For the first time, more women than men are on the Queen's Birthday Honours list.
Recipients include the Topp twins, Catherine Healy from NZ Prostitutes Collective, and Kristine Bartlett who helped win a billion dollar settlement for care workers. (Source: Other)
The recipients include the Topp twins, Catherine Healy from the NZ Prostitutes Collective, celebrity cook Annabel Langbein, and Kristine Bartlett who helped win a billion dollar settlement for care workers.
After working in the industry for 30 years, Ms Healy will become a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit and is the first person to be recognised for services to the rights of sex workers.
When she got the news Ms Healy says she was shocked.
"I cried and I cried. I was quite shaken," Ms Healy said.
"When you working in a topic area, when you've had a topical life [with] controversial behaviours, you don't expect that kind of honour," Ms Healy says.
For decades she campaigned for prostitution to be decriminalised and created a cross-party group in Parliament in 1996.
Jools and her twin sister Lynda, also known as the Topp Twins, will also become Dames, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern describing them as "iconic and incorrigible".
The Topp Twins have released five bestselling children's audio books, and have regularly toured Australia and New Zealand to sold-out venues.
In 2008, they were inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame.
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