Luxton gets alumini award

Kiwifruit Vine Health chief executive Barry O'Neil is also being recognised in the awards.
They are being presented today (March 13) in Auckland at the fourth annual Defining Excellence Awards, where Massey combines acknowledgement for its top research and teaching staff with plaudits for graduates who have achieved major success in their professions or industries or made outstanding community contributions.

Luxton, a former MP, receives the supreme honour – the Sir Geoffrey Peren Medal. Named after Massey's founding principal, the award recognises a graduate who has reached the highest level of achievement in business or professional life, or who has been of significant service to the university, community or nation.

Luxton served 15 years as MP for Matamata from 1986 to 2002, with nine years as minister across a dozen portfolios, including Housing, Commerce, Industry, Energy, Fisheries, Māori Affairs, Police, Lands, Customs, Biosecurity and Agriculture. He was responsible for a number of significant policy and legislative changes in New Zealand, including the foundation policy work that led to the formation of Fonterra and the deregulation of producer boards.

A director of Wallace Corporation and Tatua Co-op Dairy company, Luxton serves on the boards of the Royal New Zealand Ballet, the Massey University Foundation and the Morrinsvile Art Gallery Trust. He is co-Chair of the Waikato River Authority, charged with cleaning up the river; the Constitutional Advisory Panel; and Landcare Research.

Dr O'Neil is the recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award. A trained vet and former Deputy Director General of MAF Biosecurity New Zealand, O'Neil has been at the forefront of biosecurity and animal welfare for 35 years.
He was elected president of the World Organisation for Animal Health from 2006 to 2009, served as the New Zealand delegate from 1994 until he left MAF and also served as the Regional President for Asia, the Far East and Oceania.

O'Neil has led the ongoing transformation of New Zealand's biosecurity system, seeing off biodiversity scares including the painted apple moth and the hoax foot and mouth disease on Waiheke Island. Now a biosecurity consultant, he is currently focused on the kiwifruit PSA incursion.

The other Distinguished Service Award recipients are Dr Frances Hughes, a mental health nursing specialist who worked through the aftermath of 9/11, the Boxing Day tsunami, Canterbury earthquakes and Hurricane Sandy and David Kelly, chief executive of Zeald, one of New Zealand's fastest growing companies.