Other Commonwealth Countries
Australia is another Commonwealth Realm that at present does not confer titular honours on its citizens, except where those honours are conferred personally by the Sovereign, though this occurred after the creation of the Order of Australia, which initially included grades that awarded knighthoods and damehoods. Additionally, even once the Commonwealth of Australia government had ceased making recommendations for the Australian quota of the British honours list, the governments of the various states of the Australian federation were free to do so, and notably in the case of the State of Queensland, continued to do so for some years.
Commonwealth countries such as the United Kingdom, Jamaica and Papua New Guinea still confer titular honours, however in recent years the latter two have generally opted to bestow National orders of similar standing offering Order of the National Hero of Jamaica and Order of the Logohu as new alternatives which come with their own styles of "Right Excellent" and "Chief" or "Grand Chief" respectively. There have been reports in the British press of the sale of honours to Britons making large financial contributions to Tony Blair's Labour Party coffers, thus raising the hackles of egalitarians in his own party. Peerage watchers and historians note that such a scandal about the sale of honours occurred in the 1930s in the famous Maundy Gregory affair.
The New Zealand government bestows titular honours on its citizens in the New Zealand Order of Merit. However between 2000-2009, the conferral of knighthoods and damehoods was temporarily discontinued under Helen Clark with the two higher grades of the Order being replaced with postnominals to indicate membership, to make this Order more like the one-grade Order of New Zealand. However in March 2009 John Key requested to Elizabeth II that the Order be resumed at the pre-2000 grades and granting of knighthoods and damehoods was continued. As in Australia, Her Majesty continues to make titular awards in the Royal Victorian Order, the Order of the Thistle and the Order of the Garter, since these Orders are within the Sovereign's prerogative. New Zealanders who received New Zealand's former titular honours prior to 2000 may continue to employ them and those New Zealanders who received the equivalent postnominals between 2000-2008 were allowed to exchange them for the restored titles if they so chose.
Antigua and Barbuda created its own honours system in 1998 with its two highest orders, the Order of the National Hero and the Order of the Nation bestowing titular honours.
Read more about this topic: Canadian Titles Debate
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