December 30, 2023
Tourism leader Pania Tyson-Nathan made Dame in New Year Honours List
Tourism leader Pania Tyson-Nathan made Dame in New Year Honours List
The chair of New Zealand Māori Tourism, Dale Stephens, says the organisation’s long serving chief executive Pania Tyson-Nathan lives and breathes kaupapa around bettering the world for Māori.
Ms Tyson-Nathan, from Rongomaiwahine, has been made a Dame of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year’s Honour’s list, for services to Māori and business.
As chief executive of the organisation since 2008 she has worked to highlight the unique opportunity that a Māori experience offers visitors domestically and internationally.
Mr Stephens says the accolade is long overdue, but she is someone who works to push other people forward and not herself.
Unlike other tourism peak bodies which focus on marketing, New Zealand Māori Tourism has developed as a capacity-building organisation working to raise the skills and abilities of operators,
Over the past 15 years the sector has quadrupled from about $500 million to almost $2 billion, despite the setback of the Covid pandemic, and shed its image as being about haka, hongi and hangi.
Mr Stephens says globally here has been a growth in experiential tourism, which Māori operators was ideally placed to cater to.
It’s also closely linked to trade, and Ms Tyson-Nathan has served on the Ministerial Advisory Group on Trade and the Māori Economic Development Board.
She is currently on the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Tourism Council, the Advisory Panel Defence Policy Review, and the Rongomaiwahine Iwi Trust.
She was awarded the Māori Woman Business Leader award by the University of Auckland in 2018 and inducted into the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame in 2022.
Tohunga whakairo Clive Fugill, a long-serving carving lecturer at the New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute in Rotorua, has been made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori art.
Mr Fugill, from Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāti Rangiwewehi, joined the institute in its inaugural class in 1967 under Hone Taiapa.
He has designed, adorned or restored structures around the country, including many marae and as a key contributor to the stage for Te Matatini National Kapa Haka Festival, Te Māhau, the largest Māori carved structure in existence.
In 2022 Mr Fugill was honoured at the Ngā Tohu Toi Awards in Tauranga for transforming the visual experience of Māori.
He is also the author of a book on traditional carving tools and methods, Te Toki me Te Whao, the first such book by an acknowledged tohunga whakairo.
West Auckland community stalwart Ereti Taetuha Brown (Letty) Brown QSM was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori and early childhood education.
Ms Brown, from Te Whānau-ā-Apanui and Ngāti Porou, has worked in her community since the 1960s in such areas as pre-school education, marae governance, supporting at risk youth, and the Kohanga Reo movement.
In 2000, she set up a licensed Te Reo Māori Early Childhood Education centre, Te Puna Reo o Manawanui, under the Ministry of Education as one of the first total immersion Te Reo Māori ECE centres in New Zealand.
She has been involved in the growth and development of puna reo and in 2022 Nga Puna Reo o Aotearoa, a national collective of the 59 puna reo centres was established.
She has been recognised with an Honorary Doctorate by Te Whare Wananga o Wairaka (UNITEC) in 2016 and Life Membership of the Māori Women’s Welfare League (MWWL) in 2017. In the 1960s, she was a founding member of the MWWL Te Atatu Branch.
Ms Brown helped established the West Auckland kapahaka group Manutaki and Hoani Waititi Marae.
Havelock North accountant Anthony Gray was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to accounting and Māori business.
Mr Gray’s public sector career included initiating major changes in financial management in the Department of Lands and Survey and Department of Internal Affairs, and being involved in the establishment of several State-Owned Enterprises.
He was chief financial officer and director of investment for TVNZ from 1986 to 1998.
He helped establish and was CFO of Mighty River Power from 1999 to 2006, and worked for Te Runanga o Ngāi Tahu in 2008 before becoming CFO of Hastings District Council until his retiriment in 2015, he contributed to major infrastructure activities and economic development.
Mr Gray has taken on directorships including chairing Ngāti Pukenga Investments, Nga Hua o Ngāti Pukenga, Te Turapa Wai Ariki and Tatau Tatau o Te Wairoa Commercial, among other companies.
Professional director Tania Simpson from Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngā Puhi, and Ngāi Tahu was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to governance and Māori.
Throughout her career Ms Simpson has focused on projects and roles aimed at improving outcomes for Māori, iwi development and recognising Māori values within business.
She is currently a director of Auckland International Airport, Meridian Energy and Tainui Group Holdings.
She has chaired the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge since 2016, which has funded several innovation projects and development of a business model to allow for the creation of small whānau-owned aquaculture farms. She has been a member of the governance group for the Deep South National Science Challenge since 2014. She has been deputy chair of Waitangi National Trust since 2017 and a member of the Waitangi Tribunal since 2008.
Ms Simpson was the first Māori director and a deputy chair of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand between 2014 and 2022.