The Order of New Zealand is the highest honour in the New Zealand royal honours system, created "to recognise outstanding service to the Crown and people of New Zealand in a civil or military capacity". It was instituted by royal warrant on 6 February 1987. The order is modelled on the British Order of Merit and the Order of the Companions of Honour.
Sir James Kenneth McLay is a New Zealand diplomat and former politician. He served as the ninth deputy prime minister of New Zealand from 15 March to 26 July 1984. McLay was also Leader of the National Party and Leader of the Opposition from 29 November 1984 to 26 March 1986. Following his ousting as party leader, he retired from parliamentary politics in 1987. In June 2009, he became New Zealand's Permanent Representative to the United Nations. In May 2015, McLay became New Zealand's Representative to the Palestinian Authority. From May 2016 to January 2017, he was New Zealand's Consul General in Honolulu.
Murray John Finlay Luxton was a New Zealand National Party politician, serving as a Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2002. From 2008 to 2015, he was the Chairman of DairyNZ, the organisation that represents all New Zealand dairy farmers. He was co-chair of the Waikato River Authority, a Crown/iwi co-governance organisation established through Treaty of Waitangi settlement legislation to clean up the Waikato River.
Sir Stephen Robert Tindall is the founder of New Zealand retailer The Warehouse, The Warehouse Group, and the Tindall Foundation.
Sir Gordon Frederick Tietjens is head coach of the Samoa rugby sevens team, and a celebrated former coach of the New Zealand men's national team in rugby sevens, the All Blacks Sevens. When the International Rugby Board inducted him into the IRB Hall of Fame in May 2012, it said that "Tietjens' roll of honour is without peer in Sevens, and perhaps in the Game of Rugby as a whole." According to Spiro Zavos, Tietjens is "The greatest of all the Sevens coaches".
Lionel John Wood is a former New Zealand diplomat and a former chancellor of the University of Canterbury. He was Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and served two separate terms as New Zealand's Ambassador to the United States in Washington.
Sir David Alexander Fagan is a New Zealand sheep shearer, who has won the New Zealand Golden Shears contest a record 16 times.
Sir Peter David Gluckman is a New Zealand scientist. Originally trained as a paediatrician, he served as the inaugural Chief Science Advisor to the New Zealand Prime Minister from 2009 to 2018. He is a founding member and was inaugural chair of the International Network for Government Science Advice, and is president of the International Science Council.
Sir Patrick Ledger Goodman, known as Pat Goodman or Sir Pat Goodman, was a prominent New Zealand businessman, arts patron and philanthropist. Along with his brother, Peter, he co-founded the Australasian food giant Goodman Fielder. He was CEO and chairman of the company.
Garth Alan Carnaby is a New Zealand fibre physicist and science and public administrator.
Sir Eion Sinclair Edgar was a New Zealand businessman and philanthropist. He was the chairman of Forsyth Barr Group, a major investment company based in Dunedin, for 20 years until his retirement in 2018, and was chancellor of the University of Otago between 1999 and 2003.
Dame Alison Burns Quentin-Baxter was a New Zealand public and international lawyer. She advised a number of small island states on the drafting of their constitutional documents.
Yvonne Mignon Willering is a Dutch-born New Zealand netball coach and former representative netball player. Willering played for the New Zealand national netball team – the Silver Ferns – from 1974 to 1983. She was coach of the Silver Ferns from 1997 to 2001, and coach of the Fijian national team from 2002 to 2003.
Sir Robert Kinsela Workman, commonly known as Kim Workman, is a New Zealand criminal justice advocate.
Sir Tīmoti Samuel Kāretu is a New Zealand academic of Māori language and performing arts. He served as the inaugural head of the Department of Māori at the University of Waikato, and rose to the rank of professor. He was the first Māori language commissioner, between 1987 and 1999, and then was executive director of Te Kohanga Reo National Trust from 1993 until 2003. In 2003, he was closely involved in the foundation of Te Panekiretanga o te Reo, the Institute of Excellence in Māori Language, and served as its executive director. He is fluent in Māori, English, French and German.
Sir Peter Ivan Talijancich, generally known as Peter Talley, is a New Zealand businessman, known for his involvement in the fishing and food industries as the Managing Director of Talley's Group. In the 2002 New Year Honours, Talley was appointed as an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the fishing industry, export and the community, and he was promoted to Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to business and philanthropy, in the 2015 Queen's Birthday Honours.
Sir Graeme Seton Avery is a New Zealand businessman and philanthropist. After training as a pharmacist, he founded medical publishing company Adis International in 1963, and it had an annual turnover of $100 million when he sold it to Wolters Kluwer in 1996. The following year, he co-founded Sileni Wine Estates in Hawke's Bay.
John Stewart Ombler is a New Zealand public servant. He served as deputy State Services Commissioner from 2008 until 2014, and briefly in 2019, and as the controller of the all-of-government response during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
Dame Alison Mae Paterson is a New Zealand businesswoman. In 1979, she became the first woman to sit on the board of a publicly listed company in New Zealand.
Dame Judith Anne Kilpatrick is a retired New Zealand nursing academic. After serving as head of the nursing school at the Auckland Institute of Technology, she moved to the University of Auckland, where she co-founded the School of Nursing in 1999.
