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The consumer advisory group te kāhui mahi ngātahi was established to carry out the following functions.

  • Advise the board and chief executive on strategic issues, priorities and frameworks from a consumer perspective. 
  • Identify key issues for consumers and organisations, such as:
    • responsiveness of existing providers to patients/consumers/families/whānau
    • strategic direction of Commission programmes
    • measuring and examining safety and quality.
  • Engage with the Commission consumer network kōtuinga kiritaki, national and international clinical advisory groups and the wider health and disability sector on our consumer engagement activities and interests.

TOR and minutes

Terms of reference

The terms of reference for the consumer advisory group te kāhui mahi ngātahi can be downloaded here:

Minutes

Minutes 2025

Minutes 2024

  • 12 November 2024 Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting  (PDF 316KB | DOCX 105KB)
  • 20 September 2024 Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting  (PDF 313KB | DOCX 109KB)
  • 25 July 2024 Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting (PDF 407KB | DOCX 1.4MB)
  • 31 May 2024 Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting  (PDF 247KB | DOCX 91KB)
  • 5 April 2024 Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting  (PDF 425KB | DOCX 575KB)
  • 9 February 2024 Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting (PDF 1MB | DOCX 1.9MB)

Minutes 2023

  • 10 November 2023 Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting  (971KB, pdf | 1.3MB docx)
  • 7 September 2023 Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting  (605KB, pdf | 435KB, docx)
  • 29 May 2023 Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting  (537KB, pdf | 133KB, docx)
  • 4 April 2023 Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting  (180KB, pdf | 83KB, docx)
  • 10 February 2023 Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting  (494KB, pdf | 163KB, docx)

Minutes 2022

  • 15 November 2022. Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting  (347KB, pdf | 146KB, docx)
  • 4 October 2022. Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting (246KB, pdf | 147KB, docx)
  • 16 August 2022. Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting  (269KB, pdf | 152KB, docx)
  • 28 June 2022. Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting (273KB, pdf | 135KB, docx)
  • 17 May 2022. Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting (175KB, pdf | 129KB, docx)
  • 29 March 2022. Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting  (193KB, pdf |  117KB, docx)
  • 10 February 2022. Minutes of Consumer advisory group Te kāhui mahi ngātahi meeting  (216KB, pdf | 122KB, docx)

Minutes 2021

Minutes 2020

Minutes 2019

Past members

  • Martine Abel-Williamson 
  • Muriel Tunoho
  • Rowena Lewis 
  • Frank Bristol 
  • Ngatamaine Mareko-Johnson
  • Boyd Broughton 
  • Mary Schnackenberg 
  • Delphina Soti 
  • Russ Aiton 
  • Angie Smith

Our members

Jodie Bennett (Kāti Kuri, Kāi Tahu)

Jodie (Kāti Kurī and Kāi Tahu) is the Peer Strategic Lead for Pathways, a national mental health and addictions service provider. 
 
Her own lived experience and subsequent positive recovery outcome have led to a passion to help and support others to navigate their own journey of recovery from mental distress. 
 
The kindness and support shown to Jodie, particularly access to Peer Support workers as part of her recovery journey, led to a change in career from corporate communications, lobbying and public relations to using her skills and networking abilities to help others through collaboration, co-design and Lived Experience leadership. 
 
Jodie found a lot of healing in reconnecting to her culture and te ao Māori. This reconnection has assisted greatly in connecting well with iwi and whānau and addressing some of the inequities for Māori with mental health and addictions. 
 
Having two neurodiverse children has led to another of Jodie’s strong areas of interest and she is particularly interested in giving voice to her community. 
 
Jodie is delighted to have extended her term on the rōpū for a further three years and looks forward to sharing her expertise at a governance level. 

Lisa Lawrence (Nelson)

Lisa lives in Nelson, where she has strong connections with the voices and perspectives of provincial/rural communities and Māori hapori. Lisa’s lived experience includes her experience of maternal health and mental health services, and support for her father and other family members. Her consumer advisor experience includes being a lay representative on the New Zealand Psychologists Board, a Māori consumer representative for specific New Zealand College of Midwives audit/review projects, a member and chair of the Pharmac consumer advisory committee and a current member of the Māori advisory committee to the Nelson Bays Primary Health board.

Lisa feels it is important for those who can contribute and represent the consumer voice to do so, and for this representation to expand so more diverse and experienced people can add their thoughts and aspirations to the kōrero over time.  

Lisa feels the code of expectations for health entities’ engagement with consumers and whānau increases opportunities to for consumers to shape health service provision. She also recognises the key role of Te Tāhū Hauora in this work. Both factors have motivated her to join Te Kāhui Mahi Ngātahi Consumer Advisory Group. 

Joshua McMillan

Josh has short dark hair and stubble. He is wearing a beige polo shirt Josh was born and raised in Rotorua with his mum, dad, two sisters and two young aunts. His paternal grandparents played a large part in his young life, helping with family care when cancer struck the family twice. 

In 2008, Josh was diagnosed with a rare form of ALL leukaemia at age 9, five  years after his older sister had also been diagnosed with the same disease in 2003. Treatment was tough and left a long tail, leading to a string of chemo-related effects that still impact Josh today at 27 years old. 

Following a period of poor mental health, Josh flipped his experience into something beneficial. Since 2021, Josh has been a youth leader, President of Canteen Aotearoa and a Director of the Board. He has presented at domestic and international events representing his and his peers' experiences during and after cancer; in 2024 he co-led and presented an independent project drawing on global perspectives of cancer from peers worldwide. 

2025 marked a pivotal year for Josh, Graduating from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Arts, fulfilling and ending his time with Canteen Aotearoa (a huge part of his life) and stepping down from Nga Reo Mahuri Young Voices Advisory Group. Josh now continues to take on roles as an independent advisor/consultant across various projects, is stepping into mentorship for young people with similar experiences, whilst taking some much needed time to tackle personal goals and projects.

Amanda Stevens

Amanda sits in front of a forest scene. She has curly brown hair, a bright red v neck top and a greenstone pendant the shape of a heart is around her neck Amanda was registered blind when she was 24 years old. Twenty years later she experienced profound and sudden-onset hearing loss on one side. Until she lost her hearing, she had no experience of the day-to-day complexity of dual sensory loss and hadn’t heard the term ‘deafblind’.

 She has served on the committee of the Nelson branch of Blind Citizens NZ since 2014 and was chair from 2015–17. She also served on the board of Blind Citizens NZ from 2013–17. Amanda helped establish the Deafblind Association NZ and spent eleven years as their executive officer.

 Amanda is a qualified massage therapist, and she is a qualified yoga teacher with the British Wheel of Yoga. For 10 years she taught yoga and advocacy to people with intellectual disabilities. 

 Amanda is excited about any developing technologies that support independent and healthy lives and is in support of funding for smartphones as a tool for self-determination,, especially for those in isolated regions and as critical alignment to emergency planning. She values devices and applications that support her hearing, blindness and the stabilisation of her Type 1 diabetes.

Published: 22 Oct 2021 Modified: 8 Dec 2025