Stuff: Chop off the top of the honours list. They don't need any more rewards

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The turn of the year is always a time of rituals, some of them rather silly; I’m thinking in particular of the never-to-be-kept resolutions that so many people make in all seriousness. But no ritual is so ridiculous as the parade of titles, gongs and awards handed out in the upper echelons of the New Year​ honours list.

The honours are supposed to recognise service to the nation. And that’s fine. But must they take such strange forms? Thanks to John Key, we still have people wandering around with Sir or Dame prefixed to their names, an incongruous sight in a supposedly modern nation that no longer looks up to England.

It’s mildly embarrassing, as if we haven’t quite grown up as a country, or are stuck in the past. When I was a child, one of the houses down the road was owned by my distant cousin and near-namesake, the splendidly titled Vice-Admiral Sir Maxwell Richmond. (Richmond is my middle name.) But he had joined the Royal Navy in 1918, lived extensively in England, and been knighted for his services during the Suez crisis, all events distant in space and time. Such titles might have made sense then, but surely not now. Sir Dave Dobbyn, for instance: I mean, really?

Sir John Key is knighted by governor-general Dame Patsy Reddy at Government House in Auckland in 2017. We have him to thank for the return of knighthoods and damehoods, which were ditched by Helen Clark’s government in 2000.

Worse still, the awards given out at the highest reaches – the companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit, the knights companion​, the dames companion​ and so on – almost always go to those who have already been showered with accolades, commendations and other markers of status. This part of the honours list simply recognises people who are already extremely well-recognised. It is a particularly daft example of the Matthew Effect, named after the biblical passage in which it says: “To everyone who has will more be given.”

Honestly, what use does this serve? What point is there in further rewarding captains of industry and former politicians, who generally do not go unrewarded in life?

Even people in the traditionally more neglected fields – the arts, for instance – will have already been the recipient of multiple accolades if they have got to the point where they might be made a knight or dame companion. Any successful writer, to take just one example, will already have received various awards and grants, had their name blazoned on book covers, been asked to speak on panels, had their opinion sought by the media, and been treated with respect in their community.

Rarely do they go unrecognised.

I should say that none of this is intended as a criticism of the various knights, dames and companions. I’m fortunate enough to count some of them as acquaintances, and they’re all wonderful people. They’re also people who had already been handsomely recognised for their service to the nation, and didn’t need any further titles.

The so-called lower reaches of the honours list, though – the Queen’s Service Order (QSO) and Queen’s Service Medal (QSM) – are a different story. Far and away my favourite part of the system, they actually do something useful, recognising people whose achievements would otherwise genuinely go unacknowledged. Most of them are awarded for services to the community in some form or other.

These individuals deserve extra recognition because the tasks they perform are generally so unglamorous. Take, for instance, people who actually respond to public consultations, and make submissions. This is – let’s be honest – desperately dull work. No-one wants to spend their life making submissions, and those who do get very little by way of thanks. But without them the world we all enjoy would pretty quickly fall apart. We should do far more to praise their names.

My proposal, then, would be a swift and immediate decapitation – not of any individual, I hasten to add, but of the honours system itself. Abolish, in future, all dames and knights, and remove anything above, say, the officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Those who already have their titles can keep them, but no new ones will be ordained – unless exceptional circumstances demand it.

That would allow the spotlight to shift to the recipients of the more workaday honours, the QSMs and QSOs (renamed, ideally, to fit the 21st century). Last time round, a Dr Judith Roberta Lowes​, of Tauranga, got a QSM for services “to women and roller sports”; I want to hear more about her. Ditto Rowan Gray Edward Garrett​, of Paeroa, who received his “for services to brass bands”.

So much depends on unsung backroom heroes. I’m thinking here of stage managers, age-grade sports coaches, office managers who hold entire organisations together. They deserve greater accolades. Let’s celebrate not the politicians, so often in the spotlight, but the submission-makers; the roadies rather than the rock stars. Some people labour all their lives with very little light shone their way.

Let’s recognise them.