The New Zealand Royal Honours System -- An Example for Canada? PART ONE

HM The Queen of New Zealand

Between 1848 and 1996 New Zealanders were eligible for recommendation to traditional royal honours and during that period some were honoured at the highest level. Three New Zealanders have been appointed knights of the Order of the Garter: Lord Elworthy, Marshal of the Royal Air Force, was appointed to the Order in 1977 for services to the United Kingdom; the Right Honourable Sir Keith Holyoake received the honour in 1980 for services as Governor General of New Zealand and previously as Prime Minister; and, in 1995, Sir Edmund Hillary became a knight for services to New Zealand and the Commonwealth and also for his humanitarian work in Nepal. Sir Keith Holyoake’s honour is noteworthy as he is the first New Zealander to have received the Garter for services performed in and for New Zealand and he is the only non-British Commonwealth Prime Minister to be so honoured. Sir Edmund Hillary’s appointment is also unique as, excluding foreign royalty, he is the first non-British resident to have received this honour and the first such person to have received it for services performed outside the political or vice-regal sphere.

Professor John Beaglehole, the noted historian and authority on Captain James Cook and his voyages, is the only New Zealand resident to have been made a member of the Order of Merit. Two other New Zealand-born men who have been appointed to the Order of Merit are the Nobel Laureate Lord Rutherford of Nelson, generally regarded as the father of nuclear physics, and Professor Sir Ronald Syme, the celebrated historian of ancient Rome.

Establishing Indigenous Honours

The Queen's Service Order
(For Public Services)

On 13 March 1975, following a broad review of the operation of the honours system within New Zealand, The Queen instituted New Zealand’s first indigenous honour: the Queen’s Service Order with an associated Queen’s Service Medal, each in two divisions, for community service and for public service.  The Order is awarded “for valuable voluntary service to the community or meritorious and faithful services to the Crown or similar services within the public sector, whether in elected or appointed office”. Services must have been rendered in a civilian capacity in New Zealand or in other Commonwealth countries of which The Queen is sovereign. Citizens of those countries of which The Queen is sovereign are eligible for ordinary membership. The constitution of the Order allows for the appointment of “additional” members on significant royal, national or state occasions.  Foreign citizens and citizens of Commonwealth countries of which The Queen is not sovereign may be appointed as “honorary” members. Members of the royal family may be appointed as “extra companions”.^[1]  Honorary, extra and additional appointments are extra-numerary. No more than thirty persons may be appointed in any single year. Along with their spouses, retiring Governors General are traditionally appointed as “additional companions”.

The Queen’s Service Order was intended, in part, to replace the Imperial Service Order and the Order of the British Empire. The criteria against which eligibility for the grade of Companion of the Queen’s Service Order for community service is measured is similar to that which was used for Officers of the Order of the British Empire whilst appointments to the grade of Companion of the Queen’s Service Order for public service completely supplanted appointments to the level of Companion of the Imperial Service Order. Indeed, appointments to the Imperial Service Order ceased completely following the establishment of the Queen’s Service Order. Similarly, the Imperial Service Medal was replaced by the award of the Queen's Service Medal for public services, while the Queen's Service Medal for community services replaced the civil division of the British Empire Medal. Awards of the British Empire Medal in the military division continued in the armed forces.

The Order of New Zealand

On 6 February 1987 (the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne), the Order of New Zealand was instituted by Royal Warrant, thus becoming New Zealand’s second indigenous Order.  The Order is New Zealand’s premier honour and is awarded for “outstanding service to the Crown and people of New Zealand in a civil or military capacity”. Inspired by The Queen’s personal/dynastic Order of Merit and the “imperial” Order of the Companions of Honour, the Order of New Zealand is composed of one grade of no more than twenty ordinary members.  As with the Queen’s Service Order, citizens of those countries of which HM The Queen is sovereign are eligible for ordinary membership. The constitution of the Order allows for the appointment of “additional” members on significant royal, national or state occasions.^[2]  Foreign citizens and citizens of Commonwealth countries of which The Queen is not sovereign may be appointed as “honorary” members. Honorary and additional appointments are extra-numerary.  Interestingly, and in contrast to the Canadian and Australian situation, all appointments are made in the name of The Queen rather than the Governor General.

More Reviews of New Zealand Honours

In 1995 another review of the operation of the honours system within New Zealand was embarked upon, the resulting recommendations calling for a radical overhaul of the whole system. The review report recommended that the Order of New Zealand be elevated above the Order of the Companions of Honour in the table of precedence and also called for the creation of a New Zealand Order of Merit, to consist of five classes, which would replace the Order of the Bath, the Order of St. Michael and St. George, the Order of the British Empire, the Distinguished Service Order as well as the dignity of Knight Bachelor; appointments to those honours which are within The Queen’s personal gift, the Order of the Garter, the Order of the Thistle, the Order of Merit, and the Royal Victorian Order and Chain, would continue.[3]

The New Zealand Order of Merit
(Neck Badge)

The New Zealand Order of Merit was duly instituted by Royal Warrant dated 30 May 1996.[4] The Order ranks second to the Order of New Zealand and is awarded to those “who in any field of endeavour, have rendered meritorious service to the Crown and nation or who have become distinguished by their eminence, talents, contributions or other merits”. The motto of the Order is FOR MERIT and, in Maori, TOHU HIRANGA (“To Achieve Excellence”). Citizens of those countries of which The Queen is sovereign are eligible for ordinary membership. The constitution of the Order allows for the appointment of “additional” members on significant royal, national or state occasions.  Foreign citizens and citizens of Commonwealth countries of which The Queen is not sovereign may be appointed as “honorary” members. Honorary and additional appointments are extra-numerary. The New Zealand Order of Merit has its own herald, in the person of Mr. Philip O’Shea, New Zealand Herald Extraordinary.

Of the Order’s original five classes the two highest (knight/dame grand companion and knight/dame companion) conferred a knighthood or damehood. On 10 April 2000 it was announced that following the earlier recommendations of the Prime Minister’s Honours Advisory Committee (1995) The Queen had approved the discontinuance of the two titular classes and their replacement with two new designations: principal companion and distinguished companion. These changes were instituted by a Royal Warrant dated 18 May 2000. The first appointments to the re-designated levels were made in The Queen’s Birthday Honours issued on 5 June 2000. The five classes consequently became: principal companion, distinguished companion, companion, officer and member.[5]

Those who were previously invested as knights or dames of the New Zealand Order of Merit were permitted to continue to bear the honorific; the wife of a knight, provided she uses her husband’s surname, could continue to bear the courtesy title of ‘lady’ before the surname.

In March 2009 it was announced that, upon the approval of HM The Queen, the titles of knight and dame grand companion and knight and dame companion were to be reinstated. The first appointments to the reinstated levels were made in The Queen’s 2009 Birthday Honours List. The 85 New Zealanders who were appointed principal companions and distinguished companions between 2000 and 2008 were afforded an opportunity to be redesignated to the appropriate level of knight/dame grand companion or knight/dame companion.

No more than thirty persons may belong to the class of knight/dame grand companion at any one time. According to the statutes of the Order, no more than fifteen knight/dame companions, forty companions, eighty officers and one hundred and forty members may be appointed per annum.

Additional members may be admitted to the Order in commemoration of any important royal, state, or national occasion, or to recognise military services rendered in war-like and peacekeeping operations. Additional members are extra-numerary.

Key Features of the New Zealand Honours System

New Zealand is to be congratulated for having devised an honours system which can meet the needs of a mature and independent modern nation without rejecting established traditions, symbols and institutions (particularly following the restoration of the two titular grades of the New Zealand Order of Merit).

The New Zealand Royal Honours System possesses several key features which could and should be applied to the honours systems of many other Commonwealth realms, including Canada:

1. The structure of the current system reveals that its creators were possessed of a full and proper understanding of the fundamental importance of the source of all honours as well as an appreciation of the necessity of retaining a visible link between that source, the Sovereign, and those whom the Sovereign has honoured. Thus, we may identify as the first important feature of the New Zealand Royal Honours System the crucial fact that, unlike Canada, in New Zealand it is The Queen, rather than the Governor General, who makes awards of all honours.
2. The second key feature, and again one which reveals a proper understanding of the distinct nature of such honours, is New Zealanders’ continued eligibility for those Orders that are within The Queen’s personal gift.
3. The third feature of note is the eligibility for ordinary susbstantive membership of citizens of those countries of which the Queen is sovereign; as in the UK no distinction is drawn between citizens of Her Majesty’s various realms. This contrasts starkly with the situation in Canada, where citizens of Commonwealth realms must remain content with non-substantive awards. New Zealand has correctly understood that Commonwealth citizens share a common bond and should not be regarded as alien.
4. Another important feature of the New Zealand system is the importance placed upon the position of members of the Royal Family (at least within one of the Orders): members of the Royal Family may be appointed extra companions of the Queen's Service Order. This again is an improvement on the Canadian situation, where no member of the Royal Family may receive a substantive award and where HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, a former Canadian Queen-Consort and the mother of the current Canadian Sovereign, could only be appointed as an “honorary” Companion.
5. The fifth feature of the New Zealand system which is worthy of note is the decision to establish a single class Order of New Zealand with a numerical restriction of 20. By so doing, New Zealand has recognized the importance of distinguishing its most exceptional national treasures from those who are merely highly distinguished. The penultimate feature to which attention should be drawn is the five-class structure of the New Zealand Order of Merit, the most frequently awarded order. The Order’s five classes enable it to be far more effectively awarded than a three-class Order such as the Order of Canada. The final key feature of the New Zealand Honours System is the appointment of a ceremonial officer, in the form of a herald, for the New Zealand Order of Merit.

To Be Continued....

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^[1]  Current extra-companions include HRH The Duke of Edinburgh (1981), HRH The Prince of Wales (1983) and HRH The Princess Royal (1990).

^[2]  Five additional members and one honorary member were appointed in 1990 on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi, four additional members were appointed in 2002 on the occasion of HM The Queen’s Golden Jubilee and one honorary member was appointed in 2003 on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of HM The Queen’s coronation.

[3] Although future appointments would cease, those who had already been appointed to one of the abandoned honours would be permitted to wear the insignia, bear the post-nominals and, where appropriate, continue to enjoy the title of “Sir” or “Dame”. The Cook Islands, an associated state of New Zealand, has opted out of the new New Zealand Royal Honours System, preferring to retain access to New Zealand's traditional honours (these continue to be administered through the New Zeland Honours Secretariat).

[4] Curiously, although it bears the words “Order of Merit” in its name, the New Zealand Order of Merit is termed an “Order of Chivalry” in its royal warrant.

[5] To apply the Order's warrant literally, the New Zealand Order of Merit has become a very rare thing: an order of chivalry to which no knights or dames may currently be appointed. The author has been informed, however, that upon the death of the Order's last living knight or dame the Order's statutes will be amended so as to transform the Order from an order of chivalry to an order of merit.