Australian honours system support, but Australian Labor Party (ALP) governments, both national and state, ceased making recommendations for Imperial awards – in particular, appointments to the Order of the British Empire mainly after 1972. During the Second World War, the Governor-General, on the advice of wartime Labor governments, made recommendations for gallantry awards, including eleven for the Victoria Cross. Appointments to the Order of the British Empire were for officers and men engaged in operational areas. In 1975, the ALP (which had been out of power federally from 1949 until 1972) created the Australian Honours System. Recommendations were processed centrally, but State Governors
New Zealand Royal Honours System honours and the creation of a new five-level New Zealand Order of Merit to replace them. In 2000, Prime Minister Helen Clark announced that no further awards of knighthoods and damehoods would be made in the New Zealand Honours system. In March 2009, Prime Minister John Key announced the restoration of knighthoods and damehoods to the New Zealand Honours system, with past recipients of the two highest grades of the New Zealand Order of Merit to be eligible to receive titles. New Zealand Royal Honours System The New Zealand Royal Honours system, a system of orders, decorations and medals, recognises