New Year Honors 2021: Kiwi Star Constellation Shine Bright

Many of the people praised at this year’s New Years honors will come as no surprise – they are household names by now.

One of them is musician Dave Dobbyn, whose classic tunes are well known to many and will most likely be on the playlist at many New Years gatherings tonight.

Dobbyn is one of four people who will become a Fellow Knight of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

• READ MORE: New Years Honors: The Complete List

Then there is Professor Michael Baker, a public health expert, who was frequently in the news offering his expertise as the Covid-19 crisis consumed New Zealanders throughout the year. Baker has been named a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to public health science.

There are also names like Rob Fyfe, former CEO of Air New Zealand, editor Roger Steele, and Burton Shipley, the husband of former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley.

But there are other names that many people will never have heard of. Many of the 154 people honored today are not household names. Two, serving members of the Defense Forces, cannot even be named.

By far the most honors have been awarded for community contributions, volunteer and local services.

They include men and women from all regions of New Zealand.

At the zenith of today’s honors are Maori health visionary and leader, Professor Emeritus Sir Mason Durie of Feilding and Dame Anne Salmond of Auckland.

Both have become members of the Order of New Zealand, joining Richie McCaw and Helen Clark. Previous members include Sir Edmund Hillary and Dame Whina Cooper.

Durie and Salmond have earned accolades in their careers for decades. His accomplishments span many fields and the space is quickly running out when describing his work.

Salmond, a Pākehā who learned Te Reo Māori in the 1960s when it was far from fashionable to do so, is a breakthrough.

Maybe Dobbyn is too. His musical output has spanned decades and different genres, providing a soundtrack to some of Aotearoa’s brightest and darkest moments.

Dobbyn told the Herald that his celebrated 1986 hit Slice of Heaven really didn’t belong anywhere when it was released.

Despite the song’s challenge to convention, Dobbyn was confident.

“I knew I was a winner.”

And Salmond, who has praised his fellow New Zealanders, says our achievements as a country this year should make us all proud.

Defying doomsayers, Kiwis in 2020 buckled up for a lockdown and embraced the concepts of goodness and aroha as a brutal pandemic loomed.

That success makes Salmond hopeful for 2021.

“In many ways, when I think about the future, I am really optimistic about what we can do here at Aotearoa.”

Arise Sir Dave, loyal gentleman

David Joseph Dobbyn, KNZM
For services to music

Composer Dave Dobbyn admits he is speechless. It’s not the glamor in Rhythm and Vines or the frenetic lifestyle of rock stars that has you stumped.

He’s just arrived from a motel in a van, he’s sober, and just an hour before his scheduled time to play, he’s on the phone from a house near the Gisborne festival stage.

It’s the impending knighthood that has him in a bind. Will your arm be cut off in an archaic royal ceremony? Will you be presented with a war horse to replace the truck?

“I don’t know what to say. It’s all new territory. I’m not really sure because I can’t believe what I’m reading. So I have to get my wife to interpret it.”

Along with politician David Carter, broadcaster Ian Taylor and Tikanga and inmate teacher William Te Rangiua Temara, Dobbyn will serve as a Fellow Knight of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

That’s a wordy way of saying that you can now call him Sir Dave.

Dobbyn says his children responded to the news with hilarity and incredulous looks.

“So I started giving them orders, but it didn’t work.”

Dobbyn sounds like an old friend you ran into after a few years, or your favorite uncle, the one you only see once every few Christmases but who instantly disarms you with funny anecdotes.

He says that tonight they will take him off stage before 8 pm like an “old bastard” whom the organizers don’t want to stay with.

“They like to bring us a cup of tea at 8 o’clock.”

He jokes that it will later be replaced by “silly music” and crowds waving their hands in the air.

For some drinkers, this month is December with no memory. Last year, Dobbyn stopped drinking during the dry July non-alcoholic cancer fundraising campaign.

He stayed away from the turps, and 15 months later he says quitting alcohol was the best thing he has ever done.

“You can finish the sentences and build them better and stop beating yourself up. He hated who he was and how reactive he was and how unreasonable he was.

“I stuck to beer, that was a way of trying to pretend I wasn’t a drinker or an alcoholic. The whole circle of parties and hangovers and stuff just gets in the way of music.”

Many New Zealanders likely have a favorite Dave Dobbyn song, even if they don’t know they have it.

Given his vast contribution over decades (with Th ‘Dudes, with DD Smash, with Herbs, and during his solo career), you may hate some of his songs but adore others.

Without Dobbyn, there would be no Bliss, no Be Mine Tonight, no Leal, no Sky Slice, no Devil You Know, no Whale Hunt.

For 40 years, it has been intertwined with some of New Zealand’s most moving and divisive moments.

He was blamed for inciting the 1984 Queen St riots, then cleared of wrongdoing.

Loyal was used in an America’s Cup campaign in the early 2000s, where New Zealanders were urged to purchase air flags for cars of the same color for $ 10.

In 2004, he joined the musicians to raise funds for the family of Algerian refugee Ahmed Zaoui.

After the Pike River tragedy, he recorded the This Love tribute with Wellington’s Orpheus Choir and Wellington Young Voices in 2014.

Back in R&V, Dobbyn says songwriting drives him, as does the pursuit of happiness, in his words, to create something really great and make people happy. He says that the same search prompts a craftsman to make a special piece of furniture.

Wanting your creation to stand the test of time is one thing. But how do you know when you’ve nailed it? When Slice of Heaven was released in 1986, did you know how good it was?

Yes, he did, says Dobbyn without hesitation. I could feel it.

Others could feel it too.

Da da da, this this, this da da, this this da da, this this, da da da.

Dobbyn says that Slice of Heaven didn’t fit any mold. Stressed. It says a radio host who had a selfish grudge refused to play it for six weeks. The song was in the trailers for the blockbuster Footrot Flats, and the huge popular demand forced the DJ.

Dobbyn will be playing more festivals this summer and he’s not worried about traveling abroad anytime soon.

He knows it’s hard to say how the global Covid-19 pandemic could unfold, and after hearing from family members in California, he’s in no rush to get to the United States.

“I would be very happy to play in New Zealand for the rest of my life. It makes me very happy.”

Meanwhile, that desire for another piece of heaven motivates him, as do the smiles on people’s faces when they sing.

“You are always aspiring to a purpose greater than yourself.”

Academic is optimistic about New Zealand

Distinguished Professor Dame Mary Anne Salmond, ONZ
For services to New Zealand

Much of the world is falling apart when Dame Anne Salmond picks up the phone at her ecological sanctuary on the outskirts of Gisborne.

Covid-19 is devastating dozens of countries, including many of the richest in the world. Some are in their third wave of mass death and chaos this year.

But the anthropologist, historian and TV host is optimistic as 2021 approaches.

Along with Professor Emeritus Sir Mason Durie, Salmond has been named a member of the Order of New Zealand, the highest level in the country’s royal honors system, where she will join former Prime Ministers Richie McCaw and Murray Halberg.

Sure, she’s happy for a great New Year’s honor, but New Zealand’s response to the pandemic has her in a good mood.

Aotearoa is one of the few places where crowds can safely liven up fireworks or laser shows, and where watery eyes can dance and sing together at festivals the next day.

Salmond says the country should consider how it could share its lessons with the rest of the world.

She says our ability to temper a neoliberal take-it-all philosophy is one of the reasons New Zealand did well this year, whether it’s assessing the epidemic or the economy.

“Since the 1980s, we have had an economic cult of the individual. In New Zealand we followed that philosophy very strongly for a while and you see the effects of it on our current rates of inequality. this really strong fair-go value. “

Salmond also credits the Maori concept of aroha.

“Aroha is a lovely concept because it’s really about a feeling of companionship, caring for others. I think it’s about caring for other people but also caring for other systems and ways of life.”

She says the worldview benefits people not only during pandemics, but could help us address the ecological crisis that the world and its 7.8 billion human beings now face.

For years, the Distinguished Professor of Maori Studies and Anthropology at the University of Auckland has received praise for her work on cross-cultural understanding.

She seems genuinely interested in how to improve the country, and how learning Maori Reo can help us better understand the past, present, and future.

Salmond says that the enthusiasm for learning I believe is now significant. It was a different story in the 1960s.

“When I was young and was very fascinated by tea and started to learn it … it was not so common for Pākehā to be interested in tea or Maori tikanga or such things.

“In fact, it was considered quite eccentric and not always a good thing.”

Some bigots, he says, blatantly ignore the prisoner despite knowing so little about it.

But the Pākehā culture is not static and the vision of our indigenous language has improved.

As Salmond and his Tairāwhiti neighbors brace for the first rays of sunshine in 2021, he is hopeful that New Zealand can learn from this wild and brutal year and build a better future.

“In many ways, when I think about the future, I am really optimistic about what we can do here at Aotearoa.”