72 of 88 go for titles
The Government has announced 72 of 88 recipients of top honours have chosen to go with the titular version. So some of the more well known new knights and dames are:
- Sir Lloyd Geering
- Sir Ralph Ngatata Love
- Sir Russell Coutts
- Sir Ed Durie
- Sir Eion Edgar
- Sir Wira Gardiner
- Sir Douglas Kidd
- Sir Colin Meads
- Sir Ralph Norris
- Sir Peter Snell
- Sir Archie Taiaroa
- Sir Tumu te Heuheu
- Sir Stephen Tindall
- Dame Lynley Dodd
- Dame Lois Muir
- Dame Claudia Orange
- Dame Jennifer Shipley
- Dame Sukhi Turner
- Dame Margaret Clark
As I have blogged previously I am a fan of titles for our top honours. It makes them meaningful, and is in the same traditions as academia where top scholars are titled Doctor if they get a PhD and top acadamics are titled Professor if they are appointed to a Chair.
One additional change I would have liked (as does Dean Knight who has blogged extensively on this) the Government to have done, is to allow the recipients to choose to have their title in English or Maori (both being official languages. The Maori versions are Tā and Kahurangi and allowing those as options would make the system uniquely New Zealand combining both our British and Maori heritage.
I stress I do not advocate replacing the English titles with the Maori ones. It is about allowing the recipient to choose their preferred title. I see that as a win-win and am surprised the Government did not go down that track. I know the Maori Party were (not surprisingly) supportive as Dean and I talked to them about the idea.
Such an option would have probably seen quite a few of the 14 who did not move to the titular honour, do so.