Michael Barnett got involved with everything from mixing with the titans of industry to dealing with the ports and high-profile transport issues during his time as chief executive of the Auckland Business Chamber from 1988 to this year.
But, as he notes with a laugh, he was also responsible for keeping the annual Santa Parade going over a career that could certainly never be described as hum-drum or ordinary. Barnett was succeeded as head of the Chamber by NBR columnist and former National Party leader Simon Bridges mid-way through 2022, and now finishes the year with a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business.
Former Auckland Chamber head Michael Barnett.
The former Chamber head retains a high media profile, and shocked AM hosts Ryan Bridge and Melissa Chan-Green in December when, on one of his many appearances on one of the programme’s panels, he commended Stuart Nash and Grant Robertson for their recognition of the mental health needs of small businesses and employers. They had chipped in to a Chamber and EMA initiative called Firststeps.nz, containing all sorts of resources for Auckland business owners.
Mental health is a cause Barnett has championed with vigour in his late career, having lost a son to suicide. And despite retiring, he remains involved in Firststeps.
“The response has been so huge. We’ve gone national with it, and using visits to the website as a measure, we’ve probably had over 250,000 visitors over the last 12 months and close on 300,000 resources downloaded. What that says to me is we’ve regularised the conversation around mental health.
“In the past, if you were a chief executive and said ‘I have a mental health issue’ , the board would probably have looked sideways at you. But understanding stress, anxiety and frustration, and what causes it, means we can have a conversation about it and be better leaders and better chief executives, and so for the last couple of years it’s something I’ve been passionate about.”
Barnett was also a proponent of youth employment initiatives, helping place thousands of young people and migrants into work and curating workshops to help employers overcome bias in the recruitment process. He partnered with the Ministry of Social Development to launch CadetMax in 2009, a programme which has helped some 3000 disadvantaged young people into jobs. His work has included such things as programmes that help youth gain their drivers licenses, removing that barrier to employment, and chairing the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust from 2001 to 2019.
Barnett says ending the year with an honour has been a nice surprise after year of grappling with the inevitable mourning over a loss of status and connection in leaving a job he's held for over 30 years – even while acknowledging rebalancing in the new phase of life is part of the process.
Asked whether business gets its due on honours lists, Barnett says sometimes business does not help its own cause.
“If I have a look at what has saved our economy over the last two or three years it has been our exporters, those people who have gone offshore and built markets and all of that … and it takes time. I think the voice of business is often there to complain about regulation or policy but celebrating what we do and story-telling about why it’s important is something we often don’t do well enough.”
Mainstream acknowledgement for the environment
Dr Jan Wright says she is “surprised” to receive the award of Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the State and the environment, primarily because she’s been five years out of the job she held for a decade – that of Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.
Dr Wright is one of six New Zealanders to receive the highest honour in the New Year Honours 2023 list, joining two other Dames – Miranda Harcourt (for services to the screen industry and theatre) and Professor Farah Palmer (sports, particularly rugby) and three Knights, Dr Ashley Bloomfield (public health), Markus Dunajtschik (philanthropy) and Dr Haare Mahanga Te Wehinga Williams (Māori, literature and education).
For commissioner for the environment Dr Jan Wright.
Wright's award citation commends her methodical approach, robust independent advice, and skilful public communication skills at a time in which matters about the environment were gaining traction. Fracking, agricultural emissions and 1080 remain highly contentious issues but Wright’s work on them provided “an accessible overview of the science and provided policy options to parliamentarians.”
Previously Chair of Land Transport New Zealand and Transfund New Zealand, and a board member at Transit New Zealand, ACC, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority and the Independent Biotechnology Advisory Council, Wright received a Companion of the Royal Society of New Zealand award in 2015 New Zealand and a Commemoration Medal in 1990.
She says despite being “out of the blue”, the 2023 damehood is cause for happiness because one of her aims was always to bring the environment into the mainstream – “and in some ways this does put environment into the mainstream – there’s nothing more mainstream than this.”
Reflecting on whether the business mainstream has adopted the types of ideas promulgated by the Environment Commissioner, Wright says it’s not always about the environment and the economy “at each other’s throats”. Although these days she’s not that keen to delve back into the area of 1080, one of the key issues she tackled, she says it was one example that demonstrated how business and the environment could find a common goal – eradicating bovine tuberculosis – with the outcome an economic as well as environmental win.
“I did always in the job try not to preach to the converted, and spend time with farmers and businesspeople and see things from their point of view, that was important thing for me … you do need to understand what things look like from a business perspective generally and when things do come down in terms of a heap of regulations and things become very fraught – that’s not very helpful.”
Wright says a fundamental problem is that in economics, the environment is talked about as an externality, when it should be incorporated into the heart of economic decision making, which would aid in formulating things like carbon pricing: “In the big picture, economies come and go – while there’s only one planet.”
Wright is now the chair the board of Te Manahuna Aoraki Project, aiming to remove predators across Mt Cook National Park and the upper Mackenzie Basin to the crest of the Southern Alps/Kā Tiritiri o te Moana, some 310,000 hectares incorporating 14 high country stations. The project is partly DOC and partly private philanthropic money and uses modern digital technology in its eradication efforts.
Inspiring tale of success
A well-known business leader to become an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2023 is Khoa Dang Pham, known to most as Mitchell Pham, one of the prime movers of the country’s IT sector over three decades.
IT entrepreneur and until NZTech deputy chair, Mitchell Pham.
Pham, who just recently stepped down as chair of industry body NZTech (he remains deputy chair), is being awarded for his services to the technology sector and New Zealand-Asia relations.
His story is well-known, and inspiring. A refugee who left Vietnam with his family in the 1980s, he survived several near-death experiences crossing the South China Sea and two perilous years in four refugee camps in Indonesia before resettling in New Zealand. After being educated, Pham went on to become a highly decorated entrepreneur, co-founding Augen Software (now CodeHQ) which operates across New Zealand and Vietnam, while also championing sector success in Asia by co-founding the Kiwi Connection Tech Hub. He’s also been involved launching other innovations across digital health, education, agriculture and insurance, is part of the New Zealand ASEAN Business Alliance, and has contributed to the government’s Digital Strategy.
Despite these many accolades and achievements, Pham told NBR when he first received the email telling him about his award he thought it was a hoax.
“I really had to read it multiple times and scrutinised the authenticity of the sender,” he says. “For a former refugee/stateless person who came to this country as a teenager, this honour means personally to me beyond what words can describe.
"However, [it] is less about me and more about Aotearoa New Zealand, where refugees and migrants have the opportunity to build our own lives as well as make a difference to others.”
An honorary advisor to the Asia New Zealand Foundation and an Entrepreneur-in-residence with the University of Auckland, Pham’s business CodeHQ has helped NZ businesses scale software development capacity beyond local shores, tapping into Asia’s growing tech talent pool with the proven NZ-Vietnam resourcing model. Pham has stepped back from actively leading the business to free-up capacity for more governance, strategy and advisory work, as well as leadership of innovation projects.
“I am looking forward to sharing my three-decades of in-the-trenches experience in both tech and Asia domains with both public sector and private businesses, wherever I can add value.”
Other business gongs
Other business names that leap out of the honours list include chair of the Wakatū Incorporation (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Koata and Ngāti Tama) Paul Morgan, who becomes a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori and business.
Chair of the Wakatū Incorporation (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Koata and Ngāti Tama), Paul Morgan.
For more than 31 years, Morgan has sought restitution associated with the Nelson Tenths and Occupation Lands, a claim finally settled in 2017 when the Supreme Court recognised that the Crown owes legally binding duties to Māori landowners, independently of the Treaty of Waitangi or statute. Morgan has been director and chair of Kono New Zealand since 2011, and an alternative director of Anagenix since 2011. He is also director, chair and member of a slew of organisations including the Asia New Zealand Foundation and the New Zealand China Council. He was inducted in the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame in 2021.
Dr Bruce Campbell.
Dr Bruce Campbell also gains a Companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to plant and food research, after a 38-year career growing New Zealand food productivity and exports. Campbell was COO of Plant and Food for a decade from 2008, and instrumental in establishing joint schools in plant and food science with Auckland and Massey Universities.
As well as efforts to get Māori and Pasifika students into the field, he was a leader in developing Nuku ki te Puku, a network of Māori food businesses in partnership with Callaghan Innovation. He coordinated the crisis response to the bacterial disease Psa, which threatened the kiwifruit industry in 2010, working closely with Zespri in introducing new genetics which allowed the industry to recover and thrive. He’s also been a Director of Horticulture New Zealand since 2019, and has won the Prime Minister’s Science Prize and the Royal Society’s Thomson Medal among other awards.
Emeritus Professor David Simmons.
Tourism expert Emeritus Professor David Simmons also becomes a Companion in the 2023 list. Simmons has been a leading tourism scholar for more than 40 years, leading the establishment of relevant tertiary qualifications. Simmons founded tourism studies at Lincoln University and established the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Tourism, which is focused on generating and supporting sustainable tourism regions.
He's also contributed to international tourism planning and education in numerous countries such as Sarawak, Cambodia, Niue, Mauritius and Nepal, and advised international organisations such as the World Wildlife Fund and United Nations World Tourism Organisation. For many years he authored Tourism Industry Aotearoa’s annual State of the Industry report. He was awarded a Fellowship of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism in 2015 and received the New Zealand Tourism Industry’s highest honour in 2020, the Sir Jack Newman Award.
Lisa Tumahai.
Lisa Tumahai is another key business Companion on this year’s list. Tumahai (Ngāi Tahu, Tainui, Ngāti Hikairo, Ngāti Kahungunu) has been the Chair of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu since 2016, contributing to Māori health and development, and climate change efforts. Tumahai previously served as the deputy chair from 2011 and has led Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu through challenging times including the Covid-19 pandemic, growing the tribal council towards climate-friendly decisions and strategies.
She has also been the director of Arahura Holdings since 2008, a commercial company located on the West Coast, with a portfolio of property, forestry and tourism and now serves as deputy chair of the Climate Change Commission.
Officers and gentlemen
Mike Williams.
Straddling both business and politics, Mike Williams becomes an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit. He’s been a director of KiwiRail since 2019, a previous director of Ontrack between 2004 and 2008, and is on the board of Ritchies Transport. He’s also collected directorships on Transit New Zealand, the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Ltd, the Auckland Regional Transport Authority and Auckland Transport, and was a foundation director of Insight Market Research.
He became the CEO of the Stellar Trust in 2009, a charity which has raised awareness of the dangers of methamphetamine, and from 2011 has also served as CEO of the Howard League for Penal Reform, which advocates for prison reform and provides literacy and numeracy programmes to prisoners to assist with their positive reintegration into communities. Williams is perhaps best known as president of the New Zealand Labour Party between 1999 and 2009.
Another ONZM has been awarded to Paula Werohia-Lloyd (Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Te Arawa, Ngā Puhi) for some 31 years overseeing the administration of a diverse portfolio of investments, including kiwifruit and avocado orchards, beef farming, a retirement village, social housing and industrial developments.
Paula Werohia-Lloyd.
Werohia-Lloyd was instrumental in 1994 in setting up a native plant nursery at Mangatawa under Taskforce Green, which grew into a successful business supplying plants across New Zealand for recovering native wetlands. She also helped lead the 2012 joint venture between MPBI and Generus Living Group for the development of Pacific Coast Retirement Village. She has held various governance roles over 20 years, including as a trustee of several Māori boards and as chair of the Ranginui No. 12 Trust. She is currently on the board of Te Awanui Huka Pak, New Zealand’s largest Māori kiwifruit and avocado growers collective.
Anita Mazzoleni has also been granted an ONZM for services to corporate governance, having had an extensive career as a lawyer, chartered accountant, independent company director and corporate finance advisor specialising in the evaluation and funding of investments, particularly in infrastructure.
Anna Mazzoleni.
Mazzoleni held significant roles as director and chair of audit, risk and finance committees for major public companies, non-governmental organisations and iwi businesses. She was a Commerce Commissioner for nine years, focusing on telecommunications. She was corporate finance manager for ECNZ and acting finance director and general counsel for Contact Energy following its separation from ECNZ. She was on the board of the Civil Aviation Authority and Aviation Security Services from 2010 to 2012 and a director of ACC from 2014 to 2021. Mazzoleni was a director on the boards of Ngāti Whatua o Orakei Corporate, Ngāti Whatua o Orakei Whai Maia and chaired the commercial arm of Ngā Maunga Whakahii o Kaipara, also chairing the audit committees of these organisations.
Covid response stars
As aforementioned, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, who recently announced he’d be joining the University of Auckland as a professor in the School of Population Health and will lead the establishment of a new Public Policy Impact Institute at the university as its inaugural chair, will be knighted in the 2023 honours.
Dr Ashley Bloomfield (L) and Dr Caroline McElnay (M) were both gonged in the 2023 honours.
As Director-General of Health from 2018 until 2022, he led the health sector and the successful management of the government’s public health response in New Zealand to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Under intense scrutiny and daily public reporting, Dr Bloomfield has worked at a relentless pace for two years to drive and implement major policy decisions that have underpinned New Zealand’s response to the pandemic …his clear and calm communication has been key to ensuring trust in the Government’s public health advice, with the public positioning him as New Zealand’s most well-known and highly respected public servant during the pandemic," the honours citation says.
Bloomfield led the Ministry of Health (MoH) in establishing a national contact tracing centre, increasing resourcing for Healthline as a single source of information for the public and sourcing personal protective equipment, as well as helping standup the first managed isolation and quarantine facilities, sourcing and operationalising testing services, and rolling out the country’s vaccination programme, through which more than 90% of eligible New Zealanders were fully vaccinated.
He's not the only health figure from the country’s Covid-19 response to be gonged however. Dr Caroline McElnay, director of public health from 2017 to 2022 is also awarded the Companion of the Queens Service Order for working across agencies to inform the country’s Covid-19 response. Joanne Gibbs, national director of the Covid-19 Vaccine and Immunisation Programme, also receives an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Local business accolades
Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2023 include Jennifer Shattock, mayor of South Waikato District Council since 2016 and councillor from 1998, for services to local government and economic development. Shattock is recognised for driving economic development in the region, including Fonterra’s investment into a new milk powder dryer at Lichfield, opened in 2016, and attracting development of a distribution centre in Tokoroa in 2021 for New Zealand imports and exports by Singapore-based OFI.
Jennifer Shattock (left) and Jocelyn O’Donnell.
In addition, Jocelyn O’Donnell becomes NZOM for services to business and community development. A director of HW Richardson, O’Donnell has been key in revitalising Invercargill’s central business district. She and her family’s businesses have established activities for national and international tourism in Southland, including opening Bill Richardson Transport World, the Classic Motorcycle Mecca, and Dig This Invercargill, New Zealand’s only heavy-machinery playground.
Malcolm Campbell.
Malcolm Campbell is another NZOM for services to local government and the community as mayor of Kawerau for 21 years and councillor for 27 years. As mayor, Campbell faced industrial downturns, significant job losses and a declining population, and steered efforts to improve economic performance, attract new industry and increase services, and enhance perceptions of the Kawerau’s lifestyle attractions, leading initiatives such as the Industrial Symbiosis project that as fostered collaboration between the Council, industry, landowners and iwi.
For a full list of recipients of the New Zealand New Year Honours 2023, please see: http://www.dpmc.govt.nz/honours/lists
