for crochet, it is a home made of crochet, described by its makers as “a vision woven from dreams and heritage.” Made with the help of many collaborators, it’s a full-scale crocheted house in which Māori traditional arts meet your aunty’s hobby to create a masterpiece that cannot fail to bring a smile to the viewer’s face – all the more welcome because it is not a reaction that many artists bother to aim for.
Books and writing
Bridget Williams: Publisher
Possibly the anti-woke brigade’s nightmare but a powerful force for good, Williams has been an energetic presence in the industry for several decades. First at Port Nicholson Press and more recently with her eponymous imprint, she has produced a steady stream of books that engage directly and forcefully with contemporary issues, notably in the mini-books of the BWB Texts series. At the other end of the pagination spectrum are such monumental volumes as The Book of New Zealand Women / Ko Kui Ma Te Kaupapa and Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History.
Catherine Chidgey: Author
Suddenly, New Zealand authors are getting a lot of international recognition. Chidgey is one and has done so without the boost of a Booker Prize to kick her career along (although she has multiple Ockham Awards to her credit). Despite all publishing wisdom to the contrary, she audaciously published two novels within 12 months: the rural domestic thriller The Axeman’s Carnival and Pet, both to widespread acclaim, including for the former, the unlikely likes of Cosmopolitan’s list of “17 books we can’t wait to read in Summer 2024″.
Emma Wehipeihana: Doctor and author
Wehipeihana took the opportunity afforded by her win at this year’s Ockham Awards (best first book of general nonfiction for There’s a Cure for This) to address politicians in attendance, including PM Christopher Luxon and Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith and remind them that arts and medicine are vital to our survival: “I can tell you without a doubt, it’s the arts and artists who elevate our existence from being sacks of meat circling a dying star to something magical, sometimes with meaning.”
Lee Murray: Author
“Chinese-Pākehā” Murray is a hugely popular author of sci-fi, fantasy and horror – not an Ockhams favourite in other words, but with the success of titles like Teeth of the Wolf and Blood of the Sun, the USA Today best-selling author is probably crying all the way to the crypt. She has won the Bram Stoker Award five times and the Sir Julies Vogel Award 12 times. Expect to see her emerge from the critical shadows, thanks to the likes of a PM’s Award for Literature which she received last year, the first writer of Chinese heritage to do so.
Vincent O’Malley: Author
The prolific author and Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi is best known for his magisterial reassessments of the NZ Wars, elaborated in a series of books including The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800-200 and The New Zealand Wars/Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa. Also has a provocative Twitter presence, on which he relates the events of today to their foundations in the past, providing helpful insights for those who still struggle to see the ongoing effects of colonialism.
Built Environment
Alex Cassels: Property developer
The Wellington property developer believes the current emergency housing model is broken and no one will fix it. Instead, through his Wellington Management Group, he proposes an alternative in the form of transitional housing – a shift that aligns with current government policy and the aims of Wellington City Mission. Transitional housing, as the name suggests, provides a secure home for people while more permanent solutions are sought.
Sheppard & Rout: Architects
Nearly half a century old, the Christchurch firm is responsible for many of the buildings in the “new look” Ōtautahi and thus will have a major impact on the look of the post-quakes city that should last for at least another half a century. Founded by the late Jonty Rout and David Sheppard, the firm is responsible for thousands of public and private buildings, often distinguished by sleek, clear lines and an energetic engagement with the natural environment.
Nicholas Dalton: Toa Architects
Ever since he reconceived his family home in crayon at the age of 3, Dalton has been devoted to making architecture that is more relevant to the people who inhabit it. He is described as “making Auckland look more like Tāmaki Makaurau”, thanks to the likes of the Te Mahurehure Cultural Marae he designed in Auckland’s Pt Chevalier, and he is probably the only architect whose website profile picture features him performing a pukana.
Rau Hoskins: Architect
DesignTRIBE architects remains true to its 30-year-old founding kaupapa to provide Māori and wider community groups with access to high-quality architectural services. As well as his contemporary focus, Hoskins has researched traditional Māori building techniques which inform the firm’s work today. Its diverse projects include public spaces in Auckland’s Viaduct Basin, the Pathways care facility for people with brain injuries in Papakura, Auckland and a wananga precinct at Whakarewarewa’s New Zealand Māori Arts & Crafts Institute.
Cohaus: Housing community
An outlier that turns traditional notions of home ownerships on its head, this collective, which is now home to some 20 families, induced mild shock in parts of the architecture community with its alternative approach. Cohaus architects Thom Gill and Helle Westergaard helped drive the project, which is described as “a community of people living in a 20-unit housing development in Grey Lynn, Auckland.” It was a battle all the way to bring it to fruition. The result: no longer is it necessary to go to the city’s semi-rural fringes to enjoy a home with shared facilities and without an emphasis on capital gains.
Business and finance
Rod Duke: Briscoes owner
The department store that’s notorious for always being in sale mode doesn’t often get credit for doing what it does so well. That it has survived and flourished while other large retailers struggle or go out of business is due to the efforts of CEO and majority owner Duke. According to businessdesk.co.nz he “defies economic gravity”. His philosophy is summed up in the hard-nosed motto: “To make a living in this country you really have to be number one.”
John Bougen: Regional booster
When Dress Smart co-founder Bougen retired to Reefton nine years ago, long-standing residents would have had little idea how much attention he would bring to their quiet little corner of the West Coast. Bougen has been extolling the place’s virtues to anyone who will listen ever since. His efforts have recently been buoyed by news that Reefton may have a mining future as colourful as its mining past thanks to copious amounts of valuable mineral antimony in the ground. The rare metal is a crucial component in many modern electronic products.
Janine and Alan Grainger: Entrepreneurs
You too can get into the cryptocurrency market, thanks to the co-founders of Easy Crypto. It’s been described as “like Sharesies for Bitcoin” and is founded on the belief that anyone should be able to get into the financial way of the future. Simply tell the website or app how much you want to invest, in real New Zealand money, see it put into crypto and follow its progress online. Based here, Easy Crypto has spread to Australia and South Africa and allows investors to trade in more than 160 cryptocurrencies.
Cecilia Robinson: Entrepreneur
Named Innovator of the Year in the 2024 New Zealander of the Year awards - an accolade to add to an already impressive catalogue of them - the unstoppable, Swedish-born Robinson has been involved in an unusually diverse number of start-ups, including the much-imitated eat-at-home service My Food Bag, Au Pair Link, which connects would-be au pairs with families (Robinson is a former nanny), and, most recently, Tend Health, a digital healthcare provider.
Barry Coates: Ethical investor
A Masters in Management from Yale University, majoring in finance, and time as a corporate strategy consultant in the US don’t sound like the likeliest preliminary to a career in sustainable investment. But that’s where Coates first learnt some of the skills he now devotes to leading Mindful Money, an independent charity he founded with the aim of “making money a force for good”. Time as a Green MP and promoting fair trade helped refine his focus.
Campaigners and advocates
Anonymous
Among the most active philanthropists in the country, donors who would prefer to remain nameless are part of the charitable landscape, indispensable and often overlooked – which is just the way they like it. They pour millions into good works, unloved causes and individual passions. Without the anonymous donor, many worthy causes would struggle to stay alive. (They also have the security of knowing if their charity turns out to be dodgy their name won’t be tainted by scandal.)
Make it 16: Electoral reformers
Two years ago, the Supreme Court found that withholding the right to vote from people aged 16 to 18 was a form of age discrimination. The government of the time began moves to lower the voting age. The current government? Not so keen. But Make It 16 continues to advocate energetically for the change, its support bolstered perhaps by the notion that the teenagers of today will likely have more of a mess to clean up in future than those of days gone by.
Lady Tureiti Moxon: Māori wellbeing advocate
An inspirational figure if ever there was one, the managing director of Te Kōhao Health, perhaps best described as a wellbeing provider, is herself aptly described on the 100 Māori Leaders website as “the definition of a transformational servant leader.” As a lawyer, community leader and politician, she is actively at the forefront of efforts to improve Māori wellbeing and maintain the status of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Louise Duffy: End-of-life activist
When Duffy’s 78-year-old mother Barbie suffered a serious medical episode that left her with no mobility and limited comprehension, her advanced care plan wishes were ignored and she was kept alive. Barbie declined food and finally water and 58 long days later, she got what she wanted, death. Duffy launched a campaign last year, known as Barbie’s Bill, to ask that the House of Representatives implement a national register for standardised medical advance directives and mandate that those directives are followed. A select committee heard submissions on the proposal in May.
Patrick Snedden: All rounder
His extensive service to the community is wide-ranging, to put it mildly: Chairman of the Auckland District Health Board (twice), director of Ports of Auckland, founding director of Mai FM, the first commercial Māori radio station, economic adviser to Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei (1982-2008) and author, Pakeha and the Treaty: Why It’s Our Treaty Too. Also arrested at the Bastion Point protest in 1978.
Education
Peter O’Connor & Selina Tusitala-Marsh: Arts educators
As university’s adapt to changing times and philosophies – and educational requirements - the establishment of Auckland University’s ground-breaking Centre for Arts and Social Transformation (founding patron: Bob Dylan) in 2020 would seem to show one way forward. Its co-directors - educationalist O’Connor and poet Marsh - lead a “team of 17 artists and researchers who are creating rich resources in art education and researching their effects, sometimes after calamitous events all around the world.”
Dame Anne Salmond: Anthropologist and author
The prolific Salmond has been recording and coming to grips with the relations between Pākehā and Māori since her first exposure to Māori culture as a girl in Gisborne. Motivated always by a sense of driving curiosity and a scrupulousness in using language to record the reality of both cultures, each for the benefit of the other, her work has been justly acclaimed around the world and has contributed enormously to the way in which the residents of Aotearoa New Zealand understand each other. More recently she has put her efforts into hands-on environmental activities.
Gail Gillon: Literacy educator
The teaching of reading is one of the most reliable political footballs we have. With law and order and race, it’s an easy button to push to get uninformed votes. On the other hand, there is the likes of Gillon, developer of a structured literacy programme which, according to a research paper published in the international scientific journal Frontiers in Education in May, shows outstanding results in early literacy education across all cultural groups and allows children with greater learning needs to catch up with their fellows.
Ian Hunter: AI educator
Whatever we think of AI – and many of us will admit to trying very hard not to think of it at all – it is here, and here to stay. Hunter has been researching ways to improve university students’ writing since the 1990s. His Writers Toolbox uses new technology to build on his previous work and improve what he sees as poor standards. It teaches the familiar techniques of good writing but “Artificial Intelligence built into the tool reads student work and provides individualised feedback according to the student’s age and ability level.”
Mina Pomare-Peita: School principal
In a region where schools struggle to keep pupils and teachers, Pomare-Peita has had a transformative effect. The tumuaki of Te Kura Taumata O Panguru, the remote tiny Northland settlement, she received the 2023 NEiTA [National Excellence in Teaching Awards] Founders’ Principals Award for Leadership. Principal for nearly three decades, she has devoted herself to the nearly all-Māori roll, inspired by a commitment to alternative methods of teaching to address the defects of a system she recognised from an early age was unfair.
Environment
Nicola McDonald: Environmental hero
Dauntingly energetic, the 2024 New Zealand Environmental Hero of the Year’s achievements encompass several areas of concern. Among other things, according to the New Zealander of the Year website, she “led the deployment of the world’s largest shellfish bed restoration (150 tonnes of mussels) in Te Moananui-ā-Toi/The Hauraki Gulf, has participated in and planted more than 350,000 trees in the Mahurangi to combat the impacts of climate change, and is a co-researcher on mātauranga Māori methods to use natural fibres replacing plastic ropes used for mussel spat.”
Royalburn Station: Ethical farming
If regenerative, sustainable, ethical farming is a real possibility, the work done here will have shown the way. Fifth-generation farmer Carlos Bagrie and chef Nadia Lim have walked the walk since taking over the high-country station near Queenstown, which has been farmed since the late-19th century. The couple’s paddock-to-plate philosophy has merged with their environmental commitment to create an ethical enterprise that still makes a profit.
Stu Muir: Dairy farmer
Farmers don’t come in for a lot of praise for their environmental activities but Muir, fifth-generation Waikato dairy farmer – and crown appointee to the Waikato River Authority – is one of an increasing number of exceptions. His efforts – with those of a small army of helpers – to clean up a stream on his property have seen native fish and birds return to the area. He’s even built a boardwalk so that others can enjoy the results of his labours.
Ceisha Poirot: Environmental Management
Antarctica New Zealand’s GM Policy, Environment and Safety was appointed to a major leadership role as the new chair of the Committee for Environmental Protection in June. The committee provides advice to the parties to the Antarctic Treaty on environmental issues affecting the region and protecting its ecosystem, increasingly endangered by the multiple effects of global warming.
James Shaw: Busy body
Now he’s out of Parliament perhaps Shaw can do more for his environmental passions than he could when wrangling recalcitrant colleagues and barely tolerating ignorant opponents. Instead of one big job he now has four big jobs: operating partner at infrastructure management firm Morrison & Co, a director at investment management company Capital Management, a member of Air New Zealand’s sustainability advisory panel, and a board member of the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Food
Kia Kanuta: Chef
The effects of Covid and Uber Eats on dining out are still being felt but there remains a hearty appetite for the new and excellent. After a more than usually rough start in life, one-time RSA dishwasher Kanuta has risen to the culinary heights. He is typical of a new breed of inventive chefs, creating something entirely fresh and exciting at Auckland’s Ada restaurant. Named Auckland’s most Outstanding Chef at the 2024 Lewisham Awards.
Nick Loosley: Food campaigner
Determined to do something about the no-brainer relationship between the amount of food that is wasted and the number of people who don’t have enough to eat, Loosley, who has a master’s degree in green economics, came up with the idea of Everybody Eats, which aims to “reduce food waste, food poverty and social isolation” with its pay-as-you-go restaurants, serving mostly donated and totally delicious food.
Tony Astle: Legend
After the sudden and much-lamented closure of his culinary landmark Antoine’s, just shy of its 50th birthday, Astle has been as energetic as ever, although mostly behind the scenes as mentor and inspiration. He is believed to be about to launch a range of eat-at-home products based around the restaurant’s popular dishes. If it includes his Grand Marnier and white chocolate roulade with berries and cognac macerated orange salad, there shouldn’t be too many complaints.
Ming Poon: Chef
Despite the quality of the produce in which it abounds, Northland is, to put it mildly, not over-endowed with quality eating options, but it can boast one of the country’s best restaurants. At Māha, tucked away in a former army barracks surrounded by a lush subtropical garden at one end of Kerikeri, husband and wife Ming Poon (chef) and Diane Langman (front of house) have created a unique and welcoming temple of New Zealand-Asian fusion gastronomy. Their sense of dedication is palpable in every aspect of the experience.
Sean Yarbrough: Taco guy
Feel-good story of the year is the one about the little taco stand that could. At Broke Boy Taco, Yarbrough’s shopfront taco joint in Auckland’s Mt Albert, queues frequently reach out of the store and along the street. All this despite a past marked by opiate addiction, poverty, homelessness and alcoholism. The future looked bleak for the Kentucky native, who followed his fiancée to New Zealand, hit rock bottom, got sober and started making tacos that people are willing to go to great lengths for. In his words: “A dream come true is an understatement.”
Science
Sir Peter Hunter: Bioengineer
Hunter established the Auckland Bioengineering Institute and later the Physiome Project. His work aims to “create a digital twin that mirrors the complexity of human physiology”, one of the most ambitious projects in all of science. The self-effacing Auckland University professor received a knighthood in this year’s King’s Birthday honours and you can be confident he will have made sure the credit has been shared with the large number of colleagues who have been involved in his pioneering work over the years.
Dame Jane Harding: Neonatal researcher
Recipient of the Rutherford Medal, the Royal Society’s top honour, Harding’s remarkable work at the University of Auckland and the Liggins Institute has included developing “a simple treatment for low blood sugar in babies, [showing] that a routine-therapy was actually causing brain damage in premature babies, and [providing] some of the first evidence that the health and treatment of a pregnant woman not only influences her baby’s growth, but also her baby’s disease risk as an adult.”
Juliet Gerrard: Outgoing chief science adviser to the PM
During her recently completed six-year tenure, the personable, English-born biochemist and University of Auckland professor played a large part in advising the government on our Covid response and oversaw important reports on AI in healthcare, gangs, food waste, ocean conservation, young people and media literacy in a digital age, and many other potentially contentious political issues that benefited from a scientific approach that was also accessible to the public.
Rod Carr: Climate Change Commission chair
At times it must have felt like the most thankless of tasks, but Carr has persevered in his efforts to make the government and the rest of the country take climate change seriously, filling his mandate “to provide independent, evidence-based advice to the government of the day.” The supremely competent Carr, who has been chair since the commission’s inception, will retire when his term ends this year.
Jemma Geoghegan: Virologist
If recent years have taught us anything it’s that we need to take viruses seriously. That’s no news to Otago University Professor Geoghegan (pronounced Gee-gan) for whom there is no such thing as too much virus information. In her words, “My research involves using metagenomics to reveal the diversity, structure and evolution of the virosphere; examining the evolution of major viral infections; and developing new analytical and computational approaches to analyse aspects of the virus evolution.” We’re feeling better already.
Sport
Chris Wood: Footballer
The New Zealand team captain has been having a standout season for his English premier league club Nottingham Forest. Sports writers raved about his spectacular equaliser header against Crystal Place earlier this year and he’s earned public praise from team manager Espirito Santo, who said of his recent performance: “He is in a good moment not only scoring goals, but having good involvement in the team.”
Luna Lu: Chess champion
There aren’t many sports where you can make a mark at 10 and still be competing and winning decades later. Chess prodigy Lu won two medals at last year’s Asian Youth Chess Championships in Dubai, including the Asian Youth Girls Under 10 Rapid Championship and there’s no telling where her skill will take her. Lu, whose other enthusiasm includes the piano and maths, had only been playing the game for two years at the time of her win.
Ryan Fox: Golfer
The New Zealand Olympian and – oh, all right – son of All Black Grant Fox – won his maiden title at the 2019 ISPS Handa World Super 6 Perth. In contrast to the steely-eyed no-fun-to-be-had-here attitude of many in his profession, Fox maintains a refreshing sense of enjoyment as part of his strategy, saying before his second Augusta Masters: “The biggest thing actually is to go out there and try to have some fun.”
Liam Malone: Paralympian
Since retiring from competitive athletics, the two-time Paralympics gold-medal winning sprinter has moved into the field of AI, joining a start-up with the only slightly dystopian name Soul Machines. The company specialises in building – to possibly oversimplify – robot shop assistants using biological AI technology.
Lisa Carrington: Kayaker
This year’s Olympics may change things, but right now Carrington is the first Māori woman to win Olympic gold and our most successful Olympian ever, with five gold medals won over three Games. You could say she’s an example of “if you do succeed try, try and try again”. Also in her trophy room: 10 world championships and three Hallberg Awards for Sportswoman of the Year. And – she has a street named after her in Ōhope.