The former director-general of health added his name during a visit last week to the Sumner home Achilles shares with artist Henry Sunderland, who collects garden gnomes as symbols for environmental protection and awareness.
He coined the acronym GNOME – Guarding Naturally Over Mother Earth.
Sunderland is also well-known as the man who cheered up Christchurch after the February 22, 2011, earthquake by encouraging people to put flowers in road cones.
The Dalai Lama, chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall, and New Zealanders Sir Edmund Hillary, Helen Clark, Gary Endacott and Jacinda Ardern have all added their names.
Appropriately enough, Sunderland also tried to get a signature from Sir David Attenborough.
But Attenborough responded with a three-page letter outlining his refusal, citing “quite frankly, I don’t like gnomes”.
-By Tony Simons
