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Tony Shaw has devoted his life to advocating for people in and out of the courtroom. The IHC Chair has been honoured for services to people with intellectual disabilities and the community.

Retiring IHC Chief Executive Ralph Jones says Tony is both an esteemed businessperson and a community driven individual, and IHC and people with intellectual disabilities have greatly benefited from both.

“We want to congratulate Tony on this well-deserved honour and thank him for his generosity with time and expertise,” says Ralph. “It is with pride that we join him in celebrating and recognising his achievement.”

Tony has built a reputation not just as a strong advocate during a long legal career, but as a leader and trusted advisor, as comfortable chairing multi-million companies as taking on a community project or mentoring young professionals.

Tony’s association with IHC is a long one. As a young lawyer starting out in Timaru, he was asked to go on the committee of the IHC South Canterbury Branch in 1983. At that time committees were mostly made up of women who had a child with an intellectual disability, but he found a cause that resonated deeply with his natural inclination to advocate for people who needed his help.

By 1993 Tony had been elected President of the South Canterbury Branch and then in 1998 he joined a new national IHC Board of Governance. He was on the board from 1998 to 2005.

Tony took over as IHC President in 2002 during a period of major health and welfare reform in New Zealand that impacted on people with intellectual disabilities. This meant huge changes for the organisation as it managed a new environment of contracting for services and competition between providers. IHC was at the same time campaigning on two fronts: for the government to move people out of the large institutions into the community and to ensure school-aged children with disabilities could be enrolled in mainstream education.

Tony has led IHC twice: first as IHC New Zealand President from 2002-05, becoming an IHC New Zealand Life Member in 2005. From 2007-19 he was one of two IHC-appointed trustees on the IHC Foundation Charitable Trust. He was, for many years, a Trustee and Chair of the Donald Beasley Institute, which supports disability research and education. He then returned to the board in 2019, taking over as Chair from 2020.

Tony said he came back to a far more complex organisation, partly because of the growth of the IHC subsidiary Accessible Properties, which is now New Zealand’s largest non-government registered and accredited community housing provider. His return also coincided with COVID-19 and the massive task of keeping 4,000 disabled people and 4000 staff safe.

During a 42-legal career Tony worked regularly in the criminal court, later focusing on commercial and general litigation work, where his experience and passion towards advocating for others was put to use outside of the courtroom.

Tony has made major contributions in other fields – as Chairman of Ritchies Transport Holdings, New Zealand’s biggest privately owned passenger transport business, and as Chairman of the South Island Masters Games. Tony supported the development of sport in Timaru, becoming a member of the Aorangi Stadium Trust from 2008-12.

IHC would also like to congratulate other recipients including Laurie Hilsgen recognised as an Honorary Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to family carers, Barry de Geest as a Companion of the King’s Service Order for services to disabled people and Gary Williams as a Companion of the King’s Service Order for services to survivors of abuse in care.