New Zealand Official Yearbook 2004

Renewed mountain building in New Zealand between about six million years ago and the present is primarily responsible for the landscape of today.

Mountain chains have been built by folding and displacement of the earth's crust along faults or by flexing of the crustal plates due to sediment loading and unloading. Due to this activity, well-preserved tilted blocks bounded by fault scarps (steep faces hundreds or even thousands of metres high) are visible in the landscape of some regions.

Ongoing movement of the Pacific and Indo-Australian plates is responsible for continued earth strain in New Zealand, and this results in periodic rupture of faults, several of which caused major earthquakes during the past century.

Erosion, enhanced by climate, 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 have carved the sea-filled valleys of Fiordland and have occupied most valleys of the South Island, many of which now have lakes held in by terminal moraines. 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 has played an important part in shaping the landscape of the central North Island. 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 volcanoes in New Zealand, all of which are active, include Ruapehu, Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, White Island, and Taranaki or Egmont. Other major volcanoes are less obvious but have even more dramatic impacts on the landscape. These are the caldera-forming volcanoes that are now occupied by large central North Island lakes. Lakes Taupo, Rotorua, and Tarawera can be thought of as upside down volcanoes.

Small volcanic cones, such as One Tree Hill, Mt Eden and Rangitoto, are an important part of the Auckland landscape. These are dormant, but the volcanic field is still regarded as posing a significant hazard.

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, the west coast of the 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 eight earthquake occurs in New Zealand about once a century, a magnitude seven earthquake averages out at once a decade and there is an average rate of one magnitude six earthquake 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 Indo-Australian plate in the west, illustrated in figure 1.01. These two plates are converging obliquely at about 30 millimetres a year in Fiordland, increasing to about 50 millimetres a 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 Indo-Australian plate.

Earthquakes originating within the subducting Pacific plate are less than 30 kilometres deep along the eastern coast, and become deeper westward.

In Fiordland and the region to the south, the Indo-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 450 kilometres 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 35 kilometres in New Zealand. Crustal earthquakes 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) runs national and regional earthquake and volcano monitoring networks. A major upgrade of monitoring equipment commenced in 2001 with the Earthquake Commission providing core funding of $5 million a year over 10 years.

The new equipment is linked to GNS data centres via satellite and cellular and radio networks, permitting more rapid and reliable determinations of the location and magnitude of all significant earthquakes and volcanic activity within the New Zealand region. Such information underpins current and emerging research on geological hazards and is also available to civil defence and emergency management authorities and international earthquake centres worldwide.

New Zealand scientists undertake a large body of research aimed at improving understanding of, and ways to mitigate, seismic and volcanic risk in New Zealand. Mitigation measures include improved engineering design of buildings and infrastructure, better prepared communities and better regional planning.

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 (see Table 1.05), 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, a zone extending from 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 contains three frequently active cone volcanoes (Ruapehu, Tongariro/Ngauruhoe and White Island) and two of the 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. 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.

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.

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

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.

Figure 1.02. Climate norms

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.

Table 1.06 lists predicted temperature and rainfall changes.

Climate extremes. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research'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. New Zealand's climate extremes as at 31 December 2003 are shown in Table 1.07 on page 10.

Figure 1.02 shows mean annual sunshine, temperature, rain days and rainfall for various parts of New Zealand. The maps are prepared by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), and the mean annual figures are struck over a 30-year period to create what are referred to as ‘climate norms.’ The next ‘normal’ period for calculating mean annual figures will be 1981 to 2010.

2002. This year will be remembered for its high number of severe weather events and climate extremes. New records were set in many areas for rainfall, temperature and other climate extremes.

It was very dry in the Bay of Plenty, Nelson, Marlborough and North Otago, with above average sunshine hours in the eastern North Island, Westland and Southland.

One of the most notable severe weather events was the worst snowfall for many years in mid-Canterbury and inland Otago during June, leaving hundreds of travellers stranded, and thousands of homes without power.

A few days later, the ‘weather bomb’ brought high winds, intense rainfall and flooding in many northern and western areas, being especially severe over the Coromandel Peninsula.

There were a dozen high-rainfall/flood-producing events and a high number of gale-force southerly wind episodes. Severe hailstorms hit throughout the country, and five tornadoes were reported. Lower than average pressures occurred south-east of the Chatham Islands with many more lows there than usual, bringing frequent stronger changeable westerly and south-westerly winds over the North Island, and southerlies and south-westerlies over the South Island. Seas around New Zealand were warmer than normal until October.

Analysis of month-by-month records for 2002 show:

2003. This was a year of severe weather events and climate extremes involving very dry autumn conditions in many areas, extensive flooding and late snow storms. Overall, the year featured many new climate records and weather extremes. Analysis showed new records set in many months for rainfall, temperature and sunshine.

A very dry period from January through early May hit the southwest of the North Island and eastern regions of both islands, re-appearing in many eastern regions at the end of the year. There was a remarkably mild start to winter with the warmest June on record, followed by a very frosty July, and late frosts in October.

Five snowfall events occurred to low levels, and in October snowfall to the South Island hill country meant farmers lost thousands of newborn lambs to exposure.

There were at least 20 heavy rainfall events, of which nine produced floods, mainly in the North Island. The event producing the Paekakariki landslides in early October caused $2.5 million of damage.

NIWA analyses of month-by-month records for 2003 show:

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 bird species 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.

www.doc.govt.nz - Department of Conservation

www.gns.cri.nz - Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Ltd

www.linz.govt.nz - Land Information New Zealand

www.weather.co.nz - Metservice

www.niwa.cri.nz - National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd

www.terralinkinternational.com - Terralink International Ltd

The Polynesian ancestors of the Māori (meaning ‘ordinary’) people settled the main New Zealand islands (Aotearoa) about 800 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 forests and oceans gathered. Large moa (flightless birds similar to emu), 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 or greenstone) 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 may have been about 100,000. Most 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, but 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 diet-related 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. Unprecedentedly 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 probably fell by half 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 eased 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 among them was by ship, and irregular - most had more frequent contact with Sydney than with each other.

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 newly-elected General Assembly were largely irrelevant.

Artist's impression of Māori chief Te Rangihaeata (with arm outstretched) addressing Governor-in-Chief Sir George Grey (sitting) at Waikanae in 1851.

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. A 14,000-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.

Recovering gold by sluicing on the West Coast in the 1880s.

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.

Politics, too, was transformed in the 1890s, when the ‘Continuous Ministry’ of run-holders 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 Maori 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 Maori-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, Pakehā 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, ‘Maori-landers’ 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 got off the ground 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 at 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, especially 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. Maori supported the war with unparalleled unanimity. A Maori Battalion was raised on tribal lines and a Maori War Effort Organisation coordinated civilian contributions. For the first time, Maori 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 Maori into mainstream New Zealand life.

Young people made up 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.

Taihape and the main trunk railway line in 1909.

The conservative National Party 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 energy crises in 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 were expensive failures.

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 public ownership. 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 and East Asian immigrants increased New Zealand's ethnic diversity.

A Labour-led coalition government took office in 1999 and was re-elected in a slightly different form in 2002. Labour aimed to maintain the benefits of deregulation while reasserting a role for the state when markets failed. In a period of prosperity, its greatest challenge lay in Māori-Pākehā relations. After suffering disproportionately when full employment ended, Māori continued to lag 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, and schools in which only Māori was spoken, and Māori language radio stations, sprang up from 1981.

In the 1990s, the National government negotiated settlements of up to $170 million with individual iwi, and Māori entrepreneurship flourished. But many Māori feel entitled to a bigger share of national wealth. There have been several occupations of land whose ownership is disputed, and sales of artefacts have been disrupted. Māori increasingly assert rights to intellectual property under international law, and to the coastal foreshore and seabed under the Treaty of Waitangi. Indeed, many argue that the treaty 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 legal and political rights, an attitude that was reinforced in the 1990s by the introduction of an electoral system based on proportional representation. These debates seem likely to continue.

David Green, History Group, Ministry for Culture and Heritage

www.nzhistory.net.nz - History Group, Ministry for Culture and Heritage

www.nzpa.co.nz - New Zealand Press Association.

www.stats.govt.nz - Statistics New Zealand

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.

One of the governor-general's main constitutional functions 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 3.02 lists Lieutenant-Governors, Governors and Governors-General of New Zealand since signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.