New Zealand Official Yearbook 2002

International climate change research reached a major milestone in January 2001 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded there was now comprehensive evidence of climate change during the 20th century. Key points raised in the IPCC report were:

What the warming climate will mean in detail for the South Pacific is still the subject of investigation by scientific researchers, with key emerging issues being changes in rainfall patterns and associated shifts in water resources and agricultural growing conditions. Impact scenario studies will provide an important link between global climate dynamics and the ability of New Zealand and South Pacific communities to adapt to local changes that will affect everyday lives.

Following is a summary of knowledge gained in the past decade about the effect of climate change on New Zealand.

Projected climate changes. Temperatures in New Zealand are likely to increase faster in the North Island than in the South Island, but generally less than global average temperatures. Rainfall is projected to increase in the west of the country and to decrease in many eastern regions. In the long term, rising seas are expected to increase erosion of vulnerable beaches and breach coastal protection structures more often.

Agriculture. The agricultural sector could benefit under climate change, but also faces risks. The key benefit to agriculture is likely to be from increased carbon dioxide concentrations, which could lead to greatly increased growth rates and water-use efficiency. In addition, warmer conditions and lengthened growing seasons could allow the long-term southward shift of climate-limited activities, and new crops and related industries could be introduced. The most significant risks include more droughts and floods in some areas, particularly in the east of New Zealand. Warmer temperatures could also make the growing of some current fruit crops in some northern areas uneconomical.

Native ecosystems. Climate change may add to pressure on ecosystems already under threat. Fragmented native forests of drier lowland environments in Northland, Waikato and Manawatu, and in the east from East Cape to Southland, are probably the most vulnerable to climate change.

Urban environment, transport and energy. The main threat to the urban environment comes from possible increases in heavy rainfall, which would put pressure on drainage and stormwater systems and increase the risk of flooding in some areas. Warmer conditions will substantially reduce home heating costs, leading to reduced electricity demand during the peak winter season, but possibly increased demand for air conditioning during summer.

Health. Higher temperatures are expected to reduce winter illnesses, but could lead to higher death rates during summer. A warmer climate could also allow the spread of mosquitoes capable of transmitting diseases such as Ross River virus and dengue fever. Recent research has also found that climate change could lead to a delay in the recovery of the ozone layer. This would increase the period during which New Zealanders are exposed to high levels of ultraviolet radiation, which is known to lead to skin cancers. However, the possible effects of greenhouse gases on the ozone layer are still highly uncertain.

Pacific neighbours. New Zealand has close links with many Pacific Island countries. Many of these countries are highly vulnerable to rising sea levels caused by climate change. As a result, New Zealand may face increased demand for development aid and disaster relief.

Table 1.2 gives predicted changes to temperature and rainfall.

2001. New Zealand climate records continued to tumble in 2001, both for average and extreme temperatures. The year was one of the driest on record in many eastern South Island areas, as well as parts of Wellington, in spite of a wet October-December period.

The North Island bore the brunt of 11 rainfall/flooding extremes, while tornadoes also featured in 2001, with at least eight reported, along with an unusual number of high wind events, many of which caused property damage.

The year featured many new climate records and extremes, with five unusually warm months, and two much colder than average. There were six cold snaps in winter, four with snow and two with extreme frosts. There were at least two widespread and damaging hailstorms, with hailstones ‘the size of golf balls’.

Higher than average pressures occurred from the south Tasman Sea across the lower South Island and east past the Chatham Islands. Pressures were below average in the north Tasman Sea and to the north. This pattern resulted in more frequent easterlies and north-easterlies over the north of the North Island and more settled conditions elsewhere.

Analyses of month-by-month records for 2001 compared with recorded statistics for previous years show:

Figure 1.2. Southern oscillation index
Air pressure recordings from Tahiti and Darwin

2000. The year 2000 produced a wide variety of climate extremes and the second warmest winter since records began in the mid 1850s. Unusually high sunshine hours occurred in Taranaki. A drought in summer and early autumn contrasted with 15 high rainfall events producing floods in most other months. Two notable heatwaves occurred, and six cold snaps, five with snow. Three tornadoes were reported, and 11 high wind events all caused property damage. Severe hailstorms occurred on three separate occasions. More anticyclones than normal occurred east of New Zealand, resulting in more easterlies over the north of the North Island, and north-westerlies over the far south.

Climate extremes. NIWA's annual climate summaries (available on its website www.niwa.cri.nz) contain detailed descriptions of extreme weather events for the year. These include extremes of temperatures and sunshine hours, and notable occurrences of snowfalls and frosts, droughts, floods and high rainfall, tornadoes, gales and high winds, and severe hailstorms.

The oldest rocks in New Zealand are found in Nelson, Westland and Fiordland. They have been dated back to the Paleozoic era about 570 million years ago. Nearly three-quarters of New Zealand is covered by sedimentary rocks, created by the interplay of earth movement and erosion. The most common forms of sedimentary rocks in New Zealand are sandstone, mudstone, greywacke, conglomerate and limestone. As well as sedimentary rocks of various ages, New Zealand incorporates in its complex structure metamorphic rocks (schist, gneiss and marble) and intrusive igneous rocks (granite, gabbro, diorite and serpentine). Volcanic rocks (basalt, andesite, rhyolite and ignimbrite) are products of the many volcanic eruptions that have characterised New Zealand's geological history.

Soil is a product of its environment. Its composition depends on the parent ingredient, the climate, the length of time it has weathered, topography and the vegetation under which it has formed. The complex soil pattern of New Zealand (see table 1.7) is a result of many different kinds of rock and the various conditions under which the soils have formed. Climate varies from such extremes as sub-tropical North Auckland to the cold uplands of the alpine regions and the semi-arid basins of Central Otago. The country's topography is equally varied, with 50 percent of the land classifiable as steep, 20 percent as moderately hilly and only 30 percent as rolling or flat. Natural vegetation ranges from kauri forest to sub-alpine scrub, and from tussock grassland to broadleaf forest. Occasionally, occurrences such as river floods on alluvial plains, sand drifts, or volcanic ash eruptions interrupt and alter the pattern of soil development.

Evidence of episodes of intense mountain building between one million and six million years ago are apparent in the New Zealand landscape of today. Mountain chains were pushed up during this period and there was movement and displacement of the earth's crust along faults. Due to this activity, well-preserved tilted fault blocks bounded by fault scarps (steep faces hundreds or even thousands of metres high) are visible in the landscape of some regions. Fault movements continue to the present day and have accompanied several major earthquakes of the past century.

Erosion has transformed the landscape during this time, carving detailed patterns of peaks, ridges, valleys and gorges. The deposition of debris has built up alluvial plains, shingle fans and other construction forms. At the coast, waves have eaten back headlands and built beaches, spits and bars. Glaciers carved the fiords of Fiordland and valleys occupied by most of the South Island lakes. Sea level changes accompanied formation, and later melting, of global glacial ice. These changes affected the erosion and deposition of rivers and were responsible for the formation of many prominent river terraces.

Volcanic activity during the past few million years played an important part in shaping the landscape. The largest volcanic outpourings of late geological times were in the region between Tongariro National Park and the Bay of Plenty coast. The most recognisable volancoes in New Zealand now occur in the North Island, where a number are still active. They include Ruapehu, Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, White Island and Mt Tarawera. Others such as Mt Taranaki or Egmont and Rangitoto may be considered dormant at present, although they are still regarded as significant hazards.

Living in New Zealand means living with earthquakes. There is an almost continuous belt of earthquake activity around the edge of the Pacific Ocean that affects the geological stability of many countries on the Pacific Rim, particularly New Zealand, west coast United States, Chile, Peru, Japan and the Philippines. New Zealand's level of activity is similar to that of California, but slightly lower than that of Japan. A magnitude 8 earthquake occurs in New Zealand about once a century, a magnitude 7 quake averages out at once a decade and there is an average rate of one magnitude 6 quake a year.

New Zealand has many earthquakes because it straddles the boundary between two of the earth's great tectonic plates – the Pacific Plate in the east and the Australian Plate in the west. These two plates are converging obliquely at about 30mm/year in Fiordland, increasing to about 50mm/year at East Cape. The plates converge in different ways. In the North Island and the northern South Island, the Pacific Plate sinks below the Australian Plate. Earthquakes originating within the subducting Pacific Plate are less than 30km deep along the eastern coast, and become deeper westward. In Fiordland and the region to the south, the Australian Plate subducts beneath the Pacific Plate, so the earthquake sources are shallow in the west and deeper in the east under Fiordland.

Between these two subduction zones, the crust of both plates is too buoyant to subduct, so the convergence is accommodated by uplift, which created the Southern Alps, and horizontal movement along the Alpine Fault. This results in parts of Nelson and western Otago, adjacent five million years ago, now being 450km apart. The forces driving this sideways and upward movement create shallow earthquakes.

About two-thirds of New Zealand's earthquakes are deep, while shallow earthquakes originate within the earth's crust, which has an average thickness of 35km in New Zealand. Crustal quakes are responsible for almost all damage to property, and are widely scattered throughout New Zealand. In the Taupo volcanic zone, from White Island to Ruapehu, swarms of small earthquakes of similar magnitude are associated with the area's active volcanism. Although the number of shocks is alarming, they rarely cause damage.

Earthquake risk. The worst disaster that can reasonably be expected within a generation is a 7.5 magnitude earthquake on the segment of the Wellington fault within the city. It has a 12 percent probability of occurring within the next 30 years, and would affect 200,000 residential properties from Palmerston North to Nelson, as well as roads, bridges and dams, and services such as electricity, water and sewerage.

The Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS) in Lower Hutt runs the National Seismograph Network. A major upgrade to the equipment that monitors earthquakes and volcanoes in New Zealand was started in 2001. The Earthquake Commission is providing $5 million a year over 10 years to install upgraded equipment at new sites and replace existing equipment to more rapidly and reliably determine the location and magnitude of all significant earthquakes within the New Zealand region (see sidebar). Such information is rapidly broadcast to civil defence and emergency management authorities and international earthquake centres in the United Kingdom and the United States. New Zealand scientists also undertake a large body of research aimed at improving understanding of, and ways to mitigate, seismic hazard in New Zealand. Mitigation measures include improved engineering design of buildings and infrastructure, better prepared communities and better regional planning.

Principal earthquakes in New Zealand in 2001. New Zealand was hit by at least six potentially damaging earthquakes in 2001, but they were either too distant from population centres or too deep to cause harm.

In what GNS seismologists described as an average year in terms of size, number and distribution of earthquakes, the largest jolt was a magnitude 7.0 earthquake on August 21 centred offshore in the Kermadec Trench, 420km north-east of Gisborne. Although distant, its large size and relatively shallow depth meant it was felt throughout much of the North Island and as far south as Christchurch. It caused minor damage and a brief electricity blackout at Tolaga Bay, 56km north-east of Gisborne.

Also of note was a magnitude 6.2 earthquake centred 20km north of Taumarunui on May 24. It was felt throughout the eastern North Island, but its impact was not severe because of its depth of 260km.

A magnitude 6.1 earthquake on the morning of December 8 located 30km south-west of Haast, and shallower than 12km, was felt throughout the southern South Island, but was away from major population centres.

All of these larger earthquakes were followed by dozens of smaller aftershocks. In the case of the quake south-west of Haast, aftershocks occurred at the rate of up to 20 an hour during the first two days after the main shock. Accurate recordings of aftershocks give seismologists valuable information about the nature of the main shock and its relation to the geology of the area. In particular, aftershocks can indicate how the main shock may have increased or decreased the stress on neighbouring faults.

Only about 1 percent of the 16,000 earthquakes recorded in New Zealand each year are big enough or shallow enough to be felt by humans. As a general guide, shallow earthquakes above magnitude 5.0 are capable of causing damage and casualties in built-up areas.

During late September and early October 2001, a number of moderate-sized shallow earthquakes occurred in southern Hawke's Bay, off the coast at Porangahau. The largest of these, a magnitude 5.6 quake on September 24, was felt widely throughout the central and southern North Island.

Among other moderate-sized shallow earthquakes recorded in 2001 was a magnitude 5.0 event on April 4, 30km south-east of Blenheim. The largest of a cluster of eight earthquakes that occurred in that area on that day, it was felt throughout Marlborough, the Wellington region and as far north as Wanganui. On May 18, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake 50km west of Methven in Canterbury was felt on the West Coast and in inland Canterbury.

A number of moderate-sized deep earthquakes also occurred during 2001. On October 15, a magnitude 5.8 quake with an epicentre close to Hastings was felt widely. A magnitude 5.0 quake on October 24, 30km north-west of Taupo, was felt along the east coast of the North Island. On November 9, a magnitude 5.3 earthquake 30km south of Nelson was felt in the northern South Island and in the Wellington region. Finally, a magnitude 5.0 event on December 8, located 30km south-west of Gisborne, was felt in the East Cape and Hawke's Bay regions. There were also three earthquakes above magnitude 5.0 in the Bay of Plenty during the first half of the year, but all these events were too deep to cause damage.

The New Zealand region is characterised by both a high density of active volcanoes and a high frequency of eruptions. Volcanic activity in New Zealand occurs within the North Island and offshore to the north-east in the Kermadec Islands. In the past 150 years, volcanoes have killed more people than earthquakes, yet the scale and style of historically recorded volcanic activity is dwarfed by events known to have occurred in the past 2,000 to 5,000 years.

Volcanism. New Zealand volcanism is confined to five areas in the North Island – the Bay of Islands, Whangarei, Auckland, White Island to Ruapehu, and Taranaki or Egmont. The area from White Island to Ruapehu is known as the Taupo volcanic zone and is by far the most frequently active. There are three major types of volcano in New Zealand:

The Taupo volcanic zone (see Figure 1.3) contains three frequently active cone volcanoes (Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and White Island) and the two most productive caldera volcanoes (Taupo and Okataina) in the world.

Casualties. Deaths due directly or indirectly to volcanism (and associated hydrothermal explosions) represent the biggest single source of fatalities from natural disasters in New Zealand since 1846 (see table 1.8). Economic loss due to volcanism, however, has been low compared with that from earthquakes or flooding. The cost of the 1995 and 1996 eruptions of Ruapehu has been estimated at $130 million. However, an assessment of the size and style of volcanic eruptions in the geologically recent past, coupled with consideration of the economic development of New Zealand, especially in the central North Island, shows that the record since 1846 represents only a fraction of the type and size of hazard posed by New Zealand volcanism.

Crises. The term volcanic crisis is used to describe the entire time period associated with a major volcanic eruption. It includes precursors, the eruption and its aftermath. During all this time, people and property are at risk.

The onset of a volcanic crisis is often predictable, but the exact course of an eruption is not. Large volcanic eruptions are predictable because precursors like earthquakes, ground deformation and increased outputs of volcanic gas can be used to infer that an eruption is imminent, so enabling some site-specific planning or mitigation. Large volcanic eruptions are preceded by a period of days to years of high levels of seismicity, ground movements and changes to hot springs and gas vents. However, once an eruption has started, significant hazards can be present for much longer periods than with any other natural event. The eruption may be followed by months to decades of flooding, erosion and land instability.

A feature of volcanic crises compared with other kinds of natural hazards is that each eruption has a far wider range of possible outcomes, each, in turn, with a characteristic range of threats to life and property.

Major types of volcanic hazard are ash and pumice fall, ash and pumice currents, lavas, lahars/flooding and gases/acid rain. Volcanism on a relatively minor scale (eg Ruapehu 1945, 1995, 1996) causes disruption and damage on a regional scale, while some larger events (eg Taupo 1,800 years ago) adversely affect the entire national economy.

Figure 1.3. Taupo volcanic zone
Cone and caldera volcanoes

For each volcano, a hazard map of different potential eruptions can be drawn. Each map has a number of zones specific to a particular hazard (eg lahar, ash fall). The risk varies considerably depending on factors such as topography, wind direction at the time of the eruption, and the position of communities and infrastructure with respect to the erupting volcano. At all of New Zealand's volcanoes, with the possible exception of Ngauruhoe, the historic record is inadequate to assess the full range of activity. Therefore, to help assess the return intervals of any specific kind of eruption, studies are made of deposits left by prehistoric eruptions and interpretations are made of the size and style of each event, together with an estimation of the age. Such information is available to various extents for all of New Zealand's volcanoes. The probability of a future eruption from a wholly new site, or of a type of activity not represented in the past history of the volcano, is remote.

Surveillance. Volcanologists use three primary techniques to establish the ‘health’ of an active volcano:

In a volcanic crisis, practical steps can be taken to mitigate risk and lessen the threat to life, but this requires accurate perception of the onset of a crisis. This perception in turn depends on a knowledge of the ‘background’ or ‘normal’ levels of seismicity, ground movement and gas flux at the volcano, coupled with ‘real-time’ determination of any significant changes from this background. New Zealand has an active volcano surveillance programme to define these background levels.

Mitigation. Experiences at recent large volcanic eruptions like Rabaul (Papua New Guinea) and Pinatubo (Philippines) show it is possible to minimise loss of life during volcanic crises. On the other hand, Nevado del Ruiz and El Chichon showed that poor planning results in major loss of life. A major feature of mitigation is public education. An informed, knowledgeable population makes intelligent decisions, and ‘self-evacuation’ was a key feature at Rabaul and Pinatubo.

The principal tool to accomplish this in New Zealand is the Yellow Book series of the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management. Communities exposed to frequent volcanic hazards evolve simple measures to limit risk. One example is Whakapapa village, Mt Ruapehu, where posters and brochures give detailed precautions against lahar hazards on ski-fields.

The arrival of people in New Zealand heralded times of rapid change. Introduction (intentionally or accidentally) of exotic plants and animals, and the modification of habitat, radically affected native species populations. In the pre-1800 period, following the arrival and expansion of Māori, forest cover was reduced and 34 species became extinct, including moa, the adzebill and the flightless goose. In the much shorter post-1800 period of European settlement, the forest area was further reduced to around 25 percent of the land, nine more birds became extinct and many more were threatened. Since 1840, more than 80 new species of mammals, birds and fish, and more than 1,800 plant species have been introduced, in many places totally changing the landscape and ecology.

Statistics New Zealand divisional manager responsible: Zane Colville.

The Polynesian ancestors of the Māori (meaning ‘ordinary’) people settled the main New Zealand islands (Aotearoa) about 1,000 years ago. They arrived – whether initially by accident or design is unclear – in waka (canoes) blown across the subtropics by prevailing north-east winds.

The settlers soon lost contact with their home islands and were forced to adapt to Aotearoa's more challenging physical environment. Annual cultivation of kumara (sweet potatoes) – a perennial crop in the tropics – was possible in the north through the underground winter storage of tubers. Birds, fish and small animals were caught and the resources of forest and ocean gathered. The large moa (flightless birds similar to emu), which were numerous in Te Wai Pounamu (the South Island), were eventually hunted to extinction. Fires lit to flush them out removed much of the forest east of the Southern Alps and climatic changes made horticulture more difficult. Southern Māori increasingly lived in small hunter/gatherer groups and migrated seasonally to harvest resources.

Māori lived in groups of varying size that traced their descent from a common ancestor. Whānau (extended families of 10 to 30 people) were linked in hapū (subtribes), several of which made up an iwi. These distinctions were fluid: large whānau became hapū, and large hapū came to be seen as iwi, while other groups declined in status. Iwi said to have arrived on the same migratory canoe were linked in loose confederations.

All aspects of Māori life were interrelated, with economic and social activities carried out on behalf of the whole community. While land belonged to large groups, smaller groups had rights to use specific areas and resources. Families were headed by kaumātua (elders) and communities by rangatira (chiefs), whose persons and possessions were tapu (spiritually protected). Tapu also safeguarded cultivations and urupā (burial grounds) and helped maintain social order. Tapu was regulated by tohunga (experts), who mediated spiritual forces, retained tribal history and knowledge, and had expertise in carving, tattooing and canoe-building.

Tribal groups interacted through both trade and warfare. Regional products such as pounamu (jade) and tītī (shearwaters or petrels, known as ‘muttonbirds’) were often transported long distances for bartering. Information was also exchanged among tribes. Travel was by waka, or on foot along beaches, riverbeds and ridges. There were footpaths in more densely populated areas and tracks through forests.

One consequence of the slowness of travel was that even large iwi were unable to permanently conquer extensive areas. Instead, low-level warfare became endemic. Competition for mana (status) was complemented by competition for increasingly scarce land and resources. The concept of utu (reciprocity) generally ensured that at least one party to a dispute felt justified in maintaining it. Fighting usually occurred seasonally to fit in with cycles of subsistence. Most taua (raiding parties) made small-scale attacks, which caused few casualties. Sometimes, however, iwi were displaced into less desirable areas by military defeat or economic pressures. But many regions were occupied by the same descent group for long periods.

By the late 18th century, the Māori population was about 100,000. Most now lived in the north of Te Ika a Māui (the North Island), where pressure for land and other resources had become intense. Here communities became larger, with many pā (fortified settlements) sited on hilltops and protected by ditches and palisades. Hunting and trapping had declined as population density increased; fish and shellfish now complemented crops. Some iwi now numbered many thousands. Te Wai Pounamu remained sparsely populated.

Māori were generally relatively tall and sturdy, free from infectious diseases, adequately fed, and unlikely to die violently. Because of the dangers of childbirth, infant mortality and dietrelated dental problems, Māori life expectancy was about 30 years. This was similar to that of Europeans in the 17th century.

The first Europeans to reach Aotearoa were probably Abel Tasman's Dutch East India Company expedition in 1642. After four men were killed by local Māori when a landing was attempted in Golden Bay, Tasman sailed up the west coast of Te Ika a Māui without finding the ‘treasures or matters of great profit’ he sought. While this experience discouraged other Europeans from following in his wake, the name of a Dutch province (Zeeland) was given to a jagged line on maps of the Pacific.

In 1769, two European expeditions visited Aotearoa. That of Frenchman Jean de Surville ill-treated Māori, provoking retaliation against later visitors. The arrival two months earlier of the English explorer James Cook, on a voyage with both scientific and economic goals, had enduring consequences. Cook's mostly peaceful interactions with ‘noble savages’ excited imaginations in Europe, and his discovery of Aotearoa's natural resources ensured it would not again be forgotten there.

Cook led two further expeditions which visited Aotearoa in the course of systematic exploration of the South Pacific. Following establishment of a penal colony at Sydney in 1788, New Zealand became an economic offshoot of New South Wales. Whaling and shore-based sealing began in the 1790s. Flax, timber, potatoes and pigs were being traded with visiting ships by the 1800s and Māori soon found they could barter this produce for firearms.

Muskets revolutionised Māori warfare. Fired in sufficient numbers, they generated enough terror to enable enemies who lacked them to be routed by traditional means. Unprecedently large and wide ranging Ngā Puhi taua settled old scores and generated new grievances across Te Ika a Māui during the 1820s. Other iwi exploited temporary leads in local arms races, in some cases using sailing ships to launch surprise attacks. Thousands were killed or enslaved, and tens of thousands displaced, provoking enduring disputes about land rights. By 1840, the ‘Musket Wars’ had subsided into an uneasy balance of terror.

Regular contact with Europeans had other negative consequences. Desired products could be purchased only through debilitating labour, often in unhealthy environments. Māori were vulnerable to infectious diseases, from which many died from the 1790s. The Māori population was halved during the 19th century.

Māori social structures were also disrupted. Mana became linked to the acquisition of European goods and the Pākehā (Europeans) who provided access to them. In the early 19th century, these were mostly whalers in the South Island – where communities soon included ‘half-caste’ children – and missionaries in the North Island. Māori initially resisted Christianity, but embraced the skills through which it was communicated – reading and writing. Literate slaves acquired status, while the mana of illiterate chiefs fell. Knowledge, previously held in common or tied to specific roles, could now be possessed and communicated by anyone.

Contact with the outside world also benefited Māori. Introduced animals and crops enabled improved diets. Knowledge gained through social interaction and literacy was supplemented by Māori who travelled the world as ships’ crew. Māori gradually developed some resistance to European diseases, and Pākehā settlers remained relatively few – 1,000 to 2,000 by 1839.

From 1840, however, when the British sovereignty first proclaimed by Cook was reasserted, Māori control over Aotearoa was threatened. Humanitarian concerns in Britain were assuaged by the signing of an agreement with some 500 chiefs. The differing and contested meanings in Māori and English of this Treaty of Waitangi clouded subsequent inter-racial relations. Māori ceded kāwanatanga (a word derived from ‘governorship’, but rendered as ‘sovereignty’ in the English text) to the British Crown, in exchange for rights as British subjects. They retained their taonga (‘treasured possessions’, including land, forests and fisheries) and could sell land only to the Crown. Māori accepted that the Crown's local representatives would have jurisdiction over immigrants who were arriving in increasing numbers, but the extent of their authority over Māori remained unclear.

Three main waves of settlers arrived in the next half-century. In the first, five separate ‘colonies’ were planted around the coast by 1850 under the auspices of the privately-owned New Zealand Company. A sixth was the most important: Auckland became the seat of government in 1841. These ‘mere encampments on the fringes of Polynesia’ existed on Māori terms. Several were saved from starvation in their first years by food grown by Māori. Communication between them was by ship and irregular – most had more frequent contact with Sydney than with each other.

Captain James Cook.

Racial tolerance was soon strained. The New Zealand Company had purchased land hastily and with scant regard for actual ownership. Māori increasingly resisted further sales –- especially at the low prices offered – of land which immigrants arrived expecting to occupy. Rumoured and actual wars in the 1840s were followed by a largely effective boycott of land sales from 1854. Māori remained a majority for whom the decisions of the new elected General Assembly were largely irrelevant.

Governor George Grey had bought land and created institutions to assimilate Māori into British ways during his first term (1845–53). On his return in 1861, he employed more direct methods of establishing control. A war over land in Taranaki in 1860 had ended in stalemate. Grey decided to challenge the Kīngitanga (Māori sovereignty) movement in its Waikato heartland. An 18,000-strong army fought its way up the Waikato River in 1863–64 against strong resistance. War spread to Tauranga and both coasts of the North Island as messianic Pai Marire and Ringatū movements, which promised to expel the Pākehā, flourished. The strongest threat was posed by Titokowaru, who won several battles in southern Taranaki in 1868 before internal dissension lost him his army. With the flight of guerrilla leader Te Kooti to the ‘King's country’ in 1872, armed Māori resistance to British authority ended. The land of ‘rebels’ was confiscated, and much land belonging to ‘loyal’ Māori was also soon lost under a Native Land Court system which imposed individualised titles.

The second wave of immigration had begun in 1861 after the discovery of gold in Central Otago. Thousands of miners poured into Otago and Westland, swamping the ‘old identities’ of the carefully-planned Otago and Canterbury settlements. From 1865, Chinese miners – the colony's first significant non-European immigrants – were brought in to rework the tailings.

The third influx of migrants, in the 1870s, was instigated by New Zealand's first ‘Think Big’ government, which provided assisted passages. Land opened for settlement by the wars required deforestation and conversion to farmland. The process was aided by railways, which linked the main South Island towns in the 1870s, and those of the southern North Island by the early 1880s. Improved communications encouraged the abolition of separate provincial governments in 1876.

The end of Māori autonomy was symbolised by the advance of a railway through the King Country in the 1880s. Because of difficult terrain, the Auckland–Wellington line was not completed until 1908. Dunedin and Auckland were now two days travel apart, compared with two weeks 40 years earlier. As use of telephones also increased – there were 33,000 by 1910 – New Zealand became more meaningfully a single country. From 1876, information that took up to 10 weeks to convey by letter could be transmitted to Britain instantaneously by undersea telegraph cable.

From the 1890s, refrigeration transformed New Zealand farming. Much of Waikato and Taranaki was soon covered by small family-run dairy farms producing milk, and butter and cheese for export to Britain. Large runs in drier eastern areas had been growing wool for export since the 1850s; sheepmeat now also became a major export commodity. Coal steadily supplanted gold as the most important extracted mineral.

Chinese gold miner with cradle, Central Otago.

Politics, too, was transformed in the 1890s, when the ‘Continuous Ministry’ of runholders and businessmen was replaced by a Liberal government supported by small farmers and the skilled workers of the growing and increasingly industrialised towns. New Zealand became the first country to grant women the vote in 1893. By 1900, when the Māori population had fallen to 46,000, the 750,000 Pākehā were evenly divided between the North and South islands.

The Liberals placed ‘ordinary working men’ and their families on farms – which promised them physical and mental health, and prosperity – by buying and subdividing large estates, and by acquiring much of the remaining Māori-owned land. Concern for the welfare of ageing ‘pioneers’ encouraged the introduction of old-age pensions for the ‘deserving poor’ in 1898; they were to be joined in the next 40 years by other worthy but narrowly defined groups, including war veterans and widows. Job security of urban workers was improved by provisions for the compulsory arbitration of employment disputes and regulation of wages.

Around 1900, Pākehā New Zealanders underlined their new sense of identity by rejecting an offer to join the new Australian federation, and accepting a change of status from ‘colony’ to ‘dominion’. They also seized a chance to prove themselves ‘better Britons’ by fighting Boers in South Africa. Living far from centres of culture and knowledge, ‘Maorilanders’ were proud of their adaptability and resourcefulness. Most of their innovations, such as mechanising the separation of cream from milk, were motivated by pragmatism. The imagination of the South Canterbury farmer Richard Pearse, who probably flew before the Wright brothers, was exceptional.

The Liberal coalition began to unravel in the 1900s as the interests of small farmers and urban workers diverged. Farmers joined forces with urban employers in a Reform Party, while militant workers withdrew from the arbitration system and the ‘Liberal–Labour’ alliance. Social tensions came to a head in 1912–13, when Reform replaced the Liberals in power and crushed strikes led by a ‘red’ Federation of Labour. As in other settler societies, class war seemed imminent. But the threat had subsided by the time World War I broke out in mid-1914.

One hundred thousand New Zealanders served in the Great War alongside British forces. One in six were killed, many more came home as invalids, and another 8,000 to 9,000 New Zealanders died at the end of the war in the ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic. As their soldiers fought with distinction on Gallipoli, in Palestine and on the Western Front, New Zealanders’ sense of identity within the Empire grew.

Still tied to Britain economically, New Zealand was buffeted by volatile commodity prices in the 1920s. Working-class aspirations now found political expression in the Labour Party, while Reform continued the tradition of activist government by creating producer boards to coordinate exports, and building a countrywide hydroelectric system. A conservative coalition failed to cope effectively with the Great Depression, and Labour won office in 1935.

Labour introduced a minimum wage, a 40-hour working week, compulsory unionism, a substantial state housing programme, and a comprehensive system of social security, which provided a safety net ‘from the cradle to the grave’. Labour also articulated an independent foreign policy. But this had limits: a balance of payments crisis in 1938 necessitated import and financial controls which had the advantage of stimulating local industries.

New Zealand casualties in World War II were similar to those in World War I. While New Zealanders fought in North Africa and Europe, the country was garrisoned by United States forces training for the Pacific war. They made a substantial impression, not least on women. Aided by radio, the cinema and, later, television, the American invasion broadened New Zealanders’ cultural horizons.

During World War II, Labour ‘manpowered’ both sexes and took control of the country's resources. Māori supported the war with unparalleled unanimity. A Māori Battalion was raised on tribal lines and a Māori War Effort Organisation coordinated civilian contributions. For the first time, Māori migrated to the cities in significant numbers, a trend which was to continue until the 1980s, when manufacturing employment plummeted and rural life seemed more attractive. Successive governments worked to assimilate Māori into mainstream New Zealand life.

Young people were a higher proportion of the population in the ‘baby-boom’ years after 1945. Growing up with British and American music, fashions and television programmes, they chafed at the modest expectations of their parents. There were jobs, homes, education and health care for all, although some consumer goods remained scarce. Family life in the suburbs, which transformed areas such as West Auckland and Wellington's Hutt Valley, was both satisfying and stultifying. Wider choices did become available: the contraceptive pill and recreational drugs brought new freedoms, experiences and dangers in the 1960s. The need to enlarge the paid workforce widened opportunities for women, and low-cost tertiary education expanded those of many working-class teenagers.

National held power for most of the second half of the century. Until 1975, the terms of trade for New Zealand's primary exports (wool, meat, dairy products, timber) were high, and so was the standard of living. Local manufacturing industries protected from foreign competition expanded further. After the energy crises of the 1970s, the terms of trade turned against most primary products and full employment disappeared. From the late 1970s, National attempted to increase New Zealand's energy self-sufficiency while subsidising farming incomes. Both policies largely failed, expensively.

The 1984–90 Labour government, and its National successor, challenged much that New Zealanders took for granted. Many government activities were corporatised and then privatised. Some fared poorly in private ownership – in 2001, the national airline and part of the railway system reverted to state control. Public education and health care, the social welfare system, and employees’ rights were all constrained. The removal of most restrictions on economic activity encouraged both entrepreneurship and cultural diversity; the physical environment was more strongly protected; and New Zealand remained nuclear-free and robustly independent in foreign policy. Urban culture thrived as society was deregulated, and an influx of Pacific Islands and East Asian immigrants increased New Zealand's ethnic diversity.

A Labour-led coalition government took office in 1999, promising to maintain these benefits while reasserting the role of the state. Its greatest challenge lay in Māori-Pākehā relations. Having suffered disproportionately when full employment ended, Māori continued to fall behind in education, health and other social indicators. Māori confronted the dominant culture directly from 1975, when a march reiterating land grievances generated much support. A statutory tribunal was established in the same year to investigate breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. Others saw cultural renaissance as the key to empowerment: schools in which only Māori was spoken, and Māori-language radio stations, sprang up from 1981.

In the 1990s, the government negotiated settlements of up to $170 million with individual iwi, and Māori entrepreneurship flourished. But many Māori want a bigger share of national wealth. Occupations of land whose ownership is disputed have continued, as have actions such as disrupting the sale of artefacts. Māori increasingly assert rights to intellectual property under international law. Many argue that the Treaty of Waitangi requires the equal sharing of power between Māori and Pākehā; some, that Māori sovereignty over Aotearoa has never been extinguished. Most New Zealanders, however, assume that all citizens have equal political rights, an attitude reinforced by the introduction of an electoral system based on proportional representation. This debate seems likely to continue.

David Green, History Group, Ministry for Culture and Heritage

World War I troops leaving from Lyttelton.

Statistics New Zealand divisional manager responsible: Kevin Eddy.

The Governor-General of New Zealand is the representative of the Sovereign in New Zealand and exercises the royal powers derived from statute and the general law (prerogative powers). The powers of the governor-general are set out in the Letters Patent 1983 and it is for the courts to decide on the limits of these powers.

The governor-general's main constitutional function is to arrange for the leader of the majority party in parliament to form a government. The Crown is part of parliament and the governor-general's assent is required before bills can become law. The governor-general is required, however, by constitutional convention and the Letters Patent, to follow the advice of ministers. In extraordinary circumstances, the governor-general can reject advice if he or she believes a government is intending to act unconstitutionally. This is known as the reserve power.

The Sovereign appoints the governor-general on the prime minister's recommendation, normally for a term of five years.

Table 3.2 lists Lieutenant-Governors, Governors and Governors-General of New Zealand since signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

A feature of New Zealand's constitution is that although it is a monarchy in form, it operates democratically because of a long political tradition of parliamentary government and a network of constitutional principles. The government cannot act effectively without parliament, because it cannot raise or spend money without parliamentary approval. For most categories of expenditure, this approval takes the form of an annual vote of funds to the government. Parliament has to be assembled regularly, therefore, and thus has the opportunity to hold the government to account.

The general election in 1996 was the first held in New Zealand under the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system, where voters have a party vote and an electorate vote. Voters choose what party they want in parliament with their party vote and which person they want to represent their electorate with their electorate vote.