The All Black great Michael Jones has been knighted in the Queen's Birthday honours list for his services to the Pacific community and to youth.
Michael Jones in action during the New Zealand vs England match at the Rugby World Cup in 1991. Photo: Photosport
Sir Michael says he doesn't intend to change too much. "Very honoured, very privileged, very humble."
"I'm hoping, and I am sure I will always be still called Bubs by my big sisters and Uncle Micky by my nieces and nephews and Iceman by my friends."
"But I'll have to just get used to Sir now and again...but it's going to take a while to get used to it.
He says he honours the Pacific leaders who went before him.
"Because like any new migrant immigrant community there's been a huge amount of challenges."
He says there's still much work to be done for the Pacific community.
"For us we've done a lot of good things and we've made some real positive contributions, but there's no doubt that we sort of lag and at times referred to as the brown tail of society where with Māori unfortunately we might be in the wrong end of those socio-economic and health and education indicators."
"Our mission in life has been to shorten that brown tail...we'd rather be the head than the tail."
