Jamie Mackay: The Country host on his New Zealand Order of Merit honours

Famed rural broadcaster Jamie Mackay has been appointed a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

He was recognised earlier this year as part of the King’s Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting and the rural community.

Mackay joined Heather du Plessis-Allan to recap the ceremony.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And Jamie McKay, Host of the Countries with us. Now, Jamie,
your majesty, Hello, Hello Heather, now iphose you of you
that you sent through day? And the gong that you've
got for the member of the New Zealand Order of
Merit is gigantic. It's like it's like a giant VC
or something. Is that the thing that you're supposed to
wear around?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
No, I don't think so. It may not see the
light of day, might drag it out for Anzac Day
or something either. But I don't want to be a corrector,
but it's the officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
You've got to get your own z and MS, right, Heather,
I beg your madam.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
So normally I see the people walking around with just
a little badge that there was this tiny, little, just
very very kind of discreete little white and red badge
on the lapel of their jacket. Do you not get
one of those?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, you get a wee miniature thing as well, so
you can plunk that on. It's a bit less ostentatious.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Tell me what's your plan, your sutorial plan? Are you
going to rock that out every time you go to
something formal, wear your little badge.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
No, I don't think so. No, No, honestly I don't
think so. Well, I hardly noticeable. But anyhow, look, it
was it was a great honor and it was Look,
it was great to be there, and it was good
actually to have the officiating minister the day was Andrew Hoggart. Yeah,
of course, the Associate Minister of Agriculture. It was really
nice of him to turn up because he got to

(01:20):
pick which day he wanted to go to and which crew.
And there's like ten of us at each sitting, you know,
Dame Cindy Caro has a morning and an afternoon sitting.
And he looked through the list and he saw Murray King,
who was recognized for his services to the dairy industry,
and myself, and he thought, I'll go along because I
know those two buggets. So it was it was great

(01:40):
to have Andrew there. It was wonderful to meet Dame
Cindy Kero. She's so welcoming down to earth, no heirs
and graces. I was worried I'd make a cl cup
and break etiquette somehow, but she relaxed everybody. She was wonderful.
But at the highlight. I shouldn't say the highlight either,
but I did flick you through a week text before.

(02:01):
I don't know if you've seen it. The menu for
the what was the best? The best? But was the
scorons with cream and jam. I don't know where they
came from or who caters for Government House, but I
would kill for those. I would kill for those again,
and not far behind them the asparagus cheese roll. Yeah. Yeah, honestly,
the high tea was wonderful. And the other highlight for

(02:24):
me Heather, because when I saw who was in our group,
I think we got one of the most exciting people
of all the people awarded, and we got Sir Peter
Beck in our group. The Rocket Lab got you know,
he's the guy's going to have huge influence over what
happens in the world. Yeah, he got a knight, he's
Sir Peter Beck. Yeah he got the gong, he got

(02:46):
the sword from Dame Cindy. So it was wonderful. But
I was I thought, here's my chance to sneak a
we interview with them. But I didn't want to be
a fan boy, and everyone said, don't be a fan boy,
don't make a deck of yourself, luckily his mum and
it's from imp Cargoo. She'd listened to HOKANII over the years.
She wandered up and said, grate to see another Southlander here,

(03:07):
and that was my opportunity here that I seized it.
Sir Peter came running past. I said, excuse me, Sir Peter,
You've got a couple of minutes. And he was brilliant.
So I recorded away interview for my show tomorrow with him.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Jamie, congratulations. I know that makes you feel extremely uncomfortable
because you're a self lama, but you do deserve it.
You realize that am.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well. You do have imposter syndrome, Heather, but you never
look at gift thoughts in the mouth. And I'm very
proud for my family.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Never turned down a feed, Jamie. Thank you very much,
Jamie Mackay, Host of the Country. I've married, I've married
into a good family. Now he's just lifted the tone
because a marriage of his cousin. So thank God for that,
because I was for a while there, I was like,
what have I done? And then now we've got an
officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit with this massive.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Gong heatherdo for see Allen Lady Sober once removed.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Were totally yeah, I'm likely for you her majesty pretty much.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
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