“He is with us for four days and over the four days he’s going to be visiting the award in action. He’s going to be celebrating some of the people that are involved in delivering the award and just sort of generally helping us to get the word out there to build relationships,” Brown said.
She said the award organisers were “all go, as you can imagine”.
Brown apologised for not telling the Herald about the Prince’s visit sooner, explaining: “We’ve got to be careful from a security perspective with releasing too much information too quickly and a lot of the events are private.”
The Prince would not be making any public appearances, she said.
“He’s specifically coming over to celebrate the award, so all events are specific to award activities, but we’ve got around about 900 to 1000 people that are connected to the various events that are going on.”
A spokesperson for the caretaker Government also confirmed the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit New Zealand.
”This is a working visit, arranged and hosted by the Duke of Edinburgh International Award, and is part of a wider Asia-Pacific tour by the Duke including Australia, Singapore and Indonesia.
“The New Zealand component will celebrate 60 years of the Award scheme in New Zealand. The visit is not being hosted by the New Zealand government, and at this stage no meetings have been arranged.”
The spokesperson said the prince’s visit coincided with coalition talks for the formation of a new government and made organising any official meetings more complex.
The 59-year-old Prince has a past connection to New Zealand, having spent part of a gap year teaching at Whanganui Collegiate School.
Raphael Franks is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. He joined the Herald as a Te Rito cadet in 2022.
Sam Hurley is a news director and senior reporter. He joined the Herald in 2017 and has previously worked for 1News and Hawke’s Bay Today.
