Jean Batten made aviation history. (NZ Herald Archive)
Jean Batten made aviation history. (NZ Herald Archive)
This was a crowded year by any standard and there were plenty of difficult choices to make in deciding the outstanding New Zealander.
The Herald of 1936 would probably have gone for two people whose deeds are remembered as inspirational episodes in the national story.
The first was Jack Lovelock who won the 1500m at the Berlin Olympic Games in brilliant style before a crowd of 100,000 people including Hitler.
The Herald declared the nation had good reason to be proud, pointing out that the victory, in world-record time, was achieved as much by intelligence as physical fitness.
"Whatever may yet be done, by herself or others, nothing can erase the renown that is hers because of this first direct linking of England with New Zealand by one scheduled flight."
Jean Batten and Jack Lovelock would certainly have been the 1936 Herald's choices for New Zealander of the Year.
Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage, left, and Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana. (NZ Herald Archives)
But with hindsight, Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage and Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana, founder of the church that bears his name, had much deeper influence on shaping the nation.
Savage is rated as a New Zealander of the Year for introducing the first of his Government's major reforms - the 40-hour week.
At the time, the Herald was dubious. "The real test is about to begin," it commented on the morning the reform came into effect. But the 40-hour week was to become one of the building blocks of the welfare state.
In hindsight we also choose Ratana who formed an alliance with the Labour Party in 1936 and thus made his church an important source of power in politics, a position it still holds even thought its grip on the Maori seats may not be as firm as it used to be.
"Yet the church's political influence seems undiminished," said a Herald editorial in 2010.
"Every year leaders of all parties converge on Ratana Pa near Wanganui during the church's late-January celebrations of its founder, Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana.
"Each party's reception is carefully read as a barometer of its standing with a church that supposedly has a political reach far beyond the 45,000 people (8 per cent of Maori) who report Ratana to be their religion."
