The breadth of Mr Collinge’spublic involvement is further demonstrated by the following, also reflecting his public service and contribution to the community:
(a)The Arts: For the last 13 or so years, Mr Collinge has been a Trustee of the Dame Sister Mary Leo Foundation (DSMLF), whichTrust is for the purpose of encouraging the training and advancement of opera singers. Over the years, the Trust has run competitions and made awards to opera singers who are now household names. Recently, the Trust has created a DSML scholarship for the outstanding student at the Opera School run by New Zealand Opera Society. Further, as High Commissioner Mr Collinge involved himself in many arts and associated events including jewellery, stitched textiles, poetry, novels, music, museums and art [eg pages156, 242, 245, 246], and was also the founding President of the NZ Arts Society in London [page 156]
(b)International: Mr Collinge has led, for NZ, a number of delegations overseas in a wide variety of situations –for example, these include to Warsaw forthe 50th Anniversary of the Relief of Warsaw (in which NZ participated and in which 14 NZ airmen died); to Sofia heading the NZ delegation to the World Bank for Reconstruction and Development; to Glasgow for the World Alcohol & Drug Conference; to Sydney for the South Pacific Electrical Convention; to the Peoples Republic of China leading a delegation from the NZ National Party; and to Costa Rica for the World League for Freedom and Democracy conference. Notably, he also chaired a number of sessions and presented papers there.
(c)Colonial Homes Restored: Mr Collinge has restored (from multi use and occupation) two classic colonial Victorian homes –‘Belmont’ in Mt Albert and ‘Akarana’ in St Mary’s Bay –dating from the 1860 –1890 period. They are both widely admired and ‘Akarana’ features on the front cover of ‘Where to Live in Auckland’ [Barbican, 2011]. This preserves for Auckland two significant and iconic colonial homes of that period, many of which have now unfortunately been demolished.
(d)‘An Identity forNew Zealand?’: Mr Collinge has also written a book ‘An Identity for New Zealand?’ [Thesaurus Press, 2011] drawing on experiences and research in the UK and NZ, in which he explores the backgrounds of early English, Scots, Welsh and Irish settlers in NZ, their reasons for emigration, what they brought to New Zealand and their adaptation there to the new environment. A purpose was to evaluate the characteristics of the early settlers (in the UK and then in NZ) and their contribution to New Zealand, and whether these continue as NZ characteristics today. It is important to evaluate aspects of a country’s identity as its essence and differences contribute to fundamental issues such as how New Zealand sees itself and presents to the world, the makeup of the flag, and so on.
(e)Cricket: As both a batsman and a bowler, Mr Collinge played competitive cricket. He was Captain of the NZ Universities XI for two years, Captain of the Auckland Brabin Shield team (under 21 years) and a member of two winning teams in the Auckland Senior competition (University and Eastern). He also played first grade cricket in Victoria, Australia and, as indicated, English County Cricket for Oxford University.
Mr Collinge has been correctly described as ‘an all rounder’ [at page 272] in reference to his ability across a wide range of activity and endeavour. This also explains the width of his Public Service Record and his ability to perceive the broader picture and policy overview and, having done so, to implement appropriate objectives.