36 Facts About Margaret Bazley

Margaret Bazley began her career as a psychiatric nurse and rose through the ranks to senior leadership positions at psychiatric hospitals and district health boards.

Margaret Bazley subsequently held top positions at the Department of Transport and the Department of Social Welfare.

In 2012 Bazley was made an additional member of the Order of New Zealand, New Zealand's highest honour.

Margaret Bazley has continued with public sector work throughout her retirement and has a reputation for reform, transformational leadership and problem-solving.

Margaret Bazley has said that as a child she had the ambition of becoming a psychiatric nurse.

Margaret Bazley attended Waihi College, and left school at 18 to begin working as a psychiatric nurse in Wellington.

Margaret Bazley became the charge nurse at Tokanui Hospital in 1961, and rose quickly through the ranks to become assistant matron at Seacliff Mental Hospital in 1963, and matron at Sunnyside Hospital from 1965 to 1973.

In later life Margaret Bazley has said that she regards her time as matron at Sunnyside Hospital as the pinnacle of her nursing career, because she and her team were at the forefront of a change from a custodial psychiatric care model to a model based on therapy.

Margaret Bazley was the lead author of a textbook The Nurse and the Psychiatric Patient, and had a paper about the hospital published in an international journal.

Margaret Bazley was an early proponent of deinstitutionalisation and of treating psychiatric patients as human beings.

In 1971, Margaret Bazley was elected President of the New Zealand Nurses Association, and she held this position from 1972 to 1974.

Margaret Bazley advocated in this role for better pay and respect for nurses.

Margaret Bazley held other leadership positions at hospitals over the next few years: in 1973 she worked as the Senior Public Health Nurse in the Auckland District Health Office, from 1974 to 1975 she was the Deputy Matron in Chief for the Auckland Hospital Board, and from 1975 to 1978 she worked as the Chief Nursing Officer of the Waikato Hospital Board.

In 1978, Margaret Bazley became the Director of Nursing at the Department of Health.

In 2013, Margaret Bazley commented: "For years I was usually the only woman in a crowd of men, giving rise to many memorable experiences, such as being taken to parliamentary committees and put in the front row so that all could see that the Health Department had a woman in its senior ranks".

In 1984, Margaret Bazley was appointed as the first woman Commissioner of the State Services Commission.

Margaret Bazley was the driving force behind New Zealand's public sector restructuring that took place in the 1980s and the replacement of government departments with state-owned enterprises.

Margaret Bazley's role involved work on equal employment opportunities for women and the establishment of the Ministry of Women's Affairs.

From 1993 to 2001, Margaret Bazley was the Director-General of the Department of Social Welfare.

Margaret Bazley was a member of the Waitangi Tribunal from 2001 to 2011 and continued to sit on ongoing inquiry panels after this date.

From 2006 to 2013, Margaret Bazley was the Registrar of MPs' Pecuniary Interests, responsible for compiling and maintaining the register of MPs' pecuniary and certain other interests.

From 2007 to 2008, Margaret Bazley was one of the three commissioners of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, established to investigate local government arrangements in Auckland, and the commission's report led to the establishment of the unitary Auckland Council.

Margaret Bazley has continued voluntary work in her retirement, and is the patron of the New Zealand College of Mental Health Nurses and the United Fire Brigades' Association of New Zealand.

Margaret Bazley issued her report in 2007 which identified a number of systemic issues and matters of misconduct and made 60 recommendations.

Margaret Bazley's findings were accepted by the Commissioner of Police and a ten-year monitoring and reporting regime was put in place.

In 2009, Margaret Bazley was appointed by then Minister of Justice Simon Power to review legal aid in New Zealand after reports that lawyers were taking advantage of the system.

Margaret Bazley's report led to a number of reforms including the introduction of new legislation and the expansion of the Public Defence Service.

Margaret Bazley was the chairwoman of the commissioners of regional council Environment Canterbury from 2009 to 2016.

Margaret Bazley found that the firm had a "work hard, play hard" culture that involved excessive drinking and in some cases inappropriate behaviour, but that this culture had changed over the past couple of years.

Margaret Bazley found failings in the firm's response to the incidents and made 48 recommendations for improvement, which were accepted by the firm.

Margaret Bazley was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal in 1990, and the New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal in 1993.

Margaret Bazley was made an additional member of the Order of New Zealand in the 2012 Queen's Birthday and Diamond Jubilee Honours.

Margaret Bazley said she felt that the thousands of public servants she had worked with during her career shared in this honour.

Margaret Bazley received a Sir Peter Blake Leadership Award in 2011.

Margaret Bazley is a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Management and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Transport.

Margaret Bazley received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Massey University in 2008, an honorary degree in natural resources from Lincoln University in 2018, and an honorary Doctor of Laws from Victoria University of Wellington in 2019.