DELIGHTED DAMES
She’s known to her nearest and dearest as Auntie Annette or Annie, and former cabinet minister Annette King says nothing will change now she’s been made a Dame.
“To my family, I’m Annie and I will be staying with it,” says the former Health Minister and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. “But I’m absolutely honoured.”
The news came as a big shock, says Annette (70), a former dental nurse who was New Zealand’s longest- serving female politician with a 30-year career, before she retired in 2017.
“I felt it was amazing because how did a girl from Murchison, a tiny town in the South Island, end up here?” says the mum-of-one. “And I had to reflect on all the people who have helped me along the way, including having the opportunity to be a minister for 10 years.
“People that work in health, in police and in transport, and the many portfolios that I had, they are the ones who made this possible for me.”
Also made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year’s Honours list was fellow former cabinet minister Georgina te Heuheu. Georgina served five terms as an MP before retiring in 2011 and her portfolios as minister included Pacific Island Affairs and Women’s Affairs.
An ex-lawyer, mumof-two Georgina (74) is now the chairwoman of Maori Television.