December 31, 2021
Rawiri Paratene awarded Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit
Well-known actor Peter David Broughton, better known as Rawiri Paratene has been awarded the Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2022 New Year’s Honours.
Paratene says” It’s a great honour” but with a chuckle he suggests it shouldn’t be an honour from the Queen but from the Republic of Aotearoa. All the same he is honoured.
His favourite work he says has to be with the Globe in London which he joined in 2014, the only non-British member and over a two-year world tour, performed Hamlet in 205 countries.
He still keeps in touch with friends there. He also recalls fondly the film The Insatiable Moon which won him Best Actor in the 2011 Aotearoa Film & Television Awards and of course Whale Rider.
It was the film Whale Rider which brought Paratene international fame but for over 50 years he’s appeared on New Zealand screens from a presenter on Playschool, to iconic Kiwiana film Footrot Flats, the soap Shortland Street and many theatre productions.
At the New York Premier of The Whale Rider with Keisha Catle-Hughes and Cliff Curtis. GettyImages
His amazing career was disrupted with a series of strokes leaving him with aphasia, which affects speech. At the beginning of this year Paratene performed in what he called his swan song, “Peter Paka Paratene”, directed by Tainui Tukiwaho at the Te Pou Theatre in Auckland and the Kia Mau Festival.
This is not the first honour he was been awarded having already being made an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit in 2013, winning The Robert Burns Fellowship in 1983 and winner of the Mobil Radio Awards for ‘Proper Channels’ Radio Play in both production and writing. In 1976 he won the Māori Writers Award.
Rawiri Paratene plays Exester in Henry V. Photo supplied
Born in the Hokianga, Paratene grew up in the south Auckland suburb of Otara as Peter Broughton, and took Rawiri Paratene, the Māori version of his name for a play. It has stuck. In the 1970’s he was a member of Ngā Tamatoa, an activist group which fought for Māori rights, land, language and culture. His passion for Māori is shared with his stand on conservation.After 50 years in the industry Paratene says he has done enough. Now he has set his sights on a Masters’ degree at the University of Auckland, one paper at a time.
Rawiri Paratene