New Year Honours: Life after news for veteran broadcaster

Reading the news night after night led broadcaster Judy Bailey to work for a couple of very special organisations, she says.

The 30-year broadcasting veteran has been made a companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to broadcasting and the community.

She's a trustee of Brain Wave Trust Aotearoa which brings the latest neuroscience research to those who help children and young families.

Part of the trust's work is around education - that the impact of experiences from conception to 3 years old can have an enormous impact on the adult that child will become.

"I suppose I became involved because of the news. The stuff I was having to deliver about child abuse and the dreadful things happening to children.

"Every time there was a James Whakaruru or a Delcelia Witika there would be an outpouring of grief and anger and what can we do?

"This is something that's really proactive and I've always felt I get so much more out of it than I ever give."

She also supports Friends of Women's Refuge, World Vision and North Shore Hospice.

Life after TVNZ, which unceremoniously dumped her in 2005, continues to throw up gems, she said.

She's shared her Intrepid Journey to South America with the country and in 2010 she'll be again fronting Maori Television's Anzac Day special.