Fisher was named as the winner of the award in 2014, at the 53rd edition of the ceremony which aims to honour and celebrate sporting achievements by New Zealand teams and athletes throughout the year.

The night also sees the Sportswoman and Sportsman of the Year crowned, while the Team of the Year, Coach of the Year and the Emerging Talent are all revealed.

Having claimed five medals during the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) World Swimming Championships in Glasgow, Fisher had been expected to be on the shortlist again.

The 22-year-old, though, was missed off the list of nominations and following an investigation PNZ admitted earlier this week that an administration error by them led to her not being put forward.

Allan has now revealed that the error involved Fisher being mistakenly left off an email of the nominations which was sent to the Halberg Disability Sport Foundation (HDSF).

“I'm the chief executive so I'm more than willing to take responsibility on behalf of PNZ for the error that was made," Allan told stuff.co.nz.

"I'm not prepared to go into detail as to who and what and when, it was an error that was made and as chief executive I take full responsibility for that.

"The administration error was that there was one nomination missed off from submitting on that email, so we submitted four of the five nominations with the full intent of course of submitting Mary's as well.

"I'm very much aware that Paralympics New Zealand were talking with Mary's coach and family just that very morning with regards to best preparing a good application for Mary.”

With HDSF having confirmed the current nominations will stand, the winner of world titles in the 100 metres freestyle, 100m backstroke and 200m medley for S11 classification athletes at Glasgow 2015 will not be able to claim the award for the second successive year.

She also won silver medals in the 50m and 400m freestyle.

While the winner of four Paralympic medals at London 2012, including one gold, is not on the shortlist,  her fellow swimmers Nikita Howarth and Sophie Pascoe are among the nominees for the Disabled Sportsperson of the Year, as well as cyclists Emma Foy and Laura Thompson.

The list is completed by skier Corey Peters, shooting’s Michael Johnson and athletics stars Jessica Hamill and Rory McSweeney.

The Halberg Awards are due to be held on February 18 at Vector Arena in Auckland.