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People & Values

Discover stories of extraordinary people who not only redefined Aotearoa New Zealand, but also the world.
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Ruby Tui

Ruby Tui burst onto the world stage at the 2012 Oceania Women’s Rugby Sevens Championship in Fiji. Selected through the high-performance programme Go 4 Gold, she’d only been playing rugby for two years, but Ruby was determined to succeed.

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Temuera Morrison

Actor Temuera Morrison (Te Arawa, Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Rārua) was born into a family of performers on 26 December 1960. His grandmother Kahu had been singing professionally from the age of 16, and his father Laurie was a founding member of the Howard Morrison Quartet, a popular singing group set up by Howard Morrison (Temuera’s uncle) in 1956.

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Sir William Pickering

Another space pioneer from Aotearoa New Zealand is William Hayward Pickering, the original Rocket Man. His name graced the side of Rocket Lab’s fourth Electron rocket, and their first mission for NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites programme named: ‘This one’s for Pickering’.

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Fred Hollows

New Zealander Fred Hollows was an internationally renowned eye surgeon and humanitarian who devoted his life to giving back the gift of vision to those who were needlessly blind. He believed that anyone should have the right to quality, affordable eye care and through his efforts, he restored sight to thousands of people around the world and trained other eye doctors to do the same.

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Sir Peter Beck

Breakthroughs in space travel are standard fare for Rocket Lab, the pioneering satellite-launch business started by New Zealand rocket enthusiast Peter Beck in 2006. In 2009, it became the Southern Hemisphere’s first private company to reach space.

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Dame Whina Cooper

Māori have a long history of activism against land confiscations at the hands of the Crown, which broke many promises of modern New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840. Two such protest movements are the Land March of 1975 and occupation of Takaparawhau Bastion Point during 1977 and 1978 – powerful events that forever changed the course of life in Aotearoa New Zealand.