Editorial: Hunt on for Kiwis who made a mark

Sometimes it is the smallest gesture that deserves the loudest cheer.

Editorial

December has arrived and the year suddenly is running out. It's time for reflection on 2017 and the people who made the mark on it. Today we feature 10 of them and invite Herald readers to select their "People's Choice" over the coming week.

Doubtless the 10 who have come to our mind are only a fraction of the number of New Zealanders who deserve recognition for acts of inspiration, selflessness or courage during the year. Not all of them will have made news, many will be known only to those they helped, inspired or made very happy. To them we say well done, you deserve more recognition than a newspaper has the space and resources to cover. You are the people who enrich the lives of those who know you and if you do it probably without expecting recognition or credit. You are the best.

None of the 10 we have nominated for your votes expected the attention we are giving them today. They have all been in the news this year and will be surprised to be featured again. There are one or two exceptions. Northland doctor Lance O'Sullivan is increasingly speaking out on the problems of Maori in communities such as his in the Far North.

Few doctors have acted as dramatically as he did this year when a film against vaccination was screened locally. He leaped on to the stage, told the audience a failure to immunise would cause babies to die, appealed to health professionals to leave the theatre and signed off with a haka. It was highly effective. Dr O'Sullivan later expressed an interest in
Maori politics. One way or another, much more will be heard from him.

Politicians are normally excluded from the Herald's annual accolades for the reason that they attract enough attention over the rest of the year. But we have made an exception this year for Labour's former leader, Andrew Little. His sudden decision to step down at the end of July, seven weeks before the election, made the year extraordinary in our politics.

Until Little made way for Jacinda Ardern, the National Government seemed assured of a fourth term. But when Metiria Turei's admission of benefit deceit was initially seen as brave, and attracted votes from Labour to the Greens, Labour's polls went so low that Little himself was not certain to return on the list.

Even so, it was a selfless decision to step down and one his party did not want him to make so close to the election. But it worked a treat, helped by Turei's subsequent admissions that sent the Green's plummeting in the polls and boosted Ardern's already rising star.

Sometimes it is the smallest gesture that deserves the loudest cheer. Newlyweds Tindall and Fabrizio Clementi emerged from their ceremony in January, saw a homeless man and gave him a slice of the wedding cake, bringing tears to his eyes. It was a small gesture caught by the wedding photographer and it went around the world.

The scrub fires on the Christchurch port hills in February seem long ago but many will remember the death of one of the helicopter pilots fighting the blaze. Steve Asking, ex SAS, was heading to refill his monsoon bucket when its cable struck his tail rotor sending him to his death.

There is Marnie Prickett, the university student whose campaign for clean rivers is credited with putting that issue to the fore in the election this year, and equestrian Andrew Nicholson who broke his back two years ago yet won Badminton this year. They are a few of the New Zealanders who made us proud and in awe of them this year. All of them deserve your vote but tells which one takes the prize.