OUR HEROES 2023
We celebrate 10 New Zealanders who inspired us this year — with acts of heroism or kindness to a lifetime’s selflessness
The finalists Zane Wienk
A fleeing driver nearly took Zane Wienk’s life on November 9 last year, barrelling into the police constable who’d laid road spikes in an attempt to end a 21km pursuit across Auckland.
The impact sent the young officer through the air and into a tree, shattering his pelvis, breaking his leg and puncturing his lungs. Wienk’s life was saved when a critical care paramedic put her finger into his chest to stop his lungs collapsing around his heart.
After a gruelling 13- month recovery that included learning how to walk again, Wienk’s passed the physical competency test and will soon be back on the beat.
“I hope to return to the frontline sometime early in the new year.”
He’s grateful to be an Our Heroes finalist, Wienk says.
“But the real heroes are my colleagues who saved my life and my friends, family, medical specialists, physios and trainers who have all enabled me to healthily and promptly rehabilitate.”
He hopes others in similar situations can “take heart from my own journey”.
“Know that with modern medicine and the right mindset, it’s sometimes possible to return to a normal life after suffering injuries that would’ve permanently relegated you to a wheelchair just 20, or even 10, years ago.”
Dame Wendy Pye
She’s a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, was the first woman to be inducted into the Business Hall of Fame and made
Forbes magazine’s Top 50 Power Businesswomen list.
Now, Dame Wendy Pye can add Our Heroes finalist to her roll call of achievements over almost 40 years exporting children’s books through her publishing company, Sunshine Books.
“We should celebrate success in this country, particularly business success. I’m really proud of what New Zealand and my team have achieved in helping millions of children across the world to read.
“That’s the most important thing — making a difference.”
Since she founded Sunshine Books in 1985, after meeting adolescent boys who couldn’t read, the company’s built a catalogue of 2000 books and sold more than 300 million copies worldwide.
Only last week, the 80- year- old signed a contract to get digitised books to kids in refugee camps.
“The sun never sets on my Sunshine Books.”
Every child should be able to read by 8 so they can “move on with other things in life”, Pye says, calling it tragic 70 per cent of jailed Kiwis lack basic literary skills.
“If you can read, you can fill out a job application, you can feel good about yourself. It’s self- worth.”
Neil Harding
When Neil Harding went to police 20 years after being sexually abused by a former Dilworth School assistant principal, a detective could only tell him Ian Wilson was now a convicted paedophile.
In 1977, Wilson called Harding to his home one evening and asked the 12- year- old to tickle his tummy before — groaning and writhing — asking him to “go lower”.
Harding said “no” and ran back to his dorm, shocked to discover Wilson “was a threat”, and fearing repercussions.
In 1997, police knew Wilson had only months earlier been convicted and fined $ 3500 for indecently assaulting another student.
They couldn’t tell Harding because both Wilson and the school had name suppression.
It’d be another 20 years before Harding had the courage to tell Dilworth’s Trust Board, triggering events leading to charges and convictions against nearly a dozen former staff.
Wilson was sentenced in 2021 to three years and seven months’ jail for sexually abusing five former students.
This year, an independent inquiry commissioned by the school chronicled decades of institutionalised abuse against at least 233 students and a culture that enabled and covered up offending. Dilworth set aside almost $ 44m redress for victims.
It’s important to “stand up for what’s right”, Harding says.
“It’s my child self I’m doing this for, and for other survivors — and the non- survivors, because we’ve had 20 or so commit suicide.
“This [ accolade’s] an acknowledgement for those who suffered abuse at Dilworth.”
Jessa Pontevedra
Hero’s an uncomfortable label for Jessa Pontevedra.
The Kiwi nurse is fighting the spread of tuberculosis in Manila’s slums, the latest in a string of Doctors Without Borders’ missions in conflict and disaster- stricken hotspots from
South Sudan to Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Bangladesh and Ukraine.
Now the medical coordinator for an ambitious programme combating TB — a leading cause of death with 1.6 million lives lost globally in 2021, but curable if caught and medicated early — Pontevedra says being an
Our Heroes finalist is “truly humbling”, but heroism’s “not an individual achievement”.
“Rather [ it’s] the combined strength and resilience of the communities I’ve been blessed to be a part of and serve.”
Her New Zealand support network’s also vital, the 37- year- old says.
“All I’ve ever done . . . is put [ into practice] all the principles my family has raised me on, embody the Kiwi can- do attitude, and live my life committed to humanity and my love for children.
“Rather than feeling like a hero, I feel like a catalyst for change. Someone who can hopefully encourage empathy and bring about kindness, and acts of compassion for others.”
Richie Poulton
“Bloody hard work,” the late Richie Poulton once said when asked what made Dunedin’s globally- influential longitudinal study a success.
That and the 50- year- old study’s participants who, across their entire lives, have been poked, prodded and questioned about their health and life choices.
“They’re the real heroes of the study, not us,” the University of Otago professor and 20 years- plus director of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study said last year. Poulton died of cancer, aged 61, in October.
The study, which tracks the lives of about 1000 children born in Dunedin in 1972 or 1973, has produced more than 1200 research publications and each year amasses millions in international funding, influencing health and social policies around the world. It’s examined the long- term influence of childhood experience on adult function and life success, the complex interplay between nature and nurture, and why individuals age at markedly different rates.
Poulton became the study’s deputy director in 1995, before replacing founder Phil Silva when he retired in 2000.
Enoka Murphy
He’s dedicated his working life to helping others learn the language of their ancestors, but Dr noka Murphy, too, needed a little help in his younger years.
The senior lecturer in te reo Ma ¯ ori at Waikato University and the Prime Minister’s Educator of the Year in September learned the language from his grandparents. Sort of.
“I learned instructional language — get in here for a feed, go to bed, wash up, get outside, come to the car. My elders, they didn’t really converse with us, they just ordered us around.
“I didn’t really start talking to a fluent level until my teen years under formal instruction.”
Since the age of 16, Murphy ( Nga ¯ ti Manawa, Nga ¯ i Tu ¯ hoe, Nga ¯ ti Ruapani) has taught in community education, ko ¯ hanga reo, kura kaupapa and helped pioneer a full immersion tertiary programme in Taranaki that he now continues at Waikato University.
The father and grandfather’s also survived long periods of ill- health, including a bout with cancer his doctor said would kill him in less than three months.
Seeing how proud his parents were that he’s an Our Heroes finalist fills him with “humble pride”, the 51- year- old says.
“Giving my mum something to smile about means everything to me . . . there’s nothing more wonderful than your parents being proud of you.”
Bella Powell
Bella Powell inadvertently became the “proud face” of the campaign to publicly fund cystic fibrosis drug Trikafta. But it has always been a team effort, Powell says.
“I’m incredibly honoured to be a finalist . . . but there were also so many people behind the scenes who lobbied, had high- level meetings and gave up a lot of their time to make this a reality.”
This year, Pharmac began fully funding Trikafta, a drug expected to give those with cystic fibrosis ( CF) the equivalent of 27 more years at full health. Previously, the average life expectancy for those with the incurable genetic condition — which causes thick mucus to build in the lungs, digestive system and other organs — was mid to late 30s.
Many encouraged and guided Powell and her family, including Malcolm Mullholland and Fiona Tolich from Patient Voice Aotearoa,
Cystic Fibrosis New Zealand, the global CF community and the public.
“We all did this, that’s why I’m feeling uncomfortable about being recognised as an individual when it was so much bigger than me.”
The journey began with late CF expert Sir Bob Elliott and Powell’s involvement with Cure Kids.
Elliott paid for Powell’s first round of Trikafta, showing people CF could “no longer be the silent killer it’s been for so many years”.
“His drive and perseverance to improve the lives of people living with CF, not to mention his and his family’s love for myself and my family, is something I treasure.”
Greg Steward
Greg Steward failed science and left school at 16. But he became a trainee woodsman and went on to build a celebrated research career in indigenous forestry, most notably finding trees such as kauri could be grown and harvested much faster than thought.
When the Rotorua scientist retired this year from Scion, a Crown research institute specialising in forestry and related sectors, Steward’s five decades of work to boost the country’s knowledge of indigenous forestry earned widespread plaudits.
Steward’s thesis on the growth and yield of New Zealand kauri earned him a Master of Forestry Science ( Hons) and dispelled myths about the growth potential of plantation kauri.
His research showed the tree’s stands aged 20 to 60 years were 20 times more productive than natural stands, blowing estimated kauri crop rotations of hundreds of years out of the water.
In 2020, Steward was given a Science New Zealand Individual/ Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his work.
Other scientists are now championing the value of indigenous trees for their economic potential and special timber qualities, pleasing the 65- year- old, who continues to share his knowledge as an emeritus scientist.
During his career, he benefited from similar support, Steward says.
“Those are the people who I was kind of just following on from, and hopefully there will be others who follow on.”
Sophie Brown
Hers was the human face of the harm and suffering caused by a pair of predatory brothers who drugged and sexually assaulted 23 women at popular Christchurch bar Mama Hooch.
In May, Sophie Brown became the first survivor to go public after asking for her automatic name suppression to be lifted. In 2017, aged 19, she was drugged and sexually assaulted in a bathroom by bar manager Danny Jaz.
Jaz, 40, and brother Roberto Jaz, 38, were sentenced to 16- and- a- half years and 17 years’ jail respectively in August after being convicted of 69 charges between them.
They included rape, sexual violation, indecent assault, stupefying, disabling, making intimate recordings of women without their knowledge or consent and supplying illicit drugs.
After the attack, Brown lost trust in others, and initially blamed herself while “living in chaos” as she tried to pretend everything was okay.
“There’s so much shame and embarrassment and guilt wrapped up in having this happen to you . . . [ Going public’s] helping me understand that I don’t need to be ashamed. This was something that happened to me.”
It’s “really cool” to be an Our Heroes finalist, Brown says. “I don’t at all feel like a hero, but anything that helps us keep talking about this kind of thing is good.”