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Stuff: World famous in New Zealand: Matiu/Somes Island, Wellington

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Stuff: World famous in New Zealand: Matiu/Somes Island, Wellington

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World famous in New Zealand: Matiu/Somes Island, Wellington

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This island has a 1000-year history and is our version of Alcatraz, with added llamas.

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Massey University: Somes Island Internment Camp for enemy aliens during the First World War : an historical enquiry : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University

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Massey University: Somes Island Internment Camp for enemy aliens during the First World War : an historical enquiry : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University

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Somes Island Internment Camp for enemy aliens during the First World War : an historical enquiry : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University

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New Zealand’s history undoubtedly contains many unusual situations that await reassessment, and it is only natural that some of these situations will show the country,or its government, or its people in a less than pleasant light. This country prides itself on its fair-mindedness, concern for others and a wide range of positive attributes, yet the First World War prejudice that targeted New Zealand’s ethnic minorities of “enemy origin” - with its epicenter based on Somes Island - places considerable pressure on those beliefs. New Zealand was, of course, not alone in its response to the effects of that war nor to the planned anti-German propaganda campaign which occurred at that time. Matiu/Somes Island, located on Wellington’s doorstep, is largely ignored on a daily basis by thousands of people. Some aspects of its history seem relatively well-known, for example, its long career as quarantine station for both humans and livestock. Even the internment camp on the island in World War Two is increasingly well-known and well-documented. On the other hand, New Zealand’s first prisoner of war internment camp for so-called “enemy aliens” remained a mystery until now. Beneath this largely forgotten camp, however, there lies an enormous archival iceberg. The New Zealand Government solved a potential local and international problem in 1919, by shipping most of it back to Europe. At the same time it also shipped out out of sight a significant aspect of the country’s social history.

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Te Ara: Page 3: 1914–1945: restrictions on non-British immigration

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Te Ara: Page 3: 1914–1945: restrictions on non-British immigration

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The Aliens Emergency Regulations Act 1940

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The Aliens Emergency Regulations Act 1940

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Isolating ‘enemy aliens’ from the public and ready to defend New Zealand against enemy air strikes, Matiu/Somes offered loyal service in war-time. Learn more about what you’ll see today.

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NZ Herald: Coronavirus: Lessons learned from the great influenza pandemic of 1918

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NZ Herald: Coronavirus: Lessons learned from the great influenza pandemic of 1918

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Complacency kills: Lessons for NZ from the 1918 flu pandemic

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Geoffrey Rice is an expert on the 1918 flu, and says lessons learned then can help now.

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NZ Government Website: Centenary of the 1918 flu pandemic

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NZ Government Website: Centenary of the 1918 flu pandemic

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Centenary of the 1918 flu pandemic - New Zealand Parliament

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Friday 23 November 2018 marks 100 years since New Zealand’s worst-ever disease outbreak.

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National Army Museum resource

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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The Korean War – New Zealand Military Historical Society

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New Zealand’s 1056-man Kayforce arrived at Pusan, South Korea, on New Year’s Eve 1950. It was part of the United Nations’ ‘police action’ to repel North Korea’s invasion of its southern neighbour.

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Useful primary source - you can take notes and quotes

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1950s film showing New Zealand servicemen during the Korean War.

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Approx. 60 images relating to New Zealand involvement in the Korean War including training in New Zealand. In addition includes hand coloured tourist shots of Korea. The prints are mounted on card and appear to have been cut out of an album.

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This is a good place to begin, but do not quote or refer to Wikipedia as a source. Follow the links and utilise the primary source information.

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New Zealand in the Korean War - Wikipedia

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The involvement of New Zealand in the Korean War began in 1950 as a response to the United Nations Security Council’s call for combat assistance in the erupting Korean War. New Zealand was one of the first (of a total of sixteen) nations to respond with support. [1]

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Useful secondary Source - with likns and sections of primary source information.

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New Zealand military forces were involved in Korea from 1950 to 1957. First, they took part in the United Nations 'police action' to repel communist North Korea's invasion of its southern neighbour. Better known as the Korean War, this conflict lasted from 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953, when an armistice was agreed. A reduced New Zealand force remained in Korea in a garrison role until the last troops were withdrawn in 1957.

Although New Zealand's contribution to the United Nations force was not large, the crisis had a major impact on the country's approach to international relations. In New Zealand, as elsewhere, it was assumed that North Korea was acting at the instigation of the Soviet Union, and that firm resistance to communist encroachment was necessary.

The events in Korea provided an opportunity for New Zealand to pursue its goal of obtaining a commitment by the United States to its security. The ANZUS Treaty of 1951 was the successful achievement of this objective, and was to have far-reaching implications for New Zealand's international relations in the long term.

The crisis also had a dramatic influence on New Zealand's economy. A wool boom brought great prosperity but also provided a backdrop to the bitter waterfront dispute of 1951.

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New Zealand was involved militarily in Korea from 1950 to 1957, first as part of the United Nations 'police action' to repel North Korea's invasion of its southern neighbour, and then in a garrison role after the armistice in July 1953.

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Link to Korea in Papers Past

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Historic New Zealand and Pacific newspapers from the 19th and 20th centuries, including Māori niupepa in both te reo Māori and English.

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The Rutherford Connection: New Zealand Scientists and the Manhattan and Montreal Projects

Published quarterly, War in History is a peer reviewed journal that publishes articles on war in all its aspects: economic, social, political and military including the study of naval forces, maritime power and air forces, as well as more narrowly defined military matters.

SAGE Publications is an academic and professional publisher. We publish books, journals and software under the SAGE, Corwin Press, Paul Chapman Publishing, Pine Forge Press, SAGE Reference, SAGE Science and Scolari (US and Europe websites) imprints.

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The Rutherford Connection: New Zealand Scientists and the Manhattan and Montreal Projects on JSTOR

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The Rutherford Connection: New Zealand Scientists and the Manhattan and Montreal Projects Published quarterly, War in History is a peer reviewed journal that publishes articles on war in all its aspects: economic, social, political and military including the study of naval forces, maritime power and air forces, as well as more narrowly defined military matters.

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Leading NZ  Scientist worked on bomb - Stuff article

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Leading NZ  Scientist worked on bomb - Stuff article

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Robert Martin (Robin) Williams, mathematician, physicist and public servant: b Christchurch, March 30, 1919; m Mary Thorpe (dec), 1s, 2d; d Wellington, March 18, 2013, aged 93.
Robert Williams was an eminent mathematician and physicist who worked on the United States-led Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic bomb and who went on to chair the State Services Commission, which oversees New Zealand's public sector.

Dr Williams' work on the development of one of the most spectacular and devastating scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century tested his strong religious and ethical views.

He had been working as a physicist on radar development with New Zealand's former Department of Industrial and Scientific Research in Wellington when he was seconded to the British team of scientists working on the development of the bomb in what was code-named the Manhattan Project.

In 1944 and 1945, he worked to separate nuclear fuel from natural uranium. He said he realised the need to build an atomic weapon to end the war but still felt troubled by it.

He was one of the scientists who signed a letter to the British government alerting it to the terrible potential of the weapon. Later he condemned the dropping of the second bomb, on Nagasaki, so soon after the destruction of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The Japanese should have been given more time to consider surrender, he said.

His daughter, Wellington publisher Bridget Williams, says her father continued to express "deep interest and concern about the ethics and moral responsibilities of science".

However, he never saw any conflict between religious belief and science. He was a practising Anglican till his death, 12 days short of 94.

One of 11 children of the vicar of Opawa, Christchurch, Dr Williams had "a lovely childhood", his daughter says. It was the Depression and the family had little money, but a large garden and frequent outings to Sumner and fishing and canoeing at Diamond Harbour compensated for that.

His parents stressed the importance of education and strongly promoted reading. Dr Williams did well at school and, when going from St Mark's primary to Christ's College, he "jumped" a class to start in the fourth form. This meant staying at college for a second sixth form year till he was old enough to sit scholarship exams and go to university.

He was a good all-round pupil. He later spoke of the gifted teachers he had in maths and classics and how good Christ's College was educationally. He took no part in the sporting scene - though he enjoyed learning to sail with a group of boys and the classics teacher.

Dr Williams began studies at Canterbury University College as a University National Scholar in 1937. He also developed a love of tramping and climbing in the Southern Alps.

He graduated MA with first class honours in mathematics and mathematical physics four years later. He valued his association with philosophy lecturer Karl Popper, who chose him for extension in individual seminars.

Dr Williams moved to Wellington when he started his radar work with the DSIR in 1941.

A strong sense of social justice and equality led Dr Williams to support the first Labour government's welfare reforms. He campaigned for Labour prime minister Peter Fraser but shied away from political activism because of his work. However, he expressed concern at Labour's "free-market" direction in the 1980s.

Dr Williams went to Britain after World War II and graduated BA in 1946 and PhD in 1949, at Cambridge. He then returned to Wellington as a mathematician in the applied maths laboratory of the DSIR. He became director of the laboratory in 1953. He received several fellowships and grants, including one for study at Princeton University in the United States.

He left the DSIR in 1963 to join the State Services Commission for three years. He then served as vice-chancellor at Otago University and Canberra's Australian National University.

He was called back to the commission in 1975 as its chairman and retired from this position in 1981. He served also on the NZ Metric Advisory Board, NZ Statistical Association and NZ Book Council.

State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie says Dr Williams was "a distinguished New Zealander" who "shared his experiences, knowledge and wisdom generously". He "maintained an active interest in public administration and state sector reform" even in retirement.

Dr Williams' retirement included participation in organisations for the betterment of the community. He continued to attend seminars on a range of topics. In his spare time he enjoyed reading. He had always loved poetry and enjoyed a range of work from Emily Dickinson to James K Baxter.

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Leading NZ scientist worked on development of atomic bomb

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Robert Martin (Robin) Williams, mathematician, physicist and public servant: b Christchurch, March 30, 1919; m Mary Thorpe (dec), 1s, 2d; d Wellington, March 18, 2013, aged 93. Robert Williams was an eminent mathematician and physicist who worked on the United States-led Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic bomb and who went on to chair the State Services Commission, which oversees New Zealand's public sector.

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Quick background up to development .

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Italy

In 1943 the Allies invaded Sicily, then landed on the toe of the Italian mainland in September. Although Italy surrendered, Germans occupied most of the peninsula and a hard-fought campaign ensued to drive them north.

Bernard Freyberg's New Zealand division arrived in Italy in October 1943, and entered the front on the Sangro River. Early in 1944 it was involved in an attempt to take Monte Cassino, the key point in the German line blocking the way to Rome. In this unsuccessful attack 340 of its troops lost their lives. After an advance to the River Po, the New Zealanders endured a harsh winter before taking part in the final Allied offensive, ending the war in the city of Trieste in May 1945. In the Italian campaign 2,003 New Zealand soldiers died.

Defeat of Germany

While the Italian campaign contributed significantly to the weakening of Germany, it was essentially a sideshow. The main Allied focus remained in northern Europe, where Germany's fortunes were faltering by 1944. New Zealanders took part in the main campaigns that contributed to Germany's ultimate demise in May 1945.

Battle of the Atlantic

Of all the battles in 1939-45 the struggle to keep open the sea lanes in the Atlantic was perhaps the most important. This struggle began on the first day of the war and continued until Allied victory was achieved in 1943-44. New Zealanders were among the seamen and airmen who fought to protect the convoys that carried supplies to the United Kingdom, gave assistance to the Russians and later deployed the huge US forces that would spearhead the Allied offensive in the West.

Air offensive

New Zealanders also played a part in the massive air bombardment of Germany mounted by the Allies. This campaign severely disrupted the German war effort, obliging the deployment of huge resources in defence, hampering industrial production and undermining morale. But the cost was heavy. 1,700 New Zealanders died flying with Bomber Command (of 6,000 who served), while others died in Coastal Command attacking German shipping and ports.

D-Day

The Allied landing in Normandy, France, in June 1944 - known as D-Day - opened a new front in western Europe. About 10,000 New Zealanders serving in the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy were involved in supporting the operation. The Allied forces had by September cleared France of the enemy and advanced to the Rhine.

Final defeat

At the same time the Russians were inflicting even more devastating defeats on the German army in a series of offensives that brought the Red Army to the Vistula River. In 1945 the western Allies and the Russians linked up in central Germany, with Russian troops taking Berlin. On 8 May 1945 Germany capitulated.

Liberation of prisoners

The end of the war in Europe meant liberation for over 8,000 New Zealand prisoners of war, mostly captured in Greece or North Africa. Over a third had been held in Italy until 1943, before being taken to Germany.

Final operations against Japan

In the Pacific by this time Japan's situation was bleak. In a series of island-hopping campaigns in the central Pacific, American forces had breached Japan's defensive perimeter, while effectively destroying the Japanese fleet. The Japanese mainland itself came under ferocious air attack.

Naval effort

The Royal New Zealand Navy was active in the final stages of the war against Japan. The cruisers Achilles and HMNZS Gambia served with the British Pacific Fleet, which joined American task forces in bringing the war to Japanese waters. New Zealand prepared also to make a contribution to the forces that would invade Japan - an operation expected to be hugely costly in terms of both Japanese and Allied lives.

Kiwis and the bomb

New Zealanders were involved in the development of the atomic bomb. Ernest Rutherford had pioneered atomic physics, and all the British scientists who joined the 'Manhattan' project developing the bomb in 1943 were students of Rutherford. They included R. R. Nimmo, a New Zealander. In July 1944 two New Zealand scientists joined the Manhattan project working on the electromagnetic separation of uranium-235. In addition, five New Zealand scientists worked on the Anglo-Canadian atomic project in Montreal.

Atomic bomb

To much relief, the war ended suddenly on 15 August 1945. Japan capitulated following the dropping of atom bombs on two of its cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a Soviet onslaught in Manchuria.

Occupation duties

Following the Japanese capitulation New Zealanders served in Japan in Jayforce, the air force squadron and infantry brigade New Zealand made available for the occupation. This effort, involving 12,000 New Zealanders in all, continued until 1948.

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8. - Second World War - Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand

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Italy In 1943 the Allies invaded Sicily, then landed on the toe of the Italian mainland in September. Although Italy surrendered, Germans occupied most of the peninsula and a hard-fought campaign ensued to drive them north. Bernard Freyberg's New Zealand division arrived ...

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In a previous blog we talked about Minnie Alloo, one of the thousands of women who signed the 1893 Women's Suffrage Petition. Minnie Alloo and her sisters - who also signed the 1892 petition - were of Chinese and British ancestry: their father came from Guandong, and their mother from Scotland.

In this blog we take a brief look at what archival records can tell us about the position of Chinese people in New Zealand in the 1890s, and issues which may have affected Minnie Alloo and her family.

Poll tax certificate for Wong Chuen Lai. Archives New Zealand reference: AANK 24728 W3164 Box 5 646.

East Asia and Aotearoa connection

The connection between East Asia and Aotearoa stretches back to at least the mid 19th century, and possibly much further. There is a tradition among the indigenous people of Taiwan - who used to be recorded as 'Chinese' on the New Zealand census - that they share whakapapa links with Māori. Whatever the more ancient connections, Chinese people have lived in Aotearoa since at least 1842, when ship steward Ahpo Hock Ting ('Appo Hocton') settled in Nelson. After Te Tiriti o Waitangi, people living in New Zealand who were neither British nor Māori were considered 'aliens'. After 1844, aliens could apply for 'naturalisation' and become citizens. Appo Hocton was naturalised in 1852.

Chinese miners in New Zealand

In 1866 12 Chinese miners came to New Zealand at the invitation of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce. By 1871 there were 2,645 Chinese people living in New Zealand. These migrants, often from the Guandong region like Minnie's father, sought to make money working in New Zealand to send back to their family, often hoping to eventually return to China. In other parts of the world, Chinese people had been exploited as indentured labour. This was not the case in New Zealand, but some New Zealanders continued to perpetuate the stereotype that Chinese labour was cheap and unfree.

Poll tax introduced in 1881

In the 1880s-1890s attitudes towards Chinese people became more explicitly racist as ideas of the superiority of the 'white race' and the desirability of a 'white New Zealand' were popularised. Many of the same politicians who argued for liberal reforms also propagated these ideas, suggesting that their vision for a more egalitarian society in New Zealand did not extend to everyone. In 1881 a poll tax was introduced, requiring Chinese immigrants to pay £10 in order to enter the country. In 1896 the tax was increased to £100.

Yee Jack Gin, who paid a £100 poll tax to enter New Zealand in 1921. Archives New Zealand reference: ACGV 8836 W1514 L24/30 672.

Other anti-Chinese laws

A slew of anti-Chinese legislation followed. Between 1908 and 1952 Chinese were denied naturalisation, effectively excluding them from the franchise. Naturally Chinese people rallied together against this discrimination.

L1883 petition from John Ah Tong and 166 others against the Poll tax. "The Chinese residents in New Zealand have heretofore proved themselves industrious, inoffensive and law-abiding people..." Archives New Zealand reference: ACGO 8333 IA1 Box 490 1883/3058.

Chinese women in New Zealand

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese population remained very small in this period, peaking at 5,000 between 1874 and 1881. Anti-Chinese legislation, along with responsibilities to their families in China, meant that very few Chinese women came to Aotearoa in this period. The first woman from China arrived in 1869, and by 1886 there were only 15 Chinese women in Aotearoa.

Correspondence between Fook On and the Colonial Secretary, requesting that the tax be waived so he could bring his wife to New Zealand. 'The matter can be dealt with only on the arrival of the woman'. Archives New Zealand reference: ACGO 8333 IA1 Box 711 1896/4247.

Meanwhile, politicians such as Richard Seddon stoked fears about 'miscegenation' (the interbreeding of people from different 'races'). Seddon conducted a survey in 1886 which found 101 people in New Zealand who, like Minnie and her sisters, were of mixed Chinese and European ancestry. While officially such pairings were discouraged, the very existence of these children shows that attitudes on the ground were not always so stark.

The same was true of Māori relationships with Chinese: officially they were frowned upon, but in reality relationships and marriages between Māori and Chinese were not uncommon, particularly from the 1890s as Chinese began to migrate to the country and operate market gardens, often leasing land from Māori and working side by side with them.

Read our previous blog about Chinese in early New Zealand -
The Alloo family and the Women's Suffrage Petition

This blog was originally published on the Archives New Zealand Facebook page as part of Suffrage125 and Chinese Language week.

Further reading about Chinese in Aotearoa

The Dragon and the Taniwha: Māori and Chinese in New Zealand edited by Manying Ip Jade

Taniwha:Māori-Chinese Identity and Schooling in Aotearoa by Jenny Lee

Being Māori-Chinese by Manying Ip
Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand

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In a previous blog we talked about Minnie Alloo, one of the thousands of women who signed the 1893 Women's Suffrage Petition. Minnie Alloo and her sisters - who also signed the 1892 petition - were of Chinese and British ancestry: their father came from Guandong, and their mother from Scotland.

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You may need our school's EPIC login to access this article.

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Access to the EPIC resources for schools is restricted for use by staff and students of New Zealand schools. Please refer to Accessing EPIC resources for more information about this.

For EPIC school login queries email epic@dia.govt.nz from your New Zealand school email address.

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Access to the EPIC resources for schools is restricted for use by staff and students of New Zealand schools. Please refer to Accessing EPIC resources for more information about this. For EPIC school login queries email epic@dia.govt.nz from your New Zealand school email address.

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Asians

Apart from Māori, the other major non-European minority up to 1945 were Asian people, especially Chinese and Indians. Chinese had first arrived in numbers during the 1860s gold rushes, and Indians came in during and immediately after the First World War.

Indian migrants were British subjects by virtue of India's membership of the British Empire. This gave them some protection against strict immigration control and denial of citizen rights in New Zealand. Chinese, however, were officially prescribed as foreign 'race aliens'. They could not become naturalised New Zealand citizens (from 1908 to 1952) and had to pay a poll tax (between 1881 and 1944) if they were allowed to enter the country. They were not able to vote or participate in political arenas until 1952, were excluded from state employment, and were barred from entering many professional occupations.

Both Indians and Chinese were unable to receive old-age pensions from 1898 until 1936. Unlike Māori, they were seen as too culturally and racially different to be assimilated. The result was scattered, small populations, whose individual relations with other groups varied over time and in different places. As visible ethnic minorities they were generally forced to rely on their own resources and adopt a low political profile. They lived in their own communities and had their own social gatherings.

Packed like sardines

From the 1920s until the 1950s many Indians worked as scrub-cutters. It was tough work which other New Zealanders avoided; the hours were very long, and the workers lived in tents or one-room corrugated-iron huts. Visiting one such hut, C. F. Andrews wrote that 'there was not an inch of spare room in the hut: we were all packed like sardines in a tin, with a fire in one corner and a room full of smoke.'1

Yet some individuals in both groups established successful niches in the New Zealand economy, especially as market gardeners and greengrocers - so they may not have been greatly worse off in material terms than other working-class New Zealanders. But their social and political standing was very different.

Divisions within the European majority

European settlers, mostly from Britain, rapidly became the dominant majority after the 1850s. They did, however, contain ethnic divisions. English, Scots, Irish and Welsh migrants displayed cultural, regional and religious differences, and their histories in Britain were marked by divisions and conflict. In New Zealand this was most often expressed in hostility towards the Irish, especially Catholics. There was some discrimination against Irish Catholics in recruiting migrants, and in employment.

The Catholic community believed they were treated unequally because taxes supported a secular free school system, but not Catholic schools. New Zealanders of an Irish Catholic background were found less often in the high-status professions and more often in the prison population. There was a tendency for Catholics to live close to one another, for instance around the Barbadoes Street Catholic cathedral in Christchurch.

On the other hand the shared interests of settlers from Britain and Ireland in controlling resources in New Zealand, especially land, and the relative advantage of their elites in shaping a new state and nation, often transcended these differences.

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European majority, Asian minorities: 1840-1945

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Asians Apart from Māori, the other major non-European minority up to 1945 were Asian people, especially Chinese and Indians. Chinese had first arrived in numbers during the 1860s gold rushes, and Indians came in during and immediately after the First World War...

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Te Ara - Chinese Immigration - Great Starting place

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Te Ara - Chinese Immigration - Great Starting place

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Settlement policy

In the 19th century, New Zealand's settlement policy aimed to create a 'fairer Britain of the South Seas'. Non-white migrants were regarded as undesirable in this nation-building enterprise.

At least one Chinese man settled in the decade after British annexation. Wong Ahpoo Hock Ting, better known as Appo Hocton (a corruption of his given name), arrived in Nelson in 1842. By 1852 he had been naturalised (granted British citizenship) and established a cartage business.

The possibility of organised Chinese settlement was scuttled in 1853. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, known for his success in settling the colony with British small farmers, formulated detailed plans to bring in Chinese to work as servants, shepherds, stock-keepers, mechanics and manual workers. But he had to drop this idea when opponents labelled his scheme a conspiracy to overrun the colony with 'Coolie-slaves' who were 'ignorant, slavish, and treacherous'.

Reasons for leaving China

Meanwhile, south China was beset by overpopulation, shortage of land, famine, drought, banditry, and peasant revolts. A steady stream of able-bodied young men sought to make their fortunes overseas, first in South-East Asia and then further afield in the Pacific Rim countries. The discovery of gold in California, Canada and Australasia swelled this exodus. Rather than settling permanently in other lands, these men usually intended to make their fortunes and then return to China.

Chinese gold miners

In New Zealand, the Otago goldfields attracted the first batch of organised Chinese migrant workers. They were recruited by the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce when European miners left Otago for the newly discovered West Coast goldfields. There were particular reasons for choosing Chinese people: they were thought to be hardworking, inoffensive, and willing to rework abandoned claims, and they preferred to return eventually to their homeland. In 1866, the first 12 men arrived from Victoria, Australia. By late 1869 over 2,000 Chinese men had come to the land they would call the 'New Gold Mountain'.

Early immigrants came from the Pearl River delta area in Guangdong province. Most (67%) were from Panyu county; the rest were from Siyi, Zengcheng, Dongguan and Zhongshan. These counties are located around the city of Canton (Guangzhou).

Although most men were married, their wives remained at home to look after the men's parents. Chinese women seldom migrated to New Zealand and the sex ratio of the community was extremely unbalanced. There were only nine women to 4,995 men in 1881 - the year that saw the highest numbers of Chinese in New Zealand prior to the Second World War.

The plight of the Chinese miners was dire. Few struck it rich, and most remained in enforced bachelorhood, poverty-stricken and stranded in a strange land.

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Settlement policy In the 19th century, New Zealand's settlement policy aimed to create a 'fairer Britain of the South Seas'. Non-white migrants were regarded as undesirable in this nation-building enterprise. At least one Chinese man settled in the decade ...

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V: Enemy Aliens in New Zealand

At the same time as she was safeguarding the interests of her own men and women abroad, New Zealand was engaged in securing herself against danger from enemy aliens within her own shores. In view of the potentially dangerous international situation in 1938, the New Zealand Government had in that year empowered the already existing Organisation for National Security to take such preliminary steps as would not leave the country unprepared in the event of war with Germany. This organisation, which comprised representatives of the Services, of the Department of Internal Affairs, of the Police and of other interested departments, set up committees to cover various aspects of the national emergency which hostilities would create. Among these was an Aliens Committee for deciding how to deal with enemy nationals living in New Zealand and her dependencies, so as to safeguard the interests of the country without contravening either international agreements or humane standards of conduct. As a result of the Alien Control Emergency Regulations 1939, all aliens (to the number of 9000) had to register with the police. The latter kept up-to-date lists of their names and whereabouts, and had little difficulty in a small population like that of New Zealand in keeping track of their activities and opinions.

The interest of the police in aliens had begun much earlier. In February 1934, for example, the Auckland police were keeping a watch on the activities of the Auckland German Club, where it was known that a Nazi group had grown active under the encouragement of successive German consuls with Nazi sympathies. By August 1939 the necessity for internment was being investigated, but it had been decided as a matter of policy to take into custody only those aliens with pronounced anti-British views, whose liberty would probably constitute a public danger. Arrangements were by then in hand for the arrest and detention by the police, on an order from the Attorney-General, of any persons whose records or whose open hostility warranted it. They were to be handed over to military authorities in twelve convenient centres throughout the Dominion, the Army being thereafter responsible for their custody both in transit and during interment. Although there were 786 Germans in New Zealand and 535 in Samoa, it was not anticipated at the time that the number interned would be more than fifty, and it was decided to set up a single central internment camp.

In the 1914-18 War the treatment of interned aliens by New Zealand, as a matter involving her relations with another state, had been laid down by the British Government. In October 1939 the New Zealand Government, although by then possessing full power of independent action in this field, decided in the absence of any other precedent to use the British Government's proposed course of action as a working basis for their own. The United Kingdom, in the spirit of the Tokyo Draft, was referring all doubtful Germans and Austrians to special tribunals to determine whether in the interests of national security they should be interned, or subjected to special restrictions, or left at liberty. If they were to be interned, they were to be placed in special camps apart from prisoners of war.

In order to centralise the transmitting to Germany of information regarding Germans anywhere in the Commonwealth through one channel, namely the Prisoner-of-War Information Bureau in London, Commonwealth governments were asked to submit details of any action taken regarding enemy aliens. By 25 November New Zealand was able to report that the German consular staff of eleven had left for Germany, that 19 others were also on their way to their countries of permanent residence, and that up to that time no Germans in New Zealand had been arrested or interned. So far as Samoa and the Island Dependencies were concerned no Germans had left; but 14 were interned in Samoa, 29 (including two women) had been released on parole, and a further 15, including the president and secretary of the former Samoan Nazi Party, were coming to New Zealand for internment. The property of internees was to be vested in a Custodian of Enemy Property and 'the utmost consideration was being given to their comfort and social needs.' Details had been given to the Swiss Consul as the representative of the Protecting Power for German interests in New Zealand.

Somes Island had been the site of New Zealand's camp for civilian internees in the 1914-18 War, and it was again selected for this purpose in 1939. Situated in Wellington Harbour at some distance from the mainland on every side, its 120 acres of high grassland planted with trees contained a number of buildings easily adaptable to the needs of an internment camp. The island was taken over by the Army authorities, and the first batch of German internees was landed by ferry boat on 23 December 1939.

No women or children were interned there and the treatment of the men who were was based on the Geneva Prisoners of War Convention of 1929, camp standing orders consisting largely of extracts from it. Everything within reason was done for the comfort and welfare of those interned. They had single or double cubicles, bedding which included a kapok mattress, five blankets, sheets and pillowcases, and ample bathrooms. They were given plenty of excellent food, the same in fact as that prepared for the camp staff, and generous free issues of good clothing. They shared a canteen with the camp staff and were supplied with additional comforts by the Salvation Army, the Society of Friends, the New Zealand Red Cross Society, and also by individual wellwishers. From the same sources they received books and from the New Zealand YMCA games and recreational material, including two billiard tables. They enjoyed freedom to move over the whole of the island from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., with permission to fish and bathe; the privilege of six visitors once a week; ample provision for letters and parcels. On one occasion during the summer of 1939-40 the camp commandant, 'to alleviate the monotony of life on the island', even arranged a launch trip round Wellington Harbour. But although this was at the expense of the internees, it was not considered advisable to repeat it.

Despite all this it needs little imagination to see that being interned was a matter of some inconvenience and resentment for many of those taken to Somes Island. The more politically minded succeeded to some extent during the early days in organising a campaign aimed at wearing down the camp commandant and the guards by pin-pricking annoyances. This was to develop into open insolence as the war progressed and the news of German successes became known.

* * * * *

The period covered by this chapter, referred to variously as 'The Phony War' or 'The Twilight War', was filled with suspense and uncertainty for many of those whose lives had become entangled in the war. Prisoners in enemy hands were wondering whether the whole conflict might not soon finish, and so relieve them of doubts about whether to attempt an escape and about the correct course of their actions in general during captivity. Civilians in enemy countries were often surprised at the moderation of their treatment, and those in internment camps were wondering whether they might not soon be released to their homes. Next-of-kin were solicitous for news and filled with anxiety about quite often exaggerated hardships which they visualised their captive relatives enduring. They had not yet realised what long years of captivity and separation lay ahead. Governments and service departments were uncertain whether they should commit themselves to large-scale organisation for dealing with possible large future batches of prisoners. The International Red Cross Committee and the national Red Cross war organisations, whose purpose it was to deal with emergencies such as war, and with specific problems arising from it such as alleviating the lot of prisoners, went ahead and set up the machinery blueprinted for them. The main burden of the early relief work for Commonwealth captives fell on the British Red Cross. But though this body was pressing for expansion and campaigning for more funds in the first six months of the war, there were many who did not then realise the importance of the work for prisoners and internees on which it had embarked. There were, moreover, few who foresaw the scale on which this work would increase before the war was finally over. In the remaining months of 1940 all this hesitation at home was to give way before the certainty of a long and bitter struggle. For those in German hands, their hopes of early release dispelled, there remained only the vague possibility of escape or the bleak prospect of years of helpless captivity in an enemy country amid the restrictions and shortages of a long war.

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At the same time as she was safeguarding the interests of her own men and women abroad, New Zealand was engaged in securing herself against danger from enemy aliens within her own shores.

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Te Ara - enemy Aliens - Matiu / Somes Island

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Te Ara - enemy Aliens - Matiu / Somes Island

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During the Second World War, because of concerns they might subvert the war effort, people of German, Italian and Japanese descent or nationality were interned on Somes Island in Wellington Harbour. More than 20 of the internees were naturalised British subjects who had been in effect stripped of their citizenship rights. The conditions of internment were not harsh and some of the internees were able to earn pocket money by making small objects for sale. The man in this photograph, German-born Oscar Coberger, is working with pāua shell.

Using this item

Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
Reference: W. Wynne Mason, Prisoners of war. Wellington: War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1954, plate facing p. 339.

This item has been provided for private study purposes (such as school projects, family and local history research) and any published reproduction (print or electronic) may infringe copyright law. It is the responsibility of the user of any material to obtain clearance from the copyright holder.

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During the Second World War, because of concerns they might subvert the war effort, people of German, Italian and Japanese descent or nationality were interned on Somes Island in Wellington Harbour. More than 20 of the internees were naturalised British subjects who had been in effect stripped of...

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Isolating ‘enemy aliens’ from the public and ready to defend New Zealand against enemy air strikes, Matiu/Somes offered loyal service in war-time. Learn more about what you’ll see today.

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New TVNZ series to tell story of the rise of the Polynesian Panthers

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New TVNZ series to tell story of the rise of the Polynesian Panthers

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July 21 - 2021

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A trailer for a new television series based on the story of the rise of The Polynesian Panthers has been released.

The Panthers is a six-part series starring Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as Polynesian Panther Party co-founder Will 'Ilolahia, and Kiwi acting veteran Roy Billing as former New Zealand Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon.

Set in Auckland in 1974, the show sees 'Ilolahia - the black sheep of his Tongan family and 'The Professor' of the streets - frustrated at seeing his community stuck in a broken system.

Muldoon's arrival as Prime Minister in 1975 fuels the divide between white and Polynesian New Zealanders and sees the start of the racially-targeted Immigration Dawn Raids.

READ MORE:
* 1981 Springbok tour 40 years on: '1981 was the battle for the soul of New Zealand'
* Once a Panther: A fierce sisterhood at the heart of the Polynesian Panthers
* Polynesian Panthers: A revolutionary, a reverend and a vege truck
* Calls for residency pathways follow dawn raids apology announcement

Inspired by the Black Panther movement in the US, Will and a group of young street gangsters and university students form The Polynesian Panthers, to fight the system and become history-making revolutionaries.

The series, which is coming soon to TVNZ 1 and TVNZ On Demand, also co-stars Lealani Siaosi, Beulah Koale, Frankie Adams, Chelsie Preston Crayford, Jordan Mooney, Jordan Vaha'akolo, Villa Junior Lemanu, Rokalani Lavea and Ravikanth Gurunathan.

The show was created and executive produced by Halaifonua Finau and Tom Hern of Tavake, and made with the support of NZ On Air.

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New TVNZ series to tell story of the rise of the Polynesian Panthers

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A trailer for a new television series based on the story of the rise of The Polynesian Panthers has been released. The Panthers is a six-part series starring Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as Polynesian Panther Party co-founder Will 'Ilolahia, and Kiwi acting veteran Roy Billing as former New Zealand Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon.

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A reworking of Bob Kerr's paintings of the conscientious objectors' experience, brought them to life in a short film. Plays several times each day at Wellington Museum until 2018.

A website that tells the stories of the young men in Canterbury who were imprisoned for their beliefs, and the women, men and peace groups who supported them.

A series of essays and exhibitions on the role of New Zealand Police in the First World War will be available between August 2014 and November 2018.

A free, site-specific multi-media project designed to remember Wellington city and her people during the First World War. From 11-18 October 2014.

A blog which focuses partly on the memoirs and books written by New Zealanders such as O E Burton, Robin Hyde, John A Lee and Archibald Baxter.

An interactive living history experience of trench warfare & life in war time at Founders Heritage Park, Nelson. Anzac weekend 2014.

Short films telling personal stories about New Zealanders affected by the First World War.

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A reworking of Bob Kerr's paintings of the conscientious objectors' experience, brought them to life in a short film. Plays several times each day at Wellington Museum until 2018. A website that tells the stories of the young men in Canterbury who were imprisoned for their beliefs, and the women, men and peace groups who supported them.

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Opposition to compulsory military training and conscription in New Zealand history

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A collection of audio about WW1 - the conscientious objectors.

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This guide is a tool to help those researching New Zealand's conscientious objectors in the First World War. It predominantly describes material available at the National Library of New Zealand, but also describes material from other sources where relevant.

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When conscription was introduced to New Zealand in 1916 thousands of men were called up to serve under Section 34 and 35 of the Military Service Act. However, there were those who opposed the war because of religious, political and moral beliefs. About 600 men declared conscientious objections.

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NZ History website - good place to start

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NZ History website - good place to start

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Conscientious objection and dissent in the First World War

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While most New Zealanders supported their country's participation in the First World War, a small but significant group opposed it on religious, political, philosophical or personal grounds. Sending New Zealand soldiers to serve in faraway war zones was accepted by most people so long as the men went voluntarily, but the introduction of conscription - which sent men against their will - threatened to shatter this broad consensus.

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Memory Lane: Detainment camps set up near Shannon for conscientous objectors

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Memory Lane: Detainment camps set up near Shannon for conscientous objectors

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Exploring local history is usually a pleasant experience.

But sometimes it reveals a darker side, as Palmerston North historian Margaret Tate found while researching an almost forgotten event of 74 years ago.

It's the story of the pacifist "conscientious objectors" of World War II, and the two detainment camps near Shannon where more than 250 of them lived from 1942 to 1946, in the shadow of government scorn and public disdain.

Earlier this year, Tate (former senior lecturer at the Palmerston North College of Education) was shown, by a Horowhenua District Council member, copies of photos that had been mounted in the Moutoa Hall.

The vintage pictures were of the two government camps, Whitaunui on the Shannon Foxton Rd, and Paiaka, on Springs Rd. (Moutoa Hall itself is near the site of the former Whitaunui camp.)

These camps were a major part of the wartime detention system, which also included two other big camps at Strathmore and Hautu in the central North Island, and various others.

"I made some enquiries," she says, "and found that most people had never heard of the camps, and if they had ... they did not know where they were. Why had this event in our local history been almost completely forgotten?"

Now the full story, including rare Hocken Library photos, will be told in an article by Tate in the 2016 Manawatu Journal of History, which goes on sale in early August.

The hunt for clues was sparked off by Mrs Mary Bielski, who discovered concrete remnants and artefacts of the Whitaunui camp on her own farm property - and told the Manawatu Standard about it early this month.

"There is no doubt that she began this project" says Tate. "The concrete remnants have always been highly visible, but more recently Mary began research into the records at the Hocken Library, Dunedin, and received copies of photos of Whitaunui camp. This immediately sparked the interest of local people, and started the search for further information."

Horowhenua District Council is currently doing more detailed research on the site.

The backstory to this episode starts with the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. In July of 1940 conscription began in New Zealand and men between 18 and 40 were picked for military service by ballot.

They could appeal against going to war on conscience grounds, but most of the appeals were dismissed, and about 800 men were classed as "military defaulters" and detained for the rest of the war. In New Zealand, unlike other Commonwealth countries, pacifists were not given the option to do non-military war work.

The Shannon camps were sited deliberately: somewhat out of sight of civilians, the men worked at weeding the nearby flax fields attached to the government-owned Whitaunui Mill. Barbed wire surrounded the camps. Accommodation was spartan, and though they were not treated badly by their guards - whose own living conditions weren't much better - there were stringent limits on letters, visits and reading materials. Some of the detainees succumbed to being "wire happy" - depression and mental illness. A few escaped - but not for long.

"In World War I," Tate says, "many pacifists were sent to prison. The camps (of WWII) were genuinely designed to be an improved system. The question is why they turned out more punitive than the systems in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. What dismayed me most, I think, was the bitterness directed by sections of the public towards the wives of the detainees and their children during the war, and the sanctions imposed on former detainees for some years after they were released."

The detainees were people of high intellectual calibre, she found. Many became university lecturers, writers, artists and theatre directors; others later served in relief services overseas or in the peace movement.

One Palmerston North man with a personal connection to the local camps is Rod Bennett, whose father Norman was at Whitaunui. His fellow detainees were both secular and religious objectors; Norman Bennett was a Christian pacifist, a member of the Christian Pacifist Society comprising various denominations. "His views on war and killing were formed by his strong beliefs of 'thou shalt not kill'. He became a Quaker shortly after the end of WWII."

Norman was not permitted camp leave to be with his wife when she gave birth to their first child, Rod Bennett's sister. Later, "mum would visit, travelling by train from Whanganui, leaving my [little] sister with friends in Palmerston North, travelling on by train to Shannon, and then by bicycle to the camp. About one letter, heavily censored, was allowed per week."

After the war, Norman Bennett lost his civil rights (voting, workplace choice) for several years. But he had made lifelong friends in the camp, and his children would grow up knowing them and their families well. His son says he's inherited many of his father's values. Rod Bennett and his wife Mary settled in Palmerston North in 1981 when he joined the Massey University staff. "Dad and I were never able to find the location of the former camps in the Manawatu ... I am looking forward to visiting Whitaunui."

Margaret Tate's recent series of public talks about the camps have brought a huge response, and even some new information. She adds: "I would welcome more."

Email: tinawhite29@gmail.com

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Memory Lane: Detainment camps set up near Shannon for conscientous objectors

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Exploring local history is usually a pleasant experience. But sometimes it reveals a darker side, as Palmerston North historian Margaret Tate found while researching an almost forgotten event of 74 years ago.

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The Women's Auxiliary Army Corps

THE New Zealand Women's Auxiliary Army Corps grew out of the W.W.S.A. almost imperceptibly. Although technically the W.A.A.C. was the last of the three women's services to be established, on its formation in July 1942 (its Controller, Mrs V. Jowett, had been appointed shortly before), a number of women were already attached to the Army and carrying out certain duties, both in New Zealand and in the Middle East. The first women to go overseas in any of the three Services were the thirty welfare workers, usually known as 'Tuis', who sailed for Egypt in September 1941 to work at the New Zealand Forces Club in Cairo. They were followed to the Middle East in December 1941 by 200 more women, clerical workers and Voluntary Aids. All these women were formally enrolled as members of the W.W.S.A., which had recruited them, but were de facto members of the Army. In New Zealand itself a number of women were employed in the Army as whole-time typists, clerks, cooks, or waitresses; most of them afterwards became members of the W.A.A.C. This is to ignore for the moment the very wide range of part-time voluntary service given to the Army by the W.W.S.A., and others, in camps or military establishments throughout New Zealand.

The formation of the W.A.A.C. did, however, mark a change of policy: the decision to employ women in the Army wherever possible to release men for active service or, in special cases, for industry. It was realised that, with the growing threat from Japan in the Pacific, and the decision to leave the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Middle East, it was necessary to call on the women of the country to serve in the three auxiliary branches of the armed forces. The women of New Zealand made a vigorous response to this call.

The age limits were wide: 18 to 50 for home service, 23 to 40 for service overseas. More women applied for service outside New Zealand than ever had the opportunity of going. By April 1944 more than three thousand were serving in the W.A.A.C. in New Zealand and 733 overseas, of whom some 200 were in the Pacific. By the middle of 1944 the original attempt to recruit 10,000 women in the W.A.A.C. alone had had to be modified. The numbers serving at any one time never exceeded 4600-the demands of essential industry had become too insistent. Moreover, many women had been released from all three Services because their soldier-husbands or fiancés had returned from overseas for furlough or discharge.

The New Zealand women arriving in the Middle East in late 1941 made a vital difference to the atmosphere of the forces clubs in which they served. Before their arrival some misgivings had been expressed whether they would not be 'spoiled' by being too much run after and entertained. General Freyberg himself told them on their arrival that while their duty was to supply, as they alone could, the 'home touch' in the clubs, they were not expected to gain the admiration of individuals but rather that of the whole of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force. These qualms proved unwarranted. Although a number of girls married, none could have been accused of neglecting her duty for the sake of a personal good time. Their service was given as unselfishly and as fairly as had been expected of them and justified the care with which they had been selected. In their 'smart green and white uniforms with embroidered N.Z. badges and the N.Z.F.C. epaulettes', the Tuis became an essential element in Army life in the Middle East, Italy, and the Pacific, and gave a tone of their own to the clubs.

The functions of the W.A.A.C. welfare workers were not exclusively social. Each had a practical job to do, as well as being at all times, and often in trying circumstances, an indefatigable hostess. At the Cairo Forces Club the Tuis immediately took charge of the preparing and serving of sandwiches and fruit salad, looked after the cash desk and the clerical work entailed in running the club, and served in the library or at the information desk. They also undertook the regular visiting of patients in the New Zealand military hospitals in the Cairo area. It was not long before they energetically conducted concerts and revues and took part in debates with the men. They acted as partners at the dances held at the club and at the different army messes. They attended these dances and concerts in evening gowns, and both they and their partners enjoyed this escape from uniform. They also wrapped parcels to send to men in the forward areas, carried out shopping commissions for men in the field, and were always ready to accompany them on shopping expeditions in the city when they came to Cairo on leave; many servicemen's womenfolk at home benefited indirectly from a Tui's shrewd knowledge of Egyptian shops and shopkeepers in the intelligently-chosen presents they received from the Middle East.

In November 1943 sixteen of the Tuis from Egypt-the original thirty had been meanwhile substantially reinforced-left to help staff the New Zealand Forces Club in Bari. Here regular dances and picnics for men on leave were held and hospital visiting continued. The gift-buying service was enlarged by the opening of a gift shop. They even found time during leisure that tended to grow ever scantier to make forays into the surrounding countryside for wild flowers to decorate the club. Tuis served in other clubs opened in Italy, at Rome and Florence, with the same cheerfulness, efficiency, and good humour. Their hours of duty were always long, and it was difficult for them to get much leave to see something of Italy, perhaps the most interesting to the tourist of all European countries. But most had managed to do some sightseeing by October 1945 when, except for a party in the Fernleaf Club in England, they were sent back to Egypt for repatriation to New Zealand. Throughout the whole of their service overseas these girls all owed very much to the care and interest in their welfare shown by Lady Freyberg.

In the Pacific, members of the W.A.A.C. gave equally valuable service as welfare or clerical workers. From the latter part of 1942 five carried out specially responsible cipher duties in the office of the British agent and consul in Tonga, and later a W.A.A.C. detachment of twenty took over welfare duties at a leave centre for New Zealand troops. In Fiji a few members of the W.A.A.C. were seconded to undertake special duties for the local government. In New Caledonia much larger numbers were employed as welfare workers, cashiers, clerks, or cooks. Nearly 200 served with the 3rd Division in these capacities and as Voluntary Aids.

In August 1944 an important change was made in the status of the New Zealand W.A.A.C. in Italy and the Middle East: its members were given the privileges of officers, while retaining their own rates of pay, and the new designation of 'welfare secretary' or 'secretary'.

Mention should be made here of a small group of women who went overseas as members of the Y.W.C.A. During the war fifteen left New Zealand to work in service clubs in the Middle

WRENS ON DUTY

W.A.A.C. OVERSEAS

VARIED SERVICE

TUIS ON LEAVE Rome

WRENS ON VE DAY

W.A.A.C. IN NEW ZEALAND

W.A.A.F. IN NEW ZEALAND

W.A.A.F. IN NEW ZEALAND AND OVERSEAS

East, India, Malaya, Ceylon, or Burma. One Y.W.C.A. worker was captured at Singapore and remained three and a half years interned in Japanese hands in Java. Ten of these workers had their salaries paid by the New Zealand Patriotic Fund Board. Another New Zealander, Miss Jean Begg, rendered service of outstanding quality as the chief British Y.W.C.A. representative in the Middle East and India. The services of these New Zealand members of the Y.W.C.A. to the British forces as a whole were devoted and untiring. It is noteworthy that since the end of the war twenty more workers have been sent by the New Zealand Y.W.C.A. to India, Malaya, and Japan.

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THE New Zealand Women's Auxiliary Army Corps grew out of the W.W.S.A. almost imperceptibly. Although technically the W.A.A.C. was the last of the three women's services to be established, on its formation in July 1942 (its Controller, Mrs V.

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The Home Front

Maori War Effort Organisation

Māori were active on the Home Front, involving themselves in the huge fund-raising and production efforts that New Zealanders undertook during the 1940s. Many came to the cities to work in munitions and other factories, beginning the pattern of urban migration that would accelerate after the war. Despite this, the major Māori contribution to the war was their work on farms producing food.

On 3 June 1942 a Maori War Effort Organisation (MWEO) was established. The country was divided into 21 zones, and 315 tribal committees were formed. The committees' main functions were to assist with recruiting and primary production, and to co-operate in the direction of Maori manpower. Colonel H.C. Hemphill led the organisation and dealt directly with Paraire Paikea, the Member of Parliament for Northern Maori and minister in charge of the Māori war effort.

For more on the MWEO see: Fighting for equality - The Maori War Effort Organisation 1942-1945

Māori women and the Second World War

The MWEO offered many Māori women the opportunity to work in the cities, replacing men in essential industries. A small number served abroad with the New Zealand Army Nursing Service.

During the war many Māori women worked tirelessly gathering and preparing seafood and non-perishable foods to send overseas. Dehydration was used to preserve karengo (seaweed), pipi, pūpū, shark, crayfish tails, kūmara and karaka berries; other food was preserved in pork fat, sealed in tins and sent away. Women knitted balaclavas, socks, mittens, gloves and scarves; some sewed 'himi paranene' (flannel singlets), baked fruit cakes and plain biscuits.

Te Puea Hērangi also helped raise thousands of pounds for the Red Cross by organising dances and garden parties and selling fresh farm produce. (One estimate suggested she was personally responsible for raising between £30,000 and £40,000.) Tainui organised concerts for soldiers and in 1942 extended this to American troops stationed in New Zealand.

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Māori were active on the Home Front, involving themselves in the huge fund-raising and production efforts that New Zealanders undertook during the 1940s. Many came to the cities to work in munitions and other factories, beginning the pattern of urban migration that would accelerate after the war.

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Great place to start.

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Civilian New Zealanders remember

Civilian New Zealanders were relatively lucky in the Second World War. They were spared the death and destruction on home soil that millions endured in Britain, Europe, Asia, the Pacific and, briefly, Australia. They also escaped the tyranny of occupation. But for most, life changed. Families and relationships were disrupted, government directives controlled people's lives and, for many, there was the constant threat of terrible loss.

When the Second World War began in September 1939, just over 1,630,000 people lived in New Zealand. Although, over the next six years, 140,000 left for overseas service, nearly one and half million people remained at home. Many of them felt they were embarking into 'the great unknown'. That uncertainty would continue for six years.

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Nearly one and half million people spent the Second World War at home in New Zealand. For most, life changed: families and relationships were disrupted, government directives controlled people's lives and, for many, there was the constant threat of terrible loss.

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Republicanism in New Zealand is a political position that holds that New Zealand's system of government should be changed from a constitutional monarchy to a republic.

New Zealand republicanism dates back to the 19th century, although until the late 20th century it was a fringe movement. The current main republican lobby group, New Zealand Republic, was established in 1994. Because New Zealand's constitution is uncodified, a republic could be enacted by statute, as a simple act of parliament. However, it is generally assumed that this would only occur following a nationwide referendum. Several prime ministers and governors-general have identified themselves as republicans, although no government has yet taken any meaningful steps towards enacting a republic. Public opinion polls have generally found that a majority of the population favour retaining the monarchy.

The term "republic" in New Zealand has been used as a protest and a pejorative against the central government and/or royalty, to describe an area independent of the central government.

The first use of the term "republic" to connote an independent state in New Zealand came in 1840 when Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson described the New Zealand Company settlement of Port Nicholson ( Wellington), which had its own constitution and governing council, as such. The existence of the council prompted Hobson to declare British sovereignty over the entirety of New Zealand on 21 May 1840, despite the fact the Treaty of Waitangi was still being signed throughout the country. Hobson dispatched the Colonial Secretary, Willoughby Shortland along with some soldiers to demand the settlers disband their "illegal association" and remove the flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand.

Later, Wellington became the centre of agitation by settlers for representative government, which was granted by the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852. Samuel Revans, who founded the Wellington Settlers' Constitutional Association in 1848, advocated a New Zealand republic.

In 1879 the people of Hawera declared themselves the "Republic of Hawera," due to a campaign by Māori leader Te Whiti against European settlement. They formed their own volunteer units to oppose Te Whiti. In 1881 government troops invaded Parihaka and arrested Te Whiti, bringing the "republic" to an end.

In the 1911 general election Colonel Allen Bell, the Reform Party candidate for the Raglan seat, advocated the abolition of the monarchy. The armed forces considered that Bell had broken his Oath of Allegiance. He was asked to resign his commission, which he did in January 1912.

In 1966 Bruce Jesson founded the Republican Association of New Zealand, and later the Republican Party in 1967. The party had a stridently nationalist platform. Republican Party activity petered out after the 1969 general election and the party wound up in 1974.

In May 1973, a remit was proposed at the Labour Party national conference to change the flag, declare New Zealand a republic, and change the national anthem (then only " God Save the Queen"), but this was voted down.

In March 1994 the Republican Coalition of New Zealand was formed to promote the move to a republic. The following year, the Monarchist League of New Zealand (now Monarchy New Zealand) was established to defend the constitutional monarchy.

In 1994 Prime Minister Jim Bolger suggested to the 44th Parliament in the Address In Reply debate that New Zealand should move to become a republic by 2001. Bolger stated that New Zealand's links with Britain were in decline, and that the country should acknowledge that "the tide of history is moving in one direction." He denied that his views relate to his Irish heritage.

Bolger spoke to Queen Elizabeth about the issue of New Zealand becoming a republic when he was prime minister and recalled "I have more than once spoken with Her Majesty about my view that New Zealand would at some point elect its own Head of State, we discussed the matter in a most sensible way and she was in no way surprised or alarmed and neither did she cut my head off."

In 1998, Richard Nottage, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade, called for New Zealand to consider becoming a republic, arguing that the position of the "British monarch" [] as head of state "looks strange in Asian eyes".

In 1999 the Republican Coalition relaunched itself as the Republican Movement of Aotearoa New Zealand, similar to the Australian Republican Movement, due to the 1999 Australian republic referendum, and again renamed itself in 2014 as New Zealand Republic.

Supporters of a New Zealand republic have said:

New Zealand should have a New Zealander, or more correctly a New Zealand citizen resident in New Zealand, as its head of state; a "resident for President";

New Zealand needs to assert its independence, nationhood and maturity to the world;

New Zealand's constitution-and indeed the attitudes of New Zealanders-are republican in their outlook.

New Zealand already maintains the Governor-General-who is described as a "virtual head of state". The Governor-General is a New Zealander and does everything the head of state should do;

Because the Governor-General and Sovereign have little real power, they are not an effective check on the Parliamentary executive (the Prime Minister and Cabinet), the argument that the Sovereign or Governor-General "denies power" to politicians and is politically neutral yet can fire a Prime Minister is contradictory;

An elected or appointed head of state would be a more effective check on the executive;

A Republic does not necessarily mean withdrawing from the commonwealth. Thirty-two of the 53 commonwealth member nations (60 per cent) are republics.

The Prime Minister should not have the power to dismiss the Governor-General at will and vice versa.

Other republicans have focused on the principles of a monarchy: many disagree with the hereditary principle (based on a form of primogeniture) that determines succession of the throne. They argue that in a modern and democratic society no one should be expected to defer to another simply because of their birth. Some assert that the hereditary monarch and unelected Governor-General have no mandate to dismiss an elected government.

At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting of October 2011, the leaders of the 16 Commonwealth realms agreed that they would support change to their respective succession laws regarding male primogeniture, and allow the monarch to marry a Roman Catholic. The ban on Catholics from being the monarch would remain, because the monarch has to be in "Communion with the Church of England."

Supporters of the monarchy in New Zealand have said:

"Constitutional monarchy is tried and proven system of government, some of the most politically stable nations in the world are constitutional monarchies; whereas some of the most unstable and repressive regimes have been republics." In the words of former Governor-General Sir Michael Hardie Boys, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

For New Zealand, "monarchy summarises the inheritance of a thousand years of constitutional government and our links with a glorious past,"

New Zealand is already an independent, sovereign nation with a national identity of its own;

The monarch is Queen shared between New Zealand and the fifteen other Commonwealth realms.

The monarch is politically neutral and is a symbol of national unity rather than division;

The monarch has "little real practical political powers and is a protector of and not a threat to democracy";

Hereditary selection of the Sovereign is the "most natural" non-partisan way to choose a leader.

Supporters of the monarchy have argued that it costs New Zealand taxpayers only a small outlay for royal engagements and tours, and the modest expenses of the Governor-General's establishment. They state "[t]his figure is about one dollar per person per year", about $4.3 million per annum. An analysis by New Zealand Republic in 2010 claimed the office of Governor-General cost New Zealand taxpayers about $7.6 million in ongoing costs. They compared this cost to the President of Ireland, a head of state of a country with a similar population size, who cost €3.4 million - NZ$6 million on the exchange rate at the time. However, Monarchy New Zealand accused the republic supporters of arbitrarily inflating the costs on the Governor-General, pointing out the Irish President's cost was closer to NZ$12.8 million once the extra costs were included.

As of 2010, the New Zealand public were generally in favour of the retention of the monarchy, with polls showing it to have between 50 and 70 per cent support. Polls indicate that many New Zealanders see the monarchy as being of little day-to-day relevance; a One News Colmar Brunton poll in 2002 found that 58 per cent of the population believed the monarchy has little or no relevance to their lives. National Business Review poll in 2004 found 57 per cent of respondents believed New Zealand would become a republic "in the future".

However, the institution still enjoys the support of New Zealanders, particularly those born before World War II. Some show a majority of younger New Zealanders support a republic. With the approval of the current monarch, and the position of the Treaty of Waitangi under a republic remaining a concern to Māori and other New Zealanders alike, as well as the question of what constitutional form a republic might take unresolved, support for becoming a republic is still the view of around a third to 40 per cent of the population. On 21 April 2008, New Zealand Republic released a poll of New Zealanders showing 43 per cent support the monarchy should the Prince of Wales become King of New Zealand, and 41 per cent support a republic under the same scenario. A poll by The New Zealand Herald in January 2010, before a visit by Prince William to the country found 33.3 per cent wanted The Prince of Wales to be the next monarch, with 30.2 per cent favouring Prince William. 29.4 per cent of respondents preferred a republic in the event Elizabeth II died or abdicated.

An October 2011 survey of 500 business professionals asked "What Is Your Level Of Support For New Zealand Becoming A Republic?". 27 per cent said not at all, 24 per cent said somewhat opposed, 23.1 per cent were neutral, 14.8 per cent said moderately in favour and 11.1 per cent said strongly in favour.

On the eve of a royal tour by Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in November 2012, a ONE News/Colmar Brunton poll reported 70 per cent of people questioned responded they wanted to keep the Queen as head of state, while 19 percent supported New Zealand becoming a republic. Following the tour, a different poll by Curia Market Research commissioned by New Zealand Republic found 51 per cent of respondents wanted Charles as King once the Queen's reign ends, while 41 per cent supported a republic.

On 17 July 2013, a televised debate on TV3's The Vote held three polls, two separate votes by the studio audience at the start and end of the programme, and one via Twitter, Facebook, web and text voting, on the question "Should we ditch the Royals?" The first studio audience vote before the show was 43 per cent yes, and the second after the show was 65 per cent, while the public vote result was 41 per cent yes and 59 per cent no.

From 8 to 24 April 2019, a poll of 15,000 random nationwide voting-age New Zealanders was conducted, which showed that 55 per cent of New Zealanders want a New Zealander as the country's next head of state, while 39 per cent want the next British monarch. Support for a New Zealander being the country's next head of state was recorded strongest among Māori respondents, with 80 per cent in support, and respondents aged 18-30, with 76 per cent in support.

Following the 2020 New Zealand general election, an online poll of 1,003 New Zealanders aged eighteen and over found that 20 per cent agreed that "New Zealand should become a republic", with 36 per cent of the respondents remaining neutral and 44 per cent disagreeing outright. The poll also found that 19 per cent wanted to change the national flag, and ten per cent wanted to change the country's name.

As of 2013, three political parties with members in New Zealand's parliament had a policy of holding a binding referendum on the republic issue.

The Labour Party adopted a policy of holding a binding referendum on the issue at their 2013 conference. Then-leader Andrew Little supported a New Zealand republic, saying "when it comes to our constitutional arrangements in New Zealand I have a firm view that our head of state should come from New Zealand." Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern states that she is a republican, and that she would "encourage national debate over cutting ties with the royal family".

In 2002, Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark stated:

"...the idea of a nation such as New Zealand being ruled by a head of state some 20,000 km away is absurd. It is inevitable that New Zealand will become a republic. It is just a matter of when the New Zealand people are bothered enough to talk about it - it could be 10 years, or it could be 20 years, but it will happen."

Then-Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen, however, declared that he supported the monarchy, stating in 2004 he was "a sort of token monarchist in the Cabinet these days." However, in 2010 he repudiated that stance, taking the view that New Zealand should move towards a republic once the Queen's reign ends. Former Prime Minister David Lange expressed support for a New Zealand republic, stating: "Do such things matter? They certainly do. We suffer in this country from a lack of emotional focus... New Zealand will become a republic just as Britain will be blurred into Europe".

National's constitution specifies that the Party's visions and values include "Loyalty to our country, its democratic principles and our Sovereign as Head of State". In 2001 a constitutional policy task force recommended a referendum on the monarchy once the Queen's reign ends, along with referendums on the future of the Maori seats and the number of MPs. Only the policy on Maori seats was passed by the party's regional conferences. Former MPs John Carter, and Wayne Mapp and Richard Worth have been among the most vocal supporters of the monarchy within the party. At the 2011 elections, former Chair of Monarchy New Zealand Simon O'Connor was elected as MP for Tamaki and his Deputy Paul Foster-Bell was later elected a List MP in 2013 and both were re-elected at the 2014 election. At the 2014 election the former Chair of New Zealand Republic, Lewis Holden, was nominated as candidate for the Rimutaka electorate but failed to enter Parliament with incumbent Labour MP Chris Hipkins retaining the electorate, and Holden holding a list ranking too low (at 66 on the National list) to enter parliament. Among the 2014 caucus of new National Members of Parliament, a number of portraits of the Queen have been placed in their Wellington offices through an initiative led by Monarchy New Zealand. Former Prime Minister John Key has said he was "not convinced it [a republic] will be a big issue in the short term", but that he thinks a republic is "inevitable"; however, since this statement he has affirmed his support for the monarchy and made it clear that while he was prime minister a republic would not happen "on his watch".

Support for a republic is strongest amongst the supporters of the Green Party, and it is party policy to support a "democratic and participatory process, such as referenda". Former Green MP Keith Locke had a member's bill drawn on the issue, the Head of State Referenda Bill, for a referendum on the issue, but it was voted down at its first reading in parliament in 2009.

During a debate for the 2020 election, John Tamihere of the Māori Party voiced support for New Zealand to become a republic after Queen Elizabeth II dies, saying "it's about time". Winston Peters of New Zealand First stated that the question of a republic should be resolved through a two-step referendum.

Former United Future New Zealand leader Peter Dunne is a supporter of a New Zealand republic. The party has a policy of "a public education process on constitutional matters, leading towards consideration of New Zealand as a republic within the Commonwealth in the future."

In 2004 former Governor-General Dame Catherine Tizard said publicly that the monarch should be replaced by a New Zealand head of state. Her predecessor as Governor-General, Sir Paul Reeves, has stated that he would not oppose a republic. Sir Michael Hardie Boys has supported the status quo. On 29 July 2006, outgoing Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright stated she had no views as to whether New Zealand becomes a republic, noting: "We often overlook the intense loyalty and love the Māori people have for the Queen - probably more intense than many people of European descent. This is a history that's never going to die."

New Zealand is a unitary state and does not have a codified, entrenched constitution. Some have argued New Zealand is a "de facto" republic. New Zealand has made constitutional changes without difficulty in the past, such as the abolition of its upper house of parliament in 1951, the introduction of proportional representation in 1996 and most recently the creation of the Supreme Court of New Zealand as the court of final appeal. Legal academics have espoused the view that the legal changes required for a republic are not complex. Some have argued that the changes required are less radical than the move to MMP in 1996.

The Treaty of Waitangi was an agreement signed between Māori tribes and representatives of the British Crown in 1840. Because of the relationship between Māori and the Crown, the Treaty of Waitangi is often cited as a constitutional issue for a New Zealand republic. Some academics expressed concern that governments could use republicanism to evade treaty responsibilities. However, with the division of the Crown between the United Kingdom and New Zealand following the passing of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1947, the "Crown in Right of New Zealand" became party to the Treaty. Legal academics state that the Treaty would be unaffected by New Zealand becoming a republic, as the new head of state would inherit the Crown's responsibilities. In 2004, Professor Noel Cox argued "In strict legal terms, if New Zealand became a republic tomorrow it would make no difference to the Treaty of Waitangi. Speaking as a lawyer, it's a long-established principle that successive governments take on responsibility for previous agreements."

The Realm of New Zealand consists of New Zealand proper and two states in free association, Niue and the Cook Islands. Should New Zealand become a republic, the Realm of New Zealand would continue to exist without New Zealand, the Ross Dependency and Tokelau. This would not be a legal hurdle to a New Zealand republic, and both the Cook Islands and Niue would retain their status as associated states with New Zealand, as New Zealand shares its head of state with the Cook Islands and Niue in the same way the United Kingdom shares its head of state with the other Commonwealth realms.

If New Zealand became a republic its membership of the Commonwealth of Nations would be unaffected. Since the creation of the modern Commonwealth in 1949, republics are able to be members of the Commonwealth, recognising the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth. Following the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2007, the Kampala Communiqué stated "Heads of Government also agreed that, where an existing member changes its formal constitutional status, it should not have to reapply for Commonwealth membership provided that it continues to meet all the criteria for membership."

In November 2004, Prime Minister Helen Clark announced the formation of a parliamentary committee of inquiry into the constitution, chaired by United Future New Zealand leader Peter Dunne. In its final report, the committee recommended wider education on the constitution and included a note on the republic issue, asking "Is the nature of New Zealand's head of state, as a monarch, appropriate to New Zealand's evolving national and constitutional identity?".

Keith Locke's Head of State Referenda Bill for a referendum on the republic issue was drawn from the members' ballot and introduced into Parliament on 14 October 2009. The bill focused on reforming the Governor-General of New Zealand as a ceremonial head of state, creating a parliamentary republic. Two models of a republic along with the status quo would have been put to a referendum:

On 21 April 2010 the bill was defeated at its first reading 53-68 with voting recorded as Ayes 53 being New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; United Future 1 and Noes 68 being New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Māori Party 4; Progressive 1.

Cox, Noel (2008). A Constitutional History of the New Zealand Monarchy: The evolution of the New Zealand monarchy and the recognition of an autochthonous polity. Saarbrücken: V.D.M. Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. K.G. ISBN 978-3-639-00877-7.

Holden, Lewis (2009). The New Zealand Republic Handbook - a guide to creating the New Zealand republic. Auckland: New Zealand Republic. ISBN 978-0-473-15257-4.

Quentin-Baxter, Alison; McLean, Janet (2017). This Realm of New Zealand: The Sovereign, the Governor-General, the Crown. Auckland University Press. ISBN 978-1-869-40875-6.

Hamer, D.A. (1990). The Making of Wellington, 1800-1914. Victoria University Press. ISBN 978-0864732002.

Knight, Dean R. (1 August 2011). "Patriating Our Head of State: A Simpler Path?". Reconstituting the Constitution. Springer: 107-120. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-21572-8_7. ISBN 978-3-642-21571-1.

Whelan, Alan: Cook, Barrie (1997). New Zealand Republic. Niu Pacific Limited. Wellington. ISBN 0473047802

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Republicanism in New Zealand - Wikipedia

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Republicanism in New Zealand is a political position that holds that New Zealand's system of government should be changed from a constitutional monarchy to a republic. New Zealand republicanism dates back to the 19th century, although until the late 20th century it was a fringe movement.

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As republic debate reignites, what would it take for NZ to go it alone?

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As republic debate reignites, what would it take for NZ to go it alone?

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Former United Future leader Peter Dunne this month used his final speech in Parliament to challenge politicians to make the next governor-general the first president of a New Zealand republic.

Comments often become heated and the debate rages whenever this issue is proposed. Stuff readers have now shared their views here.

The nation doesn't seem so sure on the matter. You've been telling us how you feel and, in some cases, the divide is bitter.

A Stuff Facebook poll of 7600 people showed the majority - about 5100 - did not think New Zealand should become a republic. About 2100 thought it should be.

READ MORE:
* Peter Dunne challenges politicians to create republic
* Is now the time for a New Zealand republic?
* We don't need a republic to prove our independence
* New Zealand needs its own head of state

A New Zealand republic is a topic that pops up periodically. In 2016, a poll found nearly 60 per cent of people wanted a Kiwi head of state.

The poll showed younger generations supported a New Zealand republic in higher numbers than older generations.

Earlier that year, the flag debate had been stirring up talk of a republic, too. Some believed it would happen sooner than thought. Others, not so much.

FORMING A REPUBLIC

Stepping back from the variety of opinion, what would the process to split from the monarchy actually involve?

Dunne believes the process would be straightforward.

Former prime minister Geoffrey Palmer said: "It's not nearly as hard to do this as people have often thought."

Dunne has posed the question himself: "How do you get there?"

He, Palmer and a group called New Zealand Republic - which is obviously pro-republic - have similar ideas for a process. There are differing opinions on calling the new leader a head of state or a president. Dunne uses president, Palmer, head of state.

New Zealand Republic proposes that "New Zealanders choose whether the country has its own Head of State using [a] referendum process."

We would become a parliamentary republic with an independent, non-executive head of state. That means no powers like United States President Donald Trump has. Dunne agrees with this.

The head of state would have the same functions and powers as the monarch and Governor-General.

Dunne says: "What you would be really doing is swapping. If you think of the role of the Governor-General now, you're simply saying, instead of that person being the Governor-General, they would be the president of the republic of New Zealand."

The role would remain "virtually unchanged".

New Zealand Republic also proposes a head of state commission, comprised of at least five people with relevant expertise, appointed with cross-party parliamentary agreement.

The commission would develop plans for a republic and recommend a democratic process for the future review of the office, functions and powers of the head of state.

Dunne also proposes an unbiased "independent group".

NEW ZEALAND REPUBLIC PLANS

I. Initial blueprint: A head of state commission develops two models for a republic, one where voters elect the head of state and the other a parliamentary election.

II. Indicative referendum: To determine support for a republic and the alternative models.

III. Detailed blue-print: Head of state commission develops draft legislation based on model favoured in indicative referendum. Adoption of legislation by Parliament.

IV. Binding referendum: A single question referendum on whether we become a republic (based on the legislation), or continue as a monarchy.

V. Transformation to a republic: Election of the new Head of State and declaration of a republic.

TIMING AND OTHER ISSUES

If the process followed the Republic New Zealand plan, it'd take up to about six years to complete.

Dunne thinks it could be shorter, starting with a yes or no referendum.

"I think you could probably complete [consultation and discussion] and the referendum within about a two-year time frame if you started immediately," Dunne said.

If the response was no, the process would stop. If yes, a second referendum would confirm how the new head of state would act and how they were selected.

Other details to be ironed out along the way would include setting the number of terms a president could serve and the length of term - say five years - like the Governor-General now.

Our Government would otherwise run the same as it does now.

Dunne said there would have to be "significant" - but not challenging - changes to legislation.

References to the Governor-General would have to be changed to president.

"You could do that as one piece of legislation saying... 'read president for Governor-General, read, where we make reference to the Crown, that becomes the state.

"I don't think that's difficult."

He thinks we could be in a position to elect or appoint a Kiwi head of state by the time Dame Patsy - the current Governor-General's - term expires in 2021.

WHO SHOULD BE LEADER?

Dunne says one of the biggest arguments you can run against a republic is that the president's job becomes a plaything of political parties.

"You don't want this person to just be a political hack or someone who is just an extension of the Government. They have got to be independent, they have got to be autonomous, like the Governor-General is now."

People would be proud of a New Zealand president not a "British agent", Dunne said.

Palmer backed a head of state replacing the Governor-General. "[Someone] above party politics, and a symbol of unity for the nation.

"There needs to be some ability for the head of state to have some functions that bite but... with the powers in New Zealand, not derivative from the monarchy."

HOW MUCH WOULD IT COST?

Dunne wasn't sure how much the actual process would cost, but said a budget could be set.

Palmer thought it would cost less than the flag referendum, which cost New Zealand taxpayers $26 million.

"In terms of on-going costs, the costs would be pretty much the same as the costs to run the Governor-General are now," Dunne said.

INTERNATIONAL AND COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS

The Commonwealth comprises 52 nations. Of those, 32 are republics, according to Dunne. Of the 52 nations, 21 are monarchies, 16 of which have Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state, including the United Kingdom.

"I don't know officially, but all the information I have had over the years is that the British Government doesn't have a view on it, obviously (New Zealand becoming a republic)," Dunne said.

"The position of Buckingham Palace is that it is up to New Zealand up to decide."

He rejected claims that a republic would mean rejection by the UK.

"Look at countries like India, Singapore, South Africa, all in exactly the same position being republics, still members of the Commonwealth, still with strong ties to Britain."

Dunne didn't think there would be much international reaction if we became a republic, nor any impact on trade relations.

"What reaction there was would be probably surprise that we hadn't done it a long time ago."

INEVITABILITY

Dunne said most people he'd talked to - whatever their view on a republic - felt it was inevitable.

"If it's going to happen anyway, why not [now]. People then say 'wait until the Queen dies, we can look at it then, maybe'.

"But if you take that approach, A) we only did it because the Queen died, it's hardly bold and positive and B) there will always be an excuse... If there's a mind for change, we need to get on and do it."

Palmer thinks so, too.

He said it was increasingly hard for Kiwis to identify with a monarch "12,000 miles away".

But because it wasn't seen as a priority before each upcoming election, it was never addressed, he said.

"This will happen, but I can't predict when."

However, Monarchy New Zealand's chairman Doctor Sean Palmer said calling a republic "inevitable" disempowered people.

REPUBLIC PROBLEMS

Monarchy New Zealand's Palmer has some serious concerns about what shifting to a republic would mean.

"Any time you are trying to propose a change, particularly something as serious as a fundamental constitutional change... questions have to be asked about how the system will operate."

He honed in on the approach of republic supporters focus on a minimal approach to change - like changing legislature wording and having a head of state's role run the same as the Governor-General.

"That's rather like saying we are only going to change the foundation of the building. And that's virtually impossible.

"Around the world many countries attempt to modify the constitution and it has dramatic flow-on effects - ways that you can't anticipate."

He used the decision by the founding fathers of the United States to allow the right to bear arms as an example. At the time, it wasn't controversial. Now, it was part of the reason thousands of people were dying every year, he said.

"Anyone is suggesting that fundamental constitutional reform is easy either does not understand the constitution, or is hoping that the public doesn't understand it."

In his view, if a referendum were to occur, it would need a third question which compared the selected version of a republic against the status quo.

Monarchy New Zealand's Palmer argued that monarchies were successful democracies.

"If you are seeking to change the constitution, you have to be able to provide some evidence that you are not going to affect that democracy, and I don't think you can."

He suggested that by and large, republics didn't compare to monarchies as quality places to live.

"What is so wonderful about a republic that you're so willing to say 'hey, let's gamble, maybe it's going to be ok'...

"I'm not saying that New Zealand is going to immediately going to lapse into a dictatorship. But what I am saying is that all democracies are successful until they hit a constitutional issue.

"[And] generally speaking, constitutional monarchies have the flexibility to... make success more likely."

OUR MONARCHY, NOT THE UK'S

Monarchy New Zealand's Palmer said people often mistakenly referred to the "Queen of England".

"It is the New Zealand Monarchy. She is the Queen of New Zealand. England is not a country and has not been a country in 300 years since... it became Britain."

He said becoming a republic wouldn't mean cutting the ties with United Kingdom any more than cutting ties with Canada or Papua New Guinea.

The monarchy became New Zealand's when it adopted the Statue of Westminster in 1947.

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As republic debate reignites, what would it take for NZ to go it alone?

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Former United Future leader Peter Dunne this month used his final speech in Parliament to challenge politicians to make the next governor-general the first president of a New Zealand republic. Comments often become heated and the debate rages whenever this issue is proposed. Stuff readers have now shared their views here.

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The Royal Family in 2018: a fist-bumping, action hero prince marrying his African-American fiance, a magnetic Duke and Duchess of Cambridge welcoming their third child, and a monarch who at 91 is the very essence of stability and strength in a fickle, ever-changing world.

No longer do the Windsors conjure up cringeworthy images of Charles talking to his cabbages, of infidelity, of Diana sitting alone at the Taj Mahal.

Sure, Prince Phillip still makes the occasional racist gaffe when he's let out, but he's been put out to pasture now.

As Prince Harry's visit in 2015 showed, the Royals are undergoing something of a renaissance in popularity in New Zealand. And with a new season of The Crown on Netflix, and a Royal wedding only months away, the monarchy's place in pop culture looks like being cemented in 2018.

READ MORE:
* Fitzsimons: NZ should become a republic
* Should the Parliamentary prayer be amended?
* What will happen in New Zealand when the Queen dies?
* The Queen is welcome in the Kiwi republic

And yet there remains a small but determined republican movement in New Zealand, committed to seeing us cut the colonial apron strings once and for all.

Its current head, Dean Knight, of the New Zealand Republic lobby group, says the Queen doesn't fit as the head of our independent state because she can't reflect our unique New Zealand values. She is too obviously British.

"The British monarchy and the British royals seem to fit uncomfortably with how we do things in New Zealand. Even on our most formal occasions in New Zealand there's a degree of informality and humbleness. There's no fuss.

"The other night at [the university's] graduation one of the students got a selfie with [Governor-General] Dame Patsy Reddy. It's not a big deal."

Our head of state, says Knight, should be "one of us". That way she would reflect naturally and without effort or pretence who we are.

A British aristocrat who has lived her entire life on the other side of the globe can't do this.

Arguing the case for the Queen remaining on our banknotes is Monarchy New Zealand, headed by Sean Palmer.

"I think given the modern world we live in and how quickly we move, how many New Zealanders themselves live on the other side of the world, I think it's a global society and quite frankly it's not that big an issue any more."

He rejects the if it ain't broke, don't fix it argument as "absurd", though it is one often used by monarchists.

"We have a system that is far better than not broken. We have a system that is the most effective in the world," he says.

Palmer, a Canadian immigrant who works at Parliament, did a PhD on the monarchy and is happy to dispute the received wisdom, even of his own side.

Not only has the Queen never threatened our independence, he says, we could use the monarchy to advance our independence even further.

For example, our nuclear-free policy caused no push-back from the Queen, he says, and she had even supported it.

But Palmer says the Government should tell her to push its policies in the wider world.

"It's a question of, 'Do we want her to do this?' And I think there's a tremendous advantage in having one of the most famous people in the world speak on behalf of us."

She would command the attention of the world in a way that an unknown Governor-General or president of New Zealand never could.

YOU ONLY GET A BIT OF THE QUEEN

The trouble with all this, says Knight, a Victoria University law lecturer and constitutional adviser to the New Zealand Republic lobby group, is that New Zealand must share the Queen with 15 other Commonwealth realms.

"The problem with a shared head of state is that you only get a bit of the Queen," he says. We can't just ask her to push our barrow alone.

"And the reality is when the Queen travels she travels principally as the British monarch. The reality is she is the British monarch and we're stuck in the situation where we're a bit player in that. That's really unfortunate."

As for pushing our policies, he says, that's for our prime minister to do - and Jacindamania means the prime minister now has a global platform upon which to put forward New Zealand's case to the world.

How about "independence"?

Monarchists and republicans have deep differences in values and outlook and they won't easily be reconciled, despite attempts by monarchists to modernise their arguments and to explain away the manifest oddity of an absentee head of state.

And the arguments remain abstract and unconnected with day-to-day politics in New Zealand.

ROYALTY AS DEMOCRATIC EGALITARIANISM

Anyway, history is full of examples of overseas head of state living abroad.

Iceland, he points out, was for hundreds of years ruled by Denmark, finally gaining its independence in 1918 under the Danish Crown before severing all ties with Denmark in 1944.

And egalitarianism is not foreign to the monarchy, Palmer says.

"The most egalitarian countries in the world tend to be constitutional monarchies."

He cites Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, and Japan as prime examples.

The distribution of wealth tends to be more equal in constitutional monarchies, he says, than in republics.There were huge disparities of wealth not just in the United States but in many other republican states.

What's more, he says, the fact that monarchs are chosen by birth rather than popular election does not make monarchy undemocratic. It is ridiculous to say that the only way to be a democracy is for every position to be elected.

"The United States is full of positions which are elected - judges, district attorneys, dog-catchers. But generally speaking there are very few people who would want to emulate American democracy."

ROYALTY AS THE REIGN OF ALIEN TOFFS

Knight, of course, sees all this very differently.

It's not xenophobic to require our head of state to be a New Zealand citizen, he says. It's "only that we shouldn't outsource a national civic institution. In the same way we say to be a member of Parliament or of the executive government, you've got to be a citizen."

We want our most senior representative to be one of us because the role is designed to reflect who we are.

"One of the great failings of the monarchy in the New Zealand context is we will never see a Maori as our head of state in New Zealand because the monarchical line is a British line.

"A young Maori kid under this system can't aspire to hold the highest constitutional office in New Zealand.

"That just seems un-New Zealand and unegalitarian."

Also, he says, while Scandinavian and Dutch monarchs might rule over societies with a narrow spread of wealth, is this true of Britain and our Queen?

Rather, the Queen is an aristocrat deeply embedded in a system of class structures and values that are profoundly unlike New Zealand's. Those differences don't disappear just because it is easier to go from one side of the world to the other in a shorter time.

And modern transport doesn't alter the fact that the head of state is only an occasional visitor here - and one who in her old age has made it known that she will not visit New Zealand again.

So, yes, says Knight, the institution really is broken.

And besides, there would be nothing isolationist about becoming a republic.

"One of the nice things is we can be a republic and retain our association with the realms as part of the Commonwealth.

"Four fifths of the countries of the Commonwealth are republics. So if we want to stay in that familiar community of nations we have a vehicle."

We can still invite the royals to visit here, we can still go and visit Buckingham Palace, we can still enjoy royal gossip in the magazines.

GOING NOWHERE

You might think a politician would be mad to question whether New Zealand needs a Queen.

John Key asked whether New Zealand should stick with its colonial flag and got a bloody nose, and even staunch republican Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern admits she has no plans to do so.

"When it came to changing a piece of fabric, that proved to be incredibly divisive and very difficult," says monarchist Palmer.

How much more difficult would the argument be about ditching the monarchy?

Knight says the flag debate was different, because there was no agreed-upon alternative to the colonial incumbent.

Whereas there is an easy and familiar alternative to the monarchy, he says.

"In many respects we are a de facto republic already. We have a de facto head of state in the Governor-General."

"Which makes the process of constitutional republicanism a lot easier. It's simply saying let's give the governor-general the right to be the head of state in and of their own right.

"And that will make it easier to cut the umbilical cord back to Britain."

Palmer, not surprisingly, doesn't buy this. The monarchy runs deep in our constitution and in the fabric of our society, and changing it is a huge change that could even put our stable democracy at risk.

"The vast majority of successful democratic states, certainly the most successful, are constitutional monarchies," he says.

Removing the monarch would not put an end to democracy.

"But we are talking about a fundamental change in the basis of the constitution and to know for sure how that is going to unfold is not possible."

No important politician has seriously taken up the republican argument, which remains desiccated and inert.

Ardern is in this sense no different from any other major politician.

She told The Times of London during the election campaign that she would seek to encourage a national debate over cutting ties with Britain's royal family.

"I am a republican but you will find there are people in New Zealand who aren't actively pursuing that change."

And nor is she.

Asked whether she intends to do anything concrete about the monarchy during her first term of government, she replies: "There is no appetite, in the public form, to make changes and there are no plans to do so."

So going republican is an easy and largely cosmetic change - or a deep and risky one, depending on who you believe.

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Monarchy or republic? The debate for NZ's head of state rages on

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The Royal Family in 2018: a fist-bumping, action hero prince marrying his African-American fiance, a magnetic Duke and Duchess of Cambridge welcoming their third child, and a monarch who at 91 is the very essence of stability and strength in a fickle, ever-changing world.

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The proclamation on 26 September 1907 announces the 'Colony of New Zealand to be styled Dominion of New Zealand'.

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On 26 September 1907 the colony of New Zealand ceased to exist. New Zealand became a dominion within the British Empire. For a few years some New Zealanders celebrated 'Dominion Day' on 26 September with parades and public events. Some banks and law firms closed, with a few keeping up the tradition until the 1950s. Various groups brought the word 'dominion' into their titles. In Wellington, the Dominion newspaper began to be published.

When Prime Minister Sir Joseph Ward read the proclamation of dominion status from the steps of Parliament on 26 September 1907, he marked an important symbolic shift in New Zealand's perceptions of nationhood. This would, he hoped, remind the world that New Zealand was an important player in its own right.

As the Evening Post reported on the first Dominion Day, New Zealand went 'up one' in the 'school of British nations'. 'Abroad ... there is a notion that New Zealand is ... merely the little tail of the great dog; but the Prime Minister is determined that the tail is not to be overlooked, nor to be despised in any way.'

The shift from colony to dominion was a change of name only. It had no practical effect. New Zealand was no more and no less independent from Britain than it had been before.

Dominion status was more about perceptions - but perceptions mattered. Other parts of the Empire also became dominions at this time, for they too wanted a distinct status that would not see them confused with lesser 'colonies'.

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On 26 September 1907 the colony of New Zealand ceased to exist. New Zealand became a dominion within the British Empire. For a few years some New Zealanders celebrated 'Dominion Day' on 26 September with parades and public events. Some banks and law firms closed, with a few keeping up the tradition until the 1950s.

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Photograph of Whina Cooper in Hamilto... | Items | National Library of New Zealand | National Library of New Zealand

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Date

27 September 1975

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PA7-15-18

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Portrait of Whina Cooper in Hamilton during the Maori Land March, photographed by Christian F Heinegg on the 27th of September 1975. Shows her wearing a pink headscarf and a kahu kiwi (kiwi feather cloak).

Relationship complexity - An original print from this negative is at 35mm-87529-13-F

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Heinegg, Christian F, 1940- :Photographs of the Maori Land March

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Photograph of Whina Cooper in Hamilton during the Maori Land March | National Library of New Zealand

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Date 27 September 1975 Ref PA7-15-18 Description Portrait of Whina Cooper in Hamilton during the Maori Land March, photographed by Christian F Heinegg on the 27th of September 1975. Shows her wearing a pink headscarf and a kahu kiwi (kiwi feather cloak).

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Te Rārawa leader and woman of mana Dame Whina Cooper spent her whole life fighting for Māori land rights. As a 79-year old she led Māori land protest marchers as they walked from Te Hāpua (in the far north) to Parliament, arriving on 13 October 1975.

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In 1858 the Waikato leader Pōtatau Te Wherowhero was selected as the first Māori King. A primary aim of the Māori King movement (the Kīngitanga) was to unite tribes against selling land.

Many settlers and politicians were concerned about this development and believed this challenge to the British Crown should be met. An opportunity to do so occurred when a minor Te Āti Awa chief, Te Teira Mānuka, offered land at Waitara in north Taranaki to the governor, Thomas Gore Browne. Resistance to this sale from another, more senior Te Āti Awa chief, Wiremu Kīngi, led to the outbreak of the Taranaki War in 1860.

New Plymouth was besieged, but British troops failed to lure Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Ruanui and their Waikato allies into a decisive battle. The involvement of fighters from Waikato was of particular concern to the authorities. A truce was agreed in 1861 but the situation remained unresolved. Hostilities recommenced in 1863 on the eve of the government's invasion of Waikato.

George Grey was brought back in 1861 for a second term as governor. Having been credited with ending the Northern War in 1846, he was seen as the man to sort out the colony's problems. In a classic case of 'carrot and stick' he promised Māori local autonomy while at the same time building a military road from Auckland to the Waikato River, the main artery to the Kīngitanga heartland.

After giving Māori an ultimatum to pledge allegiance to Queen Victoria, Grey invaded Waikato in July 1863. Lieutenant-General Duncan Cameron's 12,000 imperial troops faced fewer than 5000 part-time fighters, who had to provide much of their own food and supplies.

Cameron's army took seven months to reach the Kīngitanga agricultural base at Rangiaowhia, near Te Awamutu. On the way they outflanked formidable modern pā at Meremere and Pāterangi, and captured an undermanned pā at Rangiriri.

In April 1864 a Kīngitanga force led by Rewi Maniapoto was heavily defeated at Ōrākau, a pā built on a poorly chosen site. Cameron then tried to crush Kīngitanga supporters holding Pukehinahina, 'the Gate Pā', at Tauranga, but failed disastrously. Two months later the British got their revenge at nearby Te Ranga.

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In 1858 the Waikato leader Pōtatau Te Wherowhero was selected as the first Māori King. A primary aim of the Māori King movement (the Kīngitanga) was to unite tribes against selling land. Many settlers and politicians were concerned about this development and believed this challenge to the British Crown should be met.

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The battle of Orakau in 1864 ended with a massacre in a swamp. The Maori defenders, out of food, water and ammunition, fled the pa and ran into a hail of British bullets. The survivors escaped into the bush and a nearby swamp, where soldiers killed many of them, including women.

A fortnight later the swamp still had a foetid smell that "too truly told that many bodies were rotting there", according to European eye-witness William Race.

These were not the only atrocities of the Waikato war. Ten days earlier in Rangiaowhia, also near Te Awamutu, British soldiers attacked an undefended village of women, children and old men. Six men and a boy holed up in a raupo whare and shot a soldier who approached.

The whare was then set on fire, and a man who came out and lifted his hands in surrender was "riddled with bullets" from British guns, Race wrote later. The six inside the whare were burned alive.

It was at the time of the "murder" at Rangiaowhia, the Waikato chief Wiremu Tamihana later said, that "I knew for the first time that this was a great war for New Zealand".

Wellington historian Vincent O'Malley's new book on the Waikato War argues that this was indeed the most important war in New Zealand's history.

"The war had a more profound influence on the shaping of New Zealand as a nation than World War I did," says O'Malley.

But the Waikato war, he says, is largely forgotten.

World War I commemorations are everywhere and are heavily funded by the government, he notes in The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800-2000.

The contrast with the recent 150th anniversaries of the Waikato War "could not be greater". At the anniversary of the battle of Rangiriri, one of the major Waikato battles, the only MP to turn up was Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell.

The bloody conflicts of the Waikato have left little trace in the national memory. In 2014 Prime Minister John Key said New Zealand was "settled peacefully" by the British.

"Peaceful settlement" is true for some of our history, says O'Malley, tactfully omitting to name the prime minister.

"But certainly in this defining conflict of New Zealand history was a bloody and horrendous moment marred by multiple atrocities, and for much of the 20th century there is a kind of myth-making around this.

"Orakau, for instance, has been seen as a glorious and noble and chivalrous battle. The reality is that female prisoners were being bayoneted to death.

"I think what this requires is no guilt or shame or any of those other feelings on the part of Pakeha but just an acknowledgment of the history.

"Because without dialogue we can't have reconciliation and dialogue requires two parties. For too long Tainui have had to carry this history alone."

One of the most shocking things he discovered, says O'Malley, was that the number of Waikato people killed in the war was much higher per head than the number of New Zealanders killed during World War I.

About 17,000 Kiwis were killed in World War 1, or around 1.7 per cent of the population - a "staggering level of carnage [which] is rightly remembered today", O'Malley says.

But he estimates that the 400 Maori killed in the Waikato War was at least four per cent of the Waikato population. The long-term effect on the tribes was "devastating".

Governor George Grey was the man most responsible for the war, warning the British Government in London that there would be a "general rising of the native population" against the settlers.

But O'Malley says Grey's case for war in July 1863 was "a dodgy dossier". He forwarded letters purporting to show that Auckland was under threat of imminent attack by the Waikato Kingitanga.

But most of this was dismissed by the very people writing the letters, says O'Malley.

"People said, 'I feel obliged to send you this rumour but it seems to me there is no foundation in it whatsoever'."

Grey was obsessed with the "threat" posed by the election of the Maori King - the first, Potatau Te Wherowhero was elected in 1858 - but O'Malley says there was no such threat. Rather, Tainui-Waikato were reacting to the move to set up a Pakeha system of government that would largely exclude Maori. Tainui were simply trying to protect their rights.

But Maori rights and power were largely lost as a result of the Waikato War. Pakeha victory meant that "the Treaty of Waitangi was thrown out the window for at least the next century", O'Malley says.

A new Native Land Court was set up to separate Maori from their land, and native schools were established aimed at assimilating Maori into Pakeha society.

Waikato's thriving economy - its celebrated orchards and flour mills kept Auckland from starvation - was ruined. The tribes retreated to poverty and despair in the fastness of the King Country.

The government confiscation of 1.2 million acres of Tainui land meant settlers finally got access to the coveted grasslands of the Waikato, although there was no immediate bonanza.

Many soldiers who were given confiscated land lacked any farming ability and quickly sold out. Prices crashed and large areas of land were swallowed up by Auckland speculators like Thomas Russell, Minister of Colonial Defence in the crucial years of 1863-64.

Tainui "could have been our Fonterra", says O'Malley. Instead, it had to wait till 1995 for a Treaty settlement, signed by Queen Elizabeth, giving the tribe $170m for the loss of lands worth an estimated $12 billion.

The war changed New Zealand forever. It established the future of Auckland as the country's main city, says O'Malley. It helped the speedy introduction of the telegraph, the 19th century's version of the Internet. It helped the spread of pastoral farming. Grey's Great South Road, designed to take his war machine into the heart of the Waikato, helped open up the North Island.

The war pitted a tiny civilian population against "the world's sole superpower of the time", says O'Malley. The Maori canoes faced armour-plated steamers. They had no artillery or cavalry, and were outnumbered four to one.

"Really it should have been no contest," O'Malley says. "Under the circumstances, Maori did incredibly well just to survive."

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Waikato War 'a profound influence' in shaping NZ

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The battle of Orakau in 1864 ended with a massacre in a swamp. The Maori defenders, out of food, water and ammunition, fled the pa and ran into a hail of British bullets. The survivors escaped into the bush and a nearby swamp, where soldiers killed many of them, including women.

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A new chapter in RNZ's award-winning documentary project on the New Zealand Wars is launched today - NZ Wars: Stories of Tainui*.

Watch NZ Wars: Stories of Tainui Episode 1 and listen to the podcast here.

The documentary, extended interviews and podcast focus on the 1863 invasion of the Waikato which proved to be the defining conflict of New Zealand.

It reinforced the Crown's power, entrenching one of Aotearoa's oldest political institutions (the Kiingitanga) and resulting in land confiscations that continue to shape New Zealand today.

Great Southern Television and Aotearoa Media Collective have teamed up with RNZ to create the project that illustrates how these battles looked, sounded and felt.

Presented by Mihingaarangi Forbes and featuring Dr Vincent O'Malley, it also draws on the knowledge of iwi historians Rahui Papa, Brad Totorewa, Tom Roa, Mamae Takerei and Kaawhia Muraahi.

"The Waikato wars or as Waikato historian Mamae Takerei describes it 'the war on the people of Waikato' changed the relationship between Paakehaa and Maaori forever," Forbes said.

Focusing on three key encounters: Rangiriri, Rangiaaowhia and Ooraakau, NZ Wars: Stories of Tainui is a bicultural retelling of "the biggest and most important campaign of the 19th century New Zealand Wars", Forbes said.

Producer Mahanga Pihama said the documentary uses dramatic reenactments, interviews, historical records, haka and digital storytelling to depict the events.

In 2020 the last instalment of the series NZ Wars: Stories of Waitara won a major NZTV Award.

Alongside the documentary is a podcast presented by Forbes and William Ray, with three episodes diving deeper into the politics which surrounded the conflict and the people who played central roles. The podcast episodes are released today, tomorrow and Sunday.

The documentary, extended interviews and podcast are available now at rnz.co.nz, with the podcast also available on all the usual podcast platforms.

The content has been made with the support of NZ On Air.
*This article uses Tainui spelling which has double vowels instead of macrons

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Project delves into war that 'changed Pākehā, Māori relationship forever'

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A new chapter in RNZ's award-winning documentary project on the New Zealand Wars is launched today - NZ Wars: Stories of Tainui*. Watch NZ Wars: Stories of Tainui Episode 1 and listen to the podcast here. The documentary, extended interviews and podcast focus on the 1863 invasion of the Waikato which proved to be the defining conflict of New Zealand.

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New Zealand wars overview

The New Zealand wars were a series of 19th-century campaigns involving some Māori tribes and government forces, which included British and colonial troops and their Māori allies. The two major periods of conflict were the mid-1840s and the 1860s.

Naming the wars

Though 'New Zealand wars' is the most common collective name for these campaigns, a number of others have been used. Originally Europeans called them the Māori wars. This echoed the tendency of the British to name wars after their enemies - as in Boer War and Zulu War. In the late 1960s thought was given to renaming the wars. One popular suggestion was land wars, due to the importance of land in the disputes. Another was Anglo-Māori wars to indicate the two major groups involved. Other less common suggestions included New Zealand civil wars and sovereignty wars. Māori names for the wars have included Ngā pakanga o Aotearoa (the great New Zealand wars) and Te riri Pākehā (the white man's anger).

1840s

The first series of wars took place in the 1840s, when Māori were still a majority of the population, although Pākehā dominated the towns. A precursor to the wars was the 1843 Wairau incident, in which Nelson settlers clashed with Ngāti Toa at Tuamarina over a land dispute. The 1840s wars began with fighting between Ngāpuhi and government troops at Kororāreka (Russell) in 1845. A series of battles were fought in the Bay of Islands until early 1846. Later that year there was fighting between government and Māori in Wellington, and there were battles in Whanganui in 1846 and 1847.

1860s and 1870s

The most sustained and widespread campaign was the clash between the British Empire and the Māori king fought in Taranaki, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty between 1860 and 1864. The last period of the wars, from 1864 to 1872, was largely fought by colonial troops and their Māori allies against followers of Māori prophetic leaders. These wars occurred in Taranaki, East Coast and the central North Island.

Confiscations and impact

After the wars significant areas of Māori land in the North Island were confiscated by the government. Reactions against the confiscations saw a period of continued tension. In Taranaki peaceful protests against land confiscations were led by prophets Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi at Parihaka. Parihaka was occupied by government forces on 5 November 1881 and the settlement was partially destroyed. Protests against land confiscation continued.

After the wars the Kīngitanga (Māori King movement) established an aukati (boundary) which prevented Pākehā crossing into the King Country. The King Country was autonomous until negotiations saw it opened up from 1883.

Final confrontations

In the 1890s Tūhoe people opposing surveying in Te Urewera were forcibly arrested in actions described by Māori politician Apirana Ngata as a small war. In the late 1890s some Ngāpuhi led by Hone Tōia who opposed council dog taxes were arrested by a military force and imprisoned.

The last skirmish between the government and Māori occured in 1916 with the arrest of Rua Kēnana at Maungapōhatu. Two Tūhoe men were killed during a firefight.

Northern war, 1845-1846

Origins of the wars

The New Zealand wars began with fighting between Ngāpuhi and government troops at Kororāreka (Russell) in the Bay of Islands. The major causes were the concern of some Ngāpuhi that the moving of the capital from the Bay to Auckland had hurt them economically, and that the Crown was exceeding its authority in the area. Hōne Heke Pōkai and his supporters cut down the flagstaff at Kororāreka four times to make this point. Other Ngāpuhi hapū led by Tāmati Wāka Nene sided with the British.

On 11 March 1845 Heke, Te Ruki Kawiti and Pūmuka led an attack on Kororāreka, which was defended by English settlers and British naval forces led by Acting Commander David Robertson of HMS Hazard. Pākehā were evacuated from the town after a powder magazine blew up.

Increased presence

Following the attack on Kororāreka, British forces in the colony were reinforced. In late March 162 officers and men of the 58th Regiment arrived in Auckland. By mid-April a further 300 men had arrived and an Auckland volunteer militia had been established. On 27 April 470 officers and men, with 50 volunteers, were sent from Auckland under Lieutenant-Colonel William Hulme to reclaim the 'Queen's sovereignty at Kororareka'.

The northern campaign

After arriving at Kororāreka on 30 April 1845, the British ships shelled nearby Māori settlements, including Ōtuihu pā, which was mistakenly thought to be harbouring Heke sympathisers. However, most of Heke's supporters had long since moved inland.

Puketutu

The first major engagement of the northern campaign occurred at Heke's new pā at Puketutu, near Lake Ōmāpere, 3 kilometres from his old pā of Te Kahika. Four hundred soldiers, seamen and marines disembarked at Onewhero on 3 May 1845 and took four days to march to Lake Ōmāpere. On arrival, Hulme ordered a barrage using Congreve rockets, which his marines believed capable of demolishing any Māori stockades. When the rockets had little effect, Hulme ordered 200 men to attack Puketutu. After making little progress in four hours of fighting, Hulme ordered his men to retreat, leaving 13 dead soldiers on the battlefield. Māori dead were about twice that number.

Te Ahuahu

Heke withdrew to nearby Te Ahuahu. When he left the pā temporarily in search of provisions, it was occupied by Ngāpuhi forces allied with the British, led by Tāmati Wāka Nene and Makoare Te Taonui. Heke returned with up to 500 fighters, but could not dislodge Wāka Nene from Te Ahuahu. Heke was badly wounded in this battle.

Ōhaeawai

A pā was built near Ōhaeawai under Kawiti. On 1 July 1845 a 600-strong force of soldiers, seamen and militia commanded by Colonel Henry Despard attacked it. Kawiti's men repelled the assault and Despard ordered a retreat, having lost 41 men.

Sabbath victory?

There has long been controversy about the end of the Ruapekapeka battle. 11 January was a Sunday, and for many years it was believed that Ngāpuhi had been at prayer outside the pā when the less pious British took advantage and captured it. However, there were few provisions left inside, so it is likely that the occupants had intended to withdraw. The pā had served its purpose by forcing the British to carry supplies uphill to attack a position with no intrinsic strategic value.

Ruapekapeka

In January 1846 the British began shelling a new Māori fortification at Ruapekapeka. On 11 January, when Māori scouts signalled that it was empty, troops rushed the pā. Fighting continued in the bush behind the pā for several hours as Kawiti tried to lure the British into an ambush. About 12 British and up to 20 Māori were killed.

After the battle of Ruapekapeka, the northern war ended when Kawiti and Heke agreed peace terms with Wāka Nene. The flagstaff was not put back up in Heke's lifetime and Ngāpuhi suffered no confiscation of land.

Footnotes

Quoted in James Cowan, The New Zealand wars: a history of the Māori campaigns and the pioneering period. Vol. 1. Wellington: Government Printer, 1922,p. 35. Back

Wellington and Whanganui wars, 1846-1848

Martial law in Wellington

From the time that British settlers arrived in the Wellington area in 1839, land disputes had caused friction between Māori and settlers. British troops exchanged fire with Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Rangatahi near Fort Richmond in the Hutt Valley on 3 March 1846, leading Governor George Grey to declare martial law in Wellington. Māori retreated but on 2 April 1846 killed Lower Hutt settlers Andrew Gillespie and his son, heightening tensions. Several weeks later, on 16 May 1846, Māori attacked the redoubt at Boulcott's farm, killing eight of its defenders.

Extending martial law

Further military posts were then constructed along the Wellington-Porirua road. Barracks were built at Paremata for British reinforcements, initially 20 men of the 58th Regiment commanded by Major Edward Last. On 18 June, hearing that a war party was approaching from the north, Grey extended martial law to include Whanganui. He also travelled to Waikanae to urge Te Āti Awa to intercept the war party as it moved south, which they agreed to do.

Arresting Te Rauparaha

Grey decided to arrest Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha, whom he blamed for the Hutt Valley attacks. On 23 July 1846 a naval party raided Te Rauparaha's village, Taupō (near Porirua), and took the elderly chief into custody, along with other key allies. When news of these arrests reached his nephew, Te Rangihaeata, a rescue attempt by 50 fighters was mounted but easily driven off.

End of Wellington war

The remnants of Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Tama, Ngāti Rangatahi and their allies then retreated into the hills above Pāuatahanui, pursued by the British army and their Māori allies from Wellington. Te Rangihaeata's people eventually reached Poroutawhao in Horowhenua where they were allowed to settle in peace.

Whanganui: tensions rise

Disputed land purchases around the settlement of Whanganui also caused tensions between Māori and settlers. The Ngāti Hāua-te-rangi chief Tōpine Te Mamaku had returned from fighting at Boulcott's farm and warned settlers not to station troops at Whanganui. However, troops arrived in December 1846. Tensions were heightened on 16 April 1847 when Whanganui chief Hapurona Ngārangi was shot, supposedly accidentally, while working aboard the brig Calliope.

Attack on Gilfillan farm

Possibly in reaction to Ngārangi's wounding, some followers of Te Mamaku attacked the Gilfillan farm in the isolated Matarawa valley in April 1847, killing four members of the family. The perpetrators of these killings were apprehended and all but one were hanged on 26 April.

Whanganui attack

Under the leadership of Te Mamaku, Whanganui Māori gathered upriver, and on 19 May 1847 several hundred fighters attacked Whanganui town, looting and destroying property and raiding outlying farms. A British gunboat entered the fray from the river but had negligible impact. British troops and Whanganui settlers took refuge within the Rutland stockade and withstood the attacks, which came to within 300 metres of the fortification.

Peace terms

On 20 July 1847 the British moved out of the stockade to engage Te Mamaku at St John's Wood. The inconclusive battle left Māori with few options but to withdraw. Governor Grey pressed for peace and on 21 February 1848 announced that he had reached agreement with Te Mamaku, bringing peace to Whanganui.

North Taranaki war, 1860-1861

During the 1850s the European population in New Zealand came to exceed the Māori population. As newcomers flooded in there was increasing pressure to obtain more of the land still under Māori control. By 1860 nearly all of the South Island was in Pākehā hands, but in the North Island Māori began to organise in order to resist further loss of land.

Land issues at Waitara

Land disputes caused tension in New Plymouth. Settlers urged Governor Thomas Gore Browne to open up access to Māori land. Māori generally resisted sales, though some hapū were bitterly divided on the issue.

On 7 March 1859 Gore Browne visited New Plymouth and encouraged Māori to sell. A young Waitara chief, Te Teira, offered 600 acres (240 hectares) at the mouth of the Waitara River, despite the objections of a more senior chief, Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke. Gore Browne accepted Te Teira's offer, subject to his title being confirmed by officials.

Surveying of the Waitara purchase commenced on 20 February 1860 but was interrupted by Wiremu Kīngi's supporters. The British army based at New Plymouth immediately occupied the disputed block. A blockhouse was erected, commanded by Colonel Charles Gold, who observed Te Āti Awa building a fortification at Te Kohia, on a ridge overlooking the British position.

Outbreak of war

On 17 March 1860 Gold ordered an attack upon Te Kohia pā. Cannon and rockets were fired, inflicting heavy damage upon the palisades. Te Āti Awa returned fire, causing the British to take cover. At dawn they found the pā had been abandoned.

10 quid and a VC

The first European into Kaipopo pā was William Odgers, the coxswain to Captain Peter Cracroft of HMS Niger. Cracroft had offered £10 to the first man over the stockade. Odgers won his £10 and for good measure was also awarded the first Victoria Cross in the New Zealand wars.

Battle of Waireka

In early 1860 settlers had built a protective stockade at Ōmata, about 6 kilometres south-west of New Plymouth. Ngāti Ruanui and their supporters moved towards the stockade and built their own pā, Kaipopo, overlooking it. Gold decided to relieve the stockade and rescue settler families. On 28 March 1860 two forces, about 120 British regulars and 150 volunteers and militia, approached, and the local force came under attack from Māori. The regulars, with orders to return to New Plymouth by nightfall, retreated. So eventually did the locals. It was left to a group of about 60 naval men to attack Kaipopo pā and eventually take it, although some historians claim it had already been abandoned. Two Europeans and between 20 and 50 Māori were killed.

Puketakauere pā

While the strengthening of the Waitara garrison continued, Te Āti Awa gathered at Puketakauere pā, overlooking the Waitara River valley in full view of the British camp. They threatened Devon Road, which linked Waitara to New Plymouth, conducting raids and firing upon the camp at will. On the morning of 27 June 1860 the British launched an attack against Puketakauere. Māori were positioned outside the pā, firing from a series of trenches. When the British attacked these trenches, concealed Māori opened fire, catching the attackers unawares. A withdrawal was ordered, and British survivors staggered back to Waitara, having sustained a major defeat. 30 British died at Puketakauere, with 34 seriously injured. Māori casualties could not be calculated, though it was estimated that Te Āti Awa had at least 800 men in the field, including a war party from Ngāti Maniapoto.

Pratt attacks

Following the defeat at Puketakauere, Major General Thomas Pratt took command of the British army in Taranaki. Pratt launched well-timed raids on Te Āti Awa strongholds along the upper Waitara River throughout September 1860. On 6 November Pratt marched out of New Plymouth and defeated a war party of Ngāti Maniapoto hurriedly digging in at Māhoetahi.

Pratt's long sap

Major General Pratt's strategy in attacking the pā of Pukerangiora was to build a long sap (covered trench) along which artillery could be wheeled. The total length of his sap, painstakingly dug out, was almost 1,500 metres. Its remains can still be seen.

On 18 January 1861 Pratt attacked Huirangi pā, causing Te Āti Awa to fall back upriver. Pratt kept the pressure on Te Āti Awa by constructing small redoubts in succession, as staging posts for the advancing British. A major midnight attack launched by Māori against redoubt no. 3 on 23 January 1861 ended disastrously for them, with perhaps 50 Māori dead and 60 wounded. Te Āti Awa set up a defensive line of pā protecting the historic hill pā at Pukerangiora, overlooking the Waitara River.

End of the war

By February 1861 Māori had fallen back and were defending Te Ārei, literally 'the barrier' protecting Pukerangiora. Winter was approaching, placing pressure upon seasonal supplies of food. Heavy artillery fire was directed at Te Ārei, with British regulars digging threatening saps (trenches) closing in on the pā. Attacks against the trenches were repulsed. The last shot was fired on 19 March 1861, when the war in North Taranaki finally ended with a truce negotiated by senior Kīngitanga (King movement) figure Wiremu Tāmihana, who did not want the war to extend into the Waikato.

Waikato war: beginnings

Preparing for war

The Waikato was the home of the Māori king. Pōtatau Te Wherowhero had been proclaimed the first king in 1858, and in 1860 he was succeeded by Tāwhiao. Some of the king's followers had participated in the Taranaki war. The government was keen to punish them, despite the truce in Taranaki, and to satisfy European land ambitions in the Waikato region.

In 1861 Thomas Gore Browne was replaced by as governor George Grey. On 1 January 1862 construction of the Great South Road southward from Drury began in order to move men and military supplies into the Waikato in preparation for the intended government invasion. On 9 July 1863 Grey issued a proclamation directing Waikato Māori living in the government-controlled area south of Auckland to swear allegiance to the Queen or return to the Waikato. Two days later Grey issued a second proclamation, warning those 'in arms' that they had forfeited their right to lands.

Invasion

On 12 July 1863 the British army, commanded by Lieutenant General Duncan Cameron, crossed the Mangatāwhiri Stream, which marked the aukati (boundary) between the Kīngitanga lands and the government-controlled area to the north. The army entered the Waikato, taking up positions below the Koheroa ridge and scouring the area for hostile Māori. Five days later, on 17 July, British regulars attacked a war party on the ridge, firing and instigating a bayonet charge which caused Māori to retreat. About 15 Māori, including Waikato chief Te Huirama, died during the engagement.

Meremere pā

Māori attacks behind the lines slowed British progress. Cameron tried to establish water-based transport but his forward depot at Camerontown was destroyed by Māori. Advance parties were ordered to drive on to the Waikato River in order to secure British supplies through the use of gunboats. Waikato Māori retreated to Meremere pā, which overlooked the river, blocking Cameron's advance. Meremere seemed impregnable.

On 12 August 1863 the gunboat Avon fired on Meremere, then slipped past to conduct reconnaissance. The Pioneer followed, exchanging fire with concealed riflemen. On 31 October, 600 men from the 40th and 65th regiments were towed past the pā on barges and landed 8 kilometres upriver, beating off an attack from the pā. With the British now at their rear, Waikato abandoned Meremere.

Waikato war: major battles

Rangiriri

Attention now moved to the Kīngitanga pā at Rangiriri, east of the Waikato River and fringed by swamp and Lake Waikare. The pā comprised massive earthworks dug into a ridge. Some of the 500 defenders were concealed in forward rifle pits. On 20 November 1863 the British army assembled a land force of 850 men with three field guns supported by cannon aboard the Pioneer and Avon. Following a two-hour bombardment, Lieutenant General Duncan Cameron launched a frontal assault upon the pā. Defending Māori in the forward rifle pits were quickly overrun, but the main parapets held firm. Intense fighting occurred in the forward trenches, but the British could not break through the parapets. Cameron then ordered a retreat.

Three more assaults on the main redoubt were also repulsed. However, assault forces landing to the rear occupied the rifle pits and trenches, blocking the main line of retreat and preventing the reinforcement of the pā during the night, though many defenders escaped to the rear.

White flag

As dawn broke, a white flag was seen flying from the parapet. Interpreting this as notice of surrender, British officers entered the pā to discover that Māori wished to negotiate a truce, not surrender. When Cameron insisted that Waikato lay down their arms, they offered no further resistance. About 40 men on each side had lost their lives during the battle, and nearly 200 Māori were taken prisoner.

Pāterangi

Cameron occupied the Māori King's village at Ngāruawāhia on 8 December 1863, and moved 3,000 men south of the settlement in January 1864. Mindful of the need to defend villages and sources of supply, Kīngitanga forces began constructing a massive line of fortifications centred upon Pāterangi pā. Behind this fortification line were food-producing villages such as Hairini and Rangiaowhia. Cameron realised these fortifications could only be taken with very high casualties. With assistance from local Māori friendly to the British, Cameron's men were guided around the pā's southern flank.

Local hero

The only colonial soldier to be honoured after the war with a memorial statue was Colonel Marmaduke Nixon. A former professional soldier, he migrated to New Zealand in 1852 and became a strong advocate of settling on 'waste' Māori land in the Waikato. He organised the Colonial Defence Force Cavalry and led his force on General Cameron's invasion of the Waikato. Nixon was shot in the chest during the attack on Rangiaowhia in February 1864 and died several months later. The statue was put up in 1868 at the junction of Great South and Māngere roads in Ōtāhuhu, South Auckland.

Rangiaowhia

On 21 February 1864 a combined force comprising British regular infantry and two colonial units, Captain Gustavus von Tempsky's Forest Rangers and Colonel Marmaduke Nixon's Cavalry, attacked Rangiaowhia after dawn. Rangiaowhia's defenders engaged the approaching British. Houses were set on fire, with defenders shot as they sought to escape. When news of Rangiaowhia reached Pāterangi, the pā was abandoned, allowing Cameron's army to occupy the fortifications unopposed. Kīngitanga forces sought to establish a defensive line along the Hairini ridge. Cameron rushed his forces to engage Māori at Hairini, forcing their further retreat.

Ōrākau - Rewi's last stand

In March 1864 war parties from Pāterangi, Ngāi Tūhoe and Ngāti Raukawa gained Ngāti Maniapoto leader Rewi Maniapoto's agreement to fight the British at Ōrākau. Under his direction 300 men began constructing defensive earthworks. On 30 March a survey party observed the pā under construction and Brigadier General Robert Carey organised forward columns which arrived at Ōrākau the next day. Initial attacks were repulsed. The next day, artillery continued to bombard the pā. Forward trenches built by British Engineers were close enough for grenades to be thrown into the pā. Cameron offered the defenders a chance to surrender, or safe passage for the women and children; they refused this.

Āke, āke, āke!

The most famous incident of the New Zealand wars was the Ōrākau defenders' response to the offer of surrender and safe passage. The popular version is that they responded: 'Ka whawhai tonu mātou, āke, āke, āke!' - 'we shall fight on, for ever, and ever, and ever!' There are several versions of the exact response and it is unclear whether it was Rewi Maniapoto or another who spoke. Whatever, 'Rewi's last stand' became a legendary expression of Māori courage. The story was made into a film of the same name by Rudall Hayward in 1925.

Rewi's retreat

With Rewi's people suffering heavy casualties, and with a British incursion into the pā seeming imminent, Māori decided to abandon the pā by fighting their way through the cordon of British troops. On 2 April the defenders of Ōrākau crossed the south-eastern parapet in a tight group, moving quickly towards the refuge of nearby swamps. The British rushed into the pā and fired on the retreating Māori.

Outcome of Ōrākau

Seventeen Europeans and up to 160 Māori were killed during the Ōrākau engagement, most during the escape. It was the greatest loss of life in one battle of the wars. Whilst the battle represented a clear victory for the British, it involved only a fraction of the Māori King's forces. After Ōrākau, the Kīngitanga withdrew behind a defensive line along the Pūniu River. With its work done, and unwilling to pursue the king's forces into Ngāti Maniapoto territory, the British army returned to Auckland.

Gate Pā, Tauranga

Troops to Tauranga

In January 1864 Governor George Grey reassigned several British contingents to Tauranga in order to impede the flow of arms and men of Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngāti Ranginui to the Waikato. Upon hearing that British troops had arrived in Tauranga, the men, led by Rāwiri Tuaia Puhirake, immediately returned home from the Waikato. By April 1864 Puhirake had assembled 250 Māori at Pukehinahina (Gate Pā), determined to resist further British encroachment.

Pukehinahina

On 29 April Lieutenant General Duncan Cameron ordered an attack upon Pukehinahina, commencing with an artillery barrage. Once shelling was seen to have breached the front palisade, an infantry assault followed. British assault parties broke through the palisades, engaging with concealed Māori who fired from a network of underground trenches. The British suffered heavy casualties, and were soon in retreat. A second assault proved equally unsuccessful.

During the night, British soldiers lying wounded in the field were tended by Māori, notably Hēni Te Kiri Karamū, a young woman from the pā. Under cover of darkness, most Māori escaped during the night. When the British resumed their assault next day, they found that the pā had been abandoned. Thirty-five British regulars died during the engagement, with another 75 wounded.

Te Ranga

Māori who escaped Pukehinahina withdrew to rebuild another defensive pā, determined to engage the British once again. Construction began on a new fortification at Te Ranga. However, on 21 June 1864, Māori were caught unawares and ill-prepared for battle by a British contingent, leading to an almost total defeat. Among more than 100 Māori killed at Te Ranga was Rāwiri Puhirake.

Pai Mārire, South Taranaki and Whanganui, 1864-1866

The war now entered a new stage. A number of Māori prophetic movements emerged, each imbuing its followers with a renewed commitment to drive off the Europeans. Many Māori tribes, strongly committed to traditional Christianity, resisted these movements. There was an increase in the numbers of kūpapa (Māori fighting alongside the Crown). In addition the British government began to resent the costs of the New Zealand wars and started to withdraw its troops. The fighting on the government side was increasingly in the hands of colonial forces and kūpapa.

Pai Mārire in Taranaki

Taranaki was the first region to see the impact of the new religions with the emergence of the Pai Mārire (goodness and peace) or Hauhau faith. Founded by Te Ua Haumēne of Ōakura, Pai Mārire promised to deliver a victory over the Pākehā. On 6 April 1864 British forces were attacked by Hauhau at Te Ahu Ahu near Ōakura. The severed head of Captain Thomas Lloyd was taken round the North Island to assist Pai Mārire recruiting.

Island battle

When lower Whanganui Māori (kūpapa) sought to prevent Pai Mārire forces sweeping down to wipe out Whanganui town, the two sides agreed to fight it out on Moutoa Island in the middle of the river. Several hundred supporters watched from the river banks. Each side occupied one end of the island, and the battle commenced. At first the Hauhau appeared to be winning but then Tamehana Te Aewa rallied his men and the kūpapa achieved victory. The relieved inhabitants of Whanganui honoured their Māori defenders with a memorial and a flag.

Battle of Moutoa

Pai Mārire influence soon spread to the upper reaches of the Whanganui River. A Pai Mārire war party intent upon attacking Whanganui town, led by a prophet named Matene, was intercepted by Whanganui Māori at Moutoa Island on 14 May 1864. Led by Haimona Hiroti and Mete Kīngi Te Rangi Paetahi, lower-river Māori successfully fought at Moutoa Island in defence of the town.

East Coast

Though defeated at Moutoa Island, the Pai Mārire influence continued to spread across the North Island, reaching the East Coast by 1865. Kereopa Te Rau and Pātara Raukatauri were appointed as apostles to the East Coast tribes. On 2 March 1865 Lutheran missionary Carl Völkner of Ōpōtiki was accused of spying by Pai Mārire adherents and hanged outside his church.

Other killings followed, including that of government interpreter James Fulloon several weeks later. Colonial troops sent to Ōpōtiki on 8 September 1865 engaged Pai Mārire, forcing their retreat east and as far south as Napier. Their occupation of Waerenga-a-hika pā, near Gisborne, on 22 November proved especially costly, with over 100 adherents killed in the ensuing battle. Amongst those arrested after the battle was Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Tūruki, who was sent into captivity on the Chatham Islands in 1866. Two groups of Pai Mārire followers were intercepted near Napier on 12 October 1866, ending the Pai Mārire incursion into the East Coast.

Weraroa pā

On 5 January 1865 Lieutenant General Duncan Cameron arrived in Whanganui, ordered by Governor George Grey to move north in order to engage hostile Māori in South Taranaki. On 24 January a surprise attack launched by Māori against his encamped forces at Nukumaru was beaten off. Cameron next faced Weraroa pā, which sat atop a huge cliff-like embankment above Waitōtara. He decided against attacking the pā, instead preferring to march around it. When Grey disagreed, Cameron resigned his commission. He was replaced by Major-General Trevor Chute in August 1865.

March around Mt Taranaki

Chute brought new resolve to the final years of British army operations in New Zealand. On 30 December 1865 he commenced a route-march around Mt Taranaki, first striking inland and returning down the coast. The purpose of Chute's march was to destroy the capacity of Taranaki Māori to wage war by burning villages and destroying livestock. By 26 January 1866 Chute's force had reached New Plymouth and on 9 February his ragged and exhausted troops returned to Whanganui.

Tītokowaru's war, 1868-1869

Land disputes in South Taranaki

Riwha Tītokowaru was a Ngā Ruahine leader who had been influenced by Pai Mārire and fought in the Taranaki wars. Initially he was committed to peace, but as settlers began moving into South Taranaki and land confiscations began, Tītokowaru became committed to defending Māori land. On 9 June 1868 a disagreement over cutting-rights near Māwhitiwhiti led to the killing of three sawyers. Māori accused of the killings took refuge among Ngā Ruahine led by Tītokowaru, who refused to turn them over to the government. Four hundred additional armed constabulary were recruited and posted to Taranaki, along with 100 Whanganui Māori who would also see action in the area.

The war begins

On 12 July 1868 Tītokowaru attacked a redoubt at Turuturumōkai, 5 kilometres from the main armed constabulary redoubt at Waihī, near Hāwera. The early-morning assault lasted for two hours, with Māori unable to breach the redoubt walls. Ten members of the armed constabulary, including the officer in command, Captain Frederick Ross, were killed before reinforcements arrived from Waihī.

Te Ngutu-o-te-manu

In retaliation for this assault, Tītokowaru's village, Te Ngutu-o-te-manu, was attacked on 21 August 1868, with inconclusive results. A second expedition was launched on 7 September, with a force of 360 constabulary under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas McDonnell marching to within 45 metres of the village before Ngā Ruahine opened fire from concealed positions within the forest. McDonnell called an immediate retreat, but not before 24 of his men, including Major Gustavus von Tempsky, had been killed. Following this defeat, the armed constabulary abandoned Waihī redoubt and withdrew to Waverley. McDonnell was relieved of his command and replaced by Colonel George Whitmore.

Moturoa

On 7 November 1868 Whitmore attacked Tītokowaru at Moturoa, inland from Waverley, with over 300 men - including Māori from Whanganui under the leadership of Te Keepa Te Rangihiwinui. Whitmore's frontal attack proved ineffective against well-constructed ramparts and concealed riflemen. With casualties mounting (19 of his men died, against only one of Tītokowaru's) and the engagement clearly lost, Whitmore retreated to Waverley.

Taurangaika

Following the engagement at Moturoa, Tītokowaru moved to Taurangaika pā, near Nukumaru, which building massive earthworks. The armed constabulary approached the pā in late January 1869, encamping some distance away, preparing for an assault in early February. However, when the assault was launched on 2 February 1869, the pā was found to have been abandoned. The reasons are uncertain. According to Kimble Bent, an American ex-soldier serving with Tītokowaru's party, a major disagreement had arisen during the evening before the battle. As a consequence, the decision had been taken to withdraw the entire army into the bush, effectively bringing Tītokowaru's campaign to an end. Tītokowaru covered the retreat of his people as they fled inland from Waitōtara.

Pursuit of Te Kooti, 1868-1872

War on the East Coast

Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Tūruki was from the Poverty Bay iwi of Rongowhakaata. While fighting on the government side at Waerenga-a-hika he was suspected of aiding the enemy. In June 1866 he was exiled to the Chatham Islands, where he developed a new millennial religion, Ringatū. On 4 July 1868 he captured the schooner Rifleman and escaped from captivity. On 10 July he and 298 followers landed south of Poverty Bay, alarming the authorities, who were determined to recapture him.

Te Kooti fled inland, pursued by the armed constabulary commanded by Colonel George Whitmore, who suffered his first setback at the hands of Te Kooti at Ruakituri on 8 August. Two months later, on 10 November, Te Kooti attacked Matawhero and killed about 54 people, including 20 Māori and the resident magistrate, Reginald Biggs, who had originally exiled him to the Chatham Islands.

Siege of Ngātapa

Te Kooti then fled inland to Ngātapa, skirmishing with the constabulary as he went. Ngātapa was a hilltop fortress that appeared unassailable. Te Kooti's people had constructed defences on a precipitous ridge 600 metres above sea level. However, the pās lack of a water supply made it very vulnerable. On 5 December 1868 the fortress was attacked unsuccessfully by the armed constabulary and Ngāti Porou with Wairoa allies led by Rāpata Wahawaha and Hōtene Porourangi. A second attack was mounted on 1 January 1869 against a greatly strengthened Ngātapa by the armed constabulary with Te Arawa and Ngāti Porou allies.

Pursuit continues

Following a siege lasting three days, at early dawn on 5 January under cover of darkness Te Kooti's people escaped down sheer cliffs behind Ngātapa, using bush vines cut from nearby trees. The escape was soon detected by Ngāti Porou and Te Arawa, who followed in pursuit, apprehending about 120 of the severely weakened escapees, all of whom were executed.

Te Urewera

Te Kooti escaped into Te Urewera, closely followed by units of Māori and armed constabulary. In March and April 1869 he raided Whakatāne and Mōhaka. Losses were heavy, especially at Mōhaka on 10 April where 60 locals, mostly Māori, were killed. Brief skirmishes followed as Te Kooti continued to elude his pursuers. Nine colonial troops were killed at Ōpepe, near Lake Taupō, on 7 June.

Te Pōrere

Te Kooti's last defence of a fixed position occurred at Te Pōrere, at the edge of the bush north-west of Mt Tongariro, on 4 October 1869. Confronted by contingents of armed constabulary supported by Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu and Whanganui Māori, Te Kooti escaped once again but lost 37 men. He was not able to defend a fixed position again, instead staying ahead of determined pursuers like Captain Gilbert Mair and the Arawa Flying Column, which almost entrapped him at Earthquake Flat, Rotorua, on 7 February 1870. Once again, Te Kooti managed to flee, as he would do again from Maraetahi in the Waioeka Gorge on 23 March.

End of the wars

A major expedition into Te Urewera was mounted in January 1871, largely comprising a contingent of 300 Ngāti Porou men led by Rāpata Wahawaha. Te Rakiroa of Ngāti Kōhatu guided the column in search of Te Kooti's trail, but little immediate evidence of his presence was found, despite extensive and wide-ranging searches being undertaken, over several expeditions.

Te Kooti was however engaged at Te Hāpua on 1 September 1871 and, finally, at Mangaone on 4 February 1872, again making good his escape but, by now, with very few adherents still alive. On 15 May 1872, Te Kooti took refuge at Arowhenua in the King Country, a settlement near the Waikato River west of Waotu. He then moved to Te Kūiti, taking refuge at the Māori king's stronghold of Tokangamutu and bringing the wars to an end.

Long-term impact

Losses

There are no accurate figures for those killed in the New Zealand wars. Historian James Cowan suggested that over 500 British and colonial forces and about 250 kūpapa (Māori supporting the government) died. The number killed on the other side is even harder to estimate. Cowan suggests 2,000. In a Māori population of under 80,000 this was a major loss of young men.

Those Māori who had fought the Crown lost very substantial areas of land. Under the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 and later legislation, about 1 million hectares (including lands later returned) were confiscated by the Crown in Taranaki, Waikato, South Auckland, the Bay of Plenty and Poverty Bay. Which hapū lost land and which did not was often arbitrary and unfair.

Māori memory

The New Zealand wars left a long memory in the Māori community. Those tribes which had fought against the Crown, especially if they suffered from land confiscation, remained pained and at times bitter. This was reflected in the unwillingness of Taranaki and Waikato Māori to enlist in the First World War.

Kūpapa Māori who fought for the Crown and tribes that fought against the Crown remembered their historical conflicts long after they had passed.

Pākehā also did not remember the New Zealand wars with any enthusiasm. There were few memorials to the wars until the early 20th century, when some were put up as 50th anniversary commemorations. Memorials were used to encourage enlistment during the First World War by providing an example of men who had fought for the British Empire.

In the 1920s James Cowan's two-volume history of the wars, which in one sense was a pioneering work of oral history, painted an image of the wars as full of stirring stories. Cowan hoped the wars might in this way become central to the country's identity. Rudall Hayward was advised by Cowan when he directed the film Rewi's last stand (1925 silent, 1940 sound).

Revival since 1986

Historian James Belich's 1986 book and subsequent television programme on the New Zealand wars helped to revive interest. Belich presented Māori as creative military strategists who came very close to defeating the British. New books on the wars, both novels and historical works, were published. New Plymouth museum Puke Ariki recognised the 150th anniversary of the Taranaki war with a powerful museum exhibition in 2011. The 150th anniversary of the Waikato war was marked by a series of commemorative events in 2013-14.

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The New Zealand wars were a series of 19th-century campaigns involving some Māori tribes and government forces, which included British and colonial troops and their Māori allies. The two major periods of conflict were the mid-1840s and the 1860s. Though 'New Zealand wars' is the most common collective name for these campaigns, a number of others have been used.

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Havrincourt Bridge

You're standing on the bank of the Canal du Nord. In front of you are the two bridges over the canal at Havrincourt and the village of Havrincourt itself is further beyond the tree line.

The Canal du Nord in September 1918 was dry, and the canal hadn't yet been completed, but the walls and what was then, an enormous dry moat, was the real obstacle. The New Zealanders were fighting in this area, and as the Germans evacuated Bapaume, the New Zealanders took Bancourt and Fremicourt. The Canadians were breaking through at Drocourt-Quéant to the north and the Australians were taking Saint Quentin to the South. It's here that the New Zealanders advance across the canal into the forest of Bois du Havrincourt, that you see on the skyline to your left, and these enormous woods were the next obstacle.

From 2 to 9 September, the New Zealanders gradually fought their way around the edges of that wood, pushing the Germans back. To delay the Allied advance, the Germans destroyed the bridge here. It was then the task of the New Zealand Tunnelling Company, working with engineers, to erect the largest temporary bridge ever constructed by the British Army on the Western Front.

It is a credit to the Tunnellers' ingenuity that they were selected to carry out what was the most difficult bridging task of the whole war. Its length of 55 metres was regarded as the longest single-span bridge in the history of warfare at that time. This was completed in an amazingly short time frame -- eight days. There was no opportunity for site preparation as it was on the British front line and could not be started before the attack on 27 September. Many of the men that worked on this bridge had worked on the main trunk line in New Zealand - so this was meat and drink to them. It was not until 1926 that this bridge was replaced with a permanent structure.

The New Zealand Tunnellers' bridge at Havrincourt was a tribute to the work of that Tunnelling Company, but also it reminds us that an army marches on its stomach. As Haig's armies advanced, following up the German retreat - thousands of tonnes of ammunition, fodder, petrol, supplies and so forth, had to follow them up too. Had the bridge not been built so quickly, then the 3rd Army advance would have ground to a halt, and the Germans would have had plenty of time to consolidate their positions, and fight a more organised, and effective withdrawal.

Russell had trained his division for mobile warfare, and he used his three infantry brigades with artillery, cavalry, and tanks moving up behind his Mounted Rifles who looked for the weak spots in the German line. The key was to keep the ball rolling. Around the edges of Havrincourt Wood, the New Zealanders kept mounting attacks, pushing the Germans back over 13 kilometers, and this pressure, stopped them from mounting a better defence.

Let's move on to Metz-en-Couture Cemetery.

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You're standing on the bank of the Canal du Nord. In front of you are the two bridges over the canal at Havrincourt and the village of Havrincourt itself is further beyond the tree line.

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Just a week before the end of the First World War in November 1918, the New Zealand Division captured the French town of Le Quesnoy. It was the New Zealanders' last major action in the war. To this day, the town of Le Quesnoy continues to mark the important role that New Zealand played in its history. Streets are named after New Zealand places, there is a New Zealand memorial and a primary school bears the name of a New Zealand soldier. Visiting New Zealanders are sure to receive a warm welcome from the locals.

The Germans held Le Quesnoy for almost the entire war, from August 1914 through to its dramatic liberation on 4 November 1918. The New Zealanders scaled a ladder set against the ancient walls of the town and took the remaining Germans as prisoners. The liberation of Le Quesnoy was just one of the many campaigns that New Zealanders fought on the Western Front, the line that stretched across northern France and Belgium. The majority of New Zealanders killed in the First World War lost their lives in the battles that raged there from 1916 to 1918. More than 12,000 New Zealanders died on the Western Front in two and a half years fighting; this was more than in the entire Second World War.

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It was the New Zealand Division's final action of the First World War. On 4 November 1918, just a week before the Armistice was signed, New Zealand troops stormed the walled French town of Le Quesnoy. The 90 men killed were among the last of the 12,483 who fell on the Western Front.

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The capture of the French town of Le Quesnoy by the New Zealand Division on 4 November 1918 has special significance in New Zealand's military history. This is not merely because it was the last major action by the New Zealanders in the Great War the armistice followed a week later - but also because of the particular way it was captured.

When the New Zealand Division attacked on 4 November, its units quickly by-passed Le Quesnoy and pushed further east on what was to be the New Zealanders' most successful day of the whole campaign on the Western Front. It advanced 10 kilometres and captured 2000 Germans and 60 field guns. The attack cost the lives of about 130 New Zealand soldiers - virtually the last of the 12,483 who fell on the Western Front between 1916 and 1918.

The spectacular attack on Le Quesnoy

Le Quesnoy was an old fortress town occupying a strategic position in northeastern France. It had been in German hands since 1914, and there were several thousand demoralised German troops still in the town on 4 November 1918. The walls of Le Quesnoy could have been quickly reduced by heavy artillery, but there was no plan to mount such an assault on the town.

This set the stage for one of the New Zealand Division's most spectacular exploits of the war. When a section of the 4th Battalion, 3rd New Zealand (Rifle) Brigade reached the inner walls of the town about midday on 4 November, they had already scaled the complex network of outer ramparts with ladders, supplied by the sappers (or engineers). But due to the height of the inner wall, the riflemen could only position a ladder on a narrow ledge atop a sluice gate. Led by Lieutenant Leslie Averill, the battalion's intelligence officer, a small group of men quickly climbed up the wall. After exchanging shots with fleeing Germans, the New Zealanders entered the town. The garrison quickly surrendered.

The medieval-like assault on Le Quesnoy captured the imagination of the townspeople, who were overjoyed at their release from a four-year bondage. Ever since, the town has maintained a strong affinity with New Zealand. Read more about the history of the Battle of Le Quesnoy on NZHistory.

The images below were captured by the official cinematographer and photographer to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in France, Henry Armytage Sanders. They illustrate preparations for the broader attack on Le Quesnoy, as well as the aftermath of the town's liberation.

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The capture of the French town of Le Quesnoy by the New Zealand Division on 4 November 1918 has special significance in New Zealand's military history. This is not merely because it was the last major action by the New Zealanders in the Great War the armistice followed a week later - but also because of the particular way it was captured.

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The Government and Air New Zealand have apologised to the families of the 257 people who died in the 1979 Erebus disaster.

Family members have gathered at Government House in Auckland to mark 40 years since the tragedy.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the way the report was handled was wrong, and the wrongs need to be acknowledged.

She said after 40 years, it's time to say she's sorry, on behalf of the Government. Neither the government or Air New Zealand had made a full apology before.
Listen to NZ Herald's podcast on the Erebus disaster, here.
Ardern said the time has come to end "piecemeal" responses and that failures to acknowledge past wrongs had made the families' grief more difficult.

"After 40 years, on behalf of today's government, the time has come to apologise for the actions of an airline then in full state ownership which ultimately caused the loss of the aircraft and the loss of those you loved," she said.

"This apology is whole hearted and wide reaching. We will never know your grief, but I know the time has come to say I am sorry."

Air New Zealand chair Dame Therese Walsh says the airline apologises for failing its duty of care for passengers and staff.

Walsh says she apologises to the families, who were poorly treated by Air New Zealand staff.
Related articles
Also present at the gathering were members of the recovery team tasked with the job of recovering bodies of the dead.
READ MORE:
* Air NZ's missing flight path evidence confirms 'orchestrated litany of lies' over Erebus - Judge Gary Harrison
* Erebus Flight 901: Litany of Lies. Episode 9: The five words that sank Justice Peter Mahon
* Erebus Flight 901: Litany of Lies. Episode 8: Judge - 'There had to be some sort of cover-up'
* Erebus Flight 901: Litany of Lies. Episode 7: 'Whiteout - that's what killed them'
On the morning of November 28, 1979, Air New Zealand flight TE901 left Auckland for a sightseeing flight to Antarctica. At 12.49pm the aircraft crashed into Mt Erebus in Antarctica, killing all 237 passengers and 20 crew.

Erebus remains the worst peacetime accident in New Zealand's history, the scale of loss shocked the nation. The plane was lost from the fleet of the national carrier; Air New Zealand was in full state ownership at that time.

President of the New Zealand Air Line Pilots' Association Andrew Ridling said the apology was a game changer.

"The pilots on board the aircraft that day were subject to unfair conjecture and blame that affected their professional reputations," Captain Ridling said.

"We have waited a very long time to see that put right."

He said it was very important to the association and the families to hear the Prime Minister say the pilots were not responsible for the tragedy.

"It's impossible to underestimate the effect of just a few words," Ridling said.

"For New Zealanders, the word Erebus is not just a mountain on a cold distant continent. It is now a by-word for a dark time we hope never to experience again."

Earlier in the afternoon, the E tū union held a service at the Erebus Crew Memorial Gardens at Auckland Airport.

"Erebus changed a nation," says E tū's Head of Aviation, Savage.

"257 people from New Zealand and around the world died. This was one of our worst industrial accidents, a day when 20 aviation workers lost their lives.

"It changed the way the whole world thought about aviation safety and about our shared responsibilities to put safety first," he says.

"We invite all New Zealanders wherever they are in the world to pause for a minute and reflect on the event and the importance of safety at work and the responsibility we all have to look out for one another."

PM's full speech to Erebus families

E aku manukura, tēnā koutou. He kupu whakamahara tēnei i te aituā nui i Te Tiri o Te Moana, i Erebus I runga i tētahi maunga tiketike i riro atu rā tētahi hunga i arohanuitia E murimuri aroha tonu ana ki a rātou. Kua titia rātou ki te manawa, mō te āke tonu.

Ko te pō ki a rātou, nau mai te ao ki a tātou, tēnā tātou.

Greetings distinguished guests. In remembrance of the tragic events of Erebus. On a high mountain, those who were loved, were lost. We continue to grieve for them. They are etched forever in our hearts. The place of the departed is for them; for us, the world of light - greetings to us all.

My very warm greetings to all of you gathered here today:

Your Excellency, to whom I give my very grateful thanks for hosting this event; families of the Erebus victims; members of the Diplomatic Corps, representing families from other nations; members of Operation Overdue; Hon Nikki Kaye, representing the Leader of the Opposition; Mayor Goff; representatives of the New Zealand Police and Defence Force; Dame Therese Walsh and other representatives of Air New Zealand; representatives of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei; Rev Dr Richard Waugh; supporters and friends.

It is twelve months since I last met with many of you, and I feel privileged to be in your presence again on an occasion that is so deeply personal for so many.

In a year that has seen new tragedy for New Zealand, and for New Zealand families, your eloquence last year at the Dalmatian Cultural Centre has stayed with me.

Thank you for all that you said then, and for your messages afterwards.

Today I want to speak in explicit recognition of the fact that in 1979 so much was lost; and the ramifications were immense.

And time hasn't necessarily diminished any of that.

257 people died on the slopes of Mt Erebus on 28 November 1979, 40 years ago today. Let me pause to acknowledge the enormity of that loss, and the effect it has had on the lives of the families - and also on the lives of those who took part in Operation Overdue.

That loss, in and of itself, was huge. It sent ripples across the country, and trauma that those who weren't directly affected would probably struggle to fathom.

But that loss and grief was compounded. It was undeniably worsened by the events that followed. While today is a day for reflection, I feel we will serve you poorly if we don't recognise what has stood in the way, for so many years, of you all having the space to grieve, to mourn and to reflect on the lives of your family members.

Today, of all days, I hope we can say the things that should have been said. I don't need to tell all of you that the accident we are marking today was the subject of two official reports. The first, by the Chief Inspector of Air Accidents, Mr Ron Chippendale, was published on 12 June 1980.

It concluded that the "probable cause" of the disaster was pilot error. I know this finding magnified the grief of many families, particularly devastating the families of the pilots.

The second report, the product of a Royal Commission of Inquiry presided over by a High Court Judge, Justice Mahon, was presented to the Governor-General on 16 April 1981.

Justice Mahon rejected pilot error as the cause of the disaster. Instead, he found that the dominant and effective cause of the accident was the airline's actions in reprogramming the aircraft's navigation system without advising the aircrew.

More controversially, however, the Judge went on to find that witnesses from Air New Zealand had conspired to give false evidence to his inquiry. This led to his report being severely criticised by both Air New Zealand and the then Prime Minister.

When the airline took judicial review proceedings, both the Court of Appeal and the Privy Council found the Judge's findings of conspiracy and deception unsupported and contrary to the principles of natural justice.

But what was lost in all this was the fact that no challenge was made to the Judge's findings as to the cause of the accident.

On the contrary, the Law Lords placed on record their tribute to the brilliant and painstaking investigative work undertaken by the Judge in the course of his inquiry.

They said there was ample supportive evidence at the Judge's inquiry for his conclusions about causation, and noted that his different conclusion from the Chief Inspector was based in part on new evidence before the Judge that was not available to the Chief Inspector.

In particular, the Privy Council said, and I quote, "the Royal Commission Report convincingly clears Captain Collins and First Officer Cassin of any suggestion that negligence on their part had in any way contributed to the disaster.

That is unchallenged." Those findings stood then, and they stand now.

The pilots were not responsible for this tragedy, and I stand here today to state that again.

But these were not findings accepted by the Government of the day.

The Government did not table the report in Parliament. Nearly 20 years went by before the report was finally tabled in 1999. That was wrong.

It caused trauma on top of grief. And persecution on top of pain.

I want to acknowledge, as many in Parliament did when the inquiry was finally tabled, that the way Justice Mahon's report was handled was wrong.

That mishandling was one very difficult feature of the long hard road you have travelled - in the years leading up to the tabling of the report in 1999, and through the years following. In an environment of tumultuous claim and counter claim, of public confusion and ongoing debate, it is difficult I am sure to find a clear place to set down your grief. After 40 long years, you deserve to find that place.

No one can assume to know what that requires though, or even if it's possible. I have read many accounts from family members - letters telling stories of that day, of the weeks that followed, of the trauma that arises any time that Erebus is mentioned.

All I know is that after 40 years, setting down grief will only be made harder, if we don't acknowledge past wrongs. If we accept the Royal Commission's findings on the cause of the accident, which are well established, then the time has come to end the piecemeal acknowledgements.

After 40 years, on behalf of today's Government, the time has come to apologise for the actions of an airline then in full state ownership; which ultimately caused the loss of the aircraft and the loss of those you loved.

This apology is wholehearted and wide-reaching.

We will never know your grief, but I know the time has come to say I am sorry. In making this apology I speak also for and with Air New Zealand.

I know that for many, grievances still exist with the airline. I do not comment on some of the more famous phrases of the Royal Commission of Inquiry except to note what I believe is the change in the Air New Zealand of the 21st century, a company that in form, structure and approach is very different to the Air New Zealand of 1979.

I acknowledge the efforts the airline has itself made over recent years to address your grief, including bringing people from throughout New Zealand, and from overseas, to this gathering today.

Some may say that the past is the past, that we cannot change what happened. That fails to consider that our future is shaped by where we have come from. It is shaped by our response to tragedy and injustice, and by the people who stand up against it.

The past is never just the past.

As we mark the 40th anniversary of an event that remains etched in New Zealand's psyche, we reflect on all that was lost, all that we must learn, and a future that we all must keep striving to make better.

No reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

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Government, Air NZ apologise to family members over Erebus disaster - NZ Herald

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The Government and Air New Zealand have apologised to the families of the 257 people who died in the 1979 Erebus disaster. Family members have gathered at Government House in Auckland to mark 40 years since the tragedy. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the way the report was handled was wrong, and the wrongs need to be acknowledged.

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Erebus crash: Minute's silence held to remember 257 victims on 41st anniversary

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A minute of silence and a memorial service was held on Saturday afternoon to remember the 257 people who were killed in the Mt Erebus plane crash.

The November 28, 1979 crash occurred when Air New Zealand flight 901 flew into Mt Erebus on Ross Island in Antarctica.

It killed all 237 passengers and 20 crew members on board.

The minute of silence at 1.49pm marked the moment the crash occurred at 12.49pm New Zealand Standard Time (1.49pm NZ Daylight Saving Time).

READ MORE:
* Erebus crash: Families 'relieved' as memorial to honour victims approved
* Scott Base in Antarctica remembers Erebus plane crash tragedy
* Picton family who lost dad in Erebus disaster to visit memorial for first time

A wreath-laying ceremony, held at the Erebus crew memorial garden near Auckland International Airport, accompanied the minute of silence.

E tū union organiser Dayna Townsend said the day marks an event that is forever etched into the memory of New Zealanders.

"Today marks a day when our national airline, the nation, and the families of those aboard, suffered a great tragedy," she said.

"The crew memorial gardens near Auckland Airport in Māngere are a focal point for remembrance, and the event is particularly poignant this year, as we consider the upheaval and thousands of job losses for aviation workers as a result of the pandemic."

Some of Air NZ's international cabin crew were unable to make it to the memorial due to being in Covid-19 isolation, Townsend said, adding that many would probably acknowledge the Erebus cabin crew from their hotel room at 1.49pm.

Friends and family of those who died in the crash found peace in the fact their loved one did not suffer, she said, as "they didn't know what was coming" and would have died instantly.

"They were doing what they loved."

"Erebus is, unfortunately, not over for many people," she said, referring to the controversy with the national memorial planned for Dove Myer Robinson Park, otherwise known as the Parnell Rose Gardens.

She noted that it had been a year "like no other" for the aviation industry. It had been "rocked" by the Covid-19 pandemic, which highlighted the importance of family, she said.

Stewart Te Tana, who was part of the victim identification team at Auckland Hospital, said he remembers the enormity of the accident each year.

Te Tana was awarded a New Zealand Special Service Medal (Erebus) for his efforts, which was awarded to those involved in "the extremely difficult and very unpleasant, hazardous, and extreme circumstances" in relation to the accident, dubbed "Operation Overdue" by police at the time.

He said it was a privilege to lay some flowers on behalf of his colleagues.

Former flight attendant and Labour MP Marja Lubeck spoke on behalf of Transport Minister Michael Wood, who said the Erebus disaster "was an event that changed our nation".

"All New Zealanders share in their grief."

He thanked E tū for its work to help make workplaces safe.

"We all have a responsibility to put safety first in the workplace."

Townsend also paid tribute to the five Kiwi aviation workers who died in 2008 when Air New Zealand A320 crashed off the coast of Perpignan, France.

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Erebus crash: Minute's silence held to remember 257 victims on 41st anniversary

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A minute of silence and a memorial service was held on Saturday afternoon to remember the 257 people who were killed in the Mt Erebus plane crash. The November 28, 1979 crash occurred when Air New Zealand flight 901 flew into Mt Erebus on Ross Island in Antarctica.

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It remains New Zealand's worst peacetime disaster. On 28 November 1979, a sightseeing aircraft carrying 257 people crashed head-on into the side of a volcano in Antarctica.

The tragedy of flight TE901 was a shock for New Zealand, affecting almost everyone in the country in some way, and led to years of investigations and a bitter blame game.

And the legacy of the Mt Erebus disaster is still felt 40 years on.

How did the plane crash?

Air New Zealand had started operating scenic flights over Antarctica only two years before, and they had been a great success.

What better way to spend a day than to cruise on an 11-hour non-stop round trip from Auckland down the length of the country and on to the great southern continent? The flights offered first class luxury and a stunning view over the endless ice at the edge of the world.

But on that day in 1979, things would go very wrong.

At around noon, the pilot Capt Jim Collins flew two large loops through the clouds to bring the plane down to about 2,000ft (610m) and offer his passengers a better view. Assuming he was on the same flight path as previous flights and over the vast McMurdo Sound, he wouldn't have foreseen any problems.

On board the DC 10, people were busy taking photographs or filming in the cabin and out of the windows. Many of these photos were later found in the wreckage and could still be developed, some of them taken seconds before the crash.

But instead of ice and snow in the distance, what the cockpit was looking at was the mountain right ahead of them. Shortly before 1pm, the plane's proximity alarms went off. With no time to pull up, six seconds later the plane ploughed straight into the side of Mt Erebus.

After hours of waiting and confusion, the assumption back in New Zealand was that the plane must have run out of fuel. Wherever it was, it was no longer in the air.

Search and rescue operations were dispatched and soon confirmed the worst fears: wreckage was spotted on Ross Island, on the lower slopes of Mt Erebus and it was clear there'd been no survivors.

"That same accident would not happen on a modern airliner," Captain Andrew Ridling, head of the New Zealand Air Line Pilots Association, told the BBC. In part, that's because of lessons learned from crashes like the one of TE901.

"The equipment today is extremely good. You've got a satellite based navigation system, so being on the wrong flight path like that would just not be possible."

Shattering national identity

Two main reasons have been determined as the cause of the crash.

The pilots had been briefed with a flight path which was different from the one put into the plane's computer. The team thought their route was the same as previous flights, going over ice and water in the McMurdo Sound, when in fact the path was going over Ross Island - and the 3,794m volcano Mt Erebus.

The second cause was a weather phenomenon known as whiteout - and that's what is likely to have sealed the plane's fate.

The whiteout meant the light between the white snow or ice underneath and the clouds overhead created an illusion of clear visibility. The pilot trusted the automatic flight path, assuming the white he was seeing through the cockpit window was simply the ice and snow on the water below, not the face of a mountain.

The crash killed 227 passengers and 30 crew. Forty-four people were never identified during the search and recovery operations.

New Zealand's population was then only around three million people. As people said at the time, almost everyone was somehow connected to the Erebus disaster, whether through knowing a victim, a member of the many heroic recovery operations, or taking sides in the lengthy legal battle that ensued.

And the tragedy left New Zealand in shock.

"It came at a time the relatively young nation was in a crucial period of finding a new narrative for its identity," explains Rowan Light, a historian with Canterbury University.

"In the 1960s and 70s the old narrative of being a progressive outpost of the British Empire had fallen to pieces or was just not making sense any more," he says.

But the country was trying to find its feet. Technological advances were a big part of that new path, infrastructure was key to the national story of settling, conquering and gaining control over the land. And reaching out to Antarctica, about 4,500km (2,780 miles) to the south, fitted perfectly into that story.

Yet a row of terrible disasters was to profoundly shake that sense of self.

A train crash at Tangiwai in 1953 had left 151 people dead and the Wahine ferry disaster in 1968 had killed 51 people. The Mt Erebus crash was the third in that list and by far the deadliest.

"So you had this really interesting moment with those disasters because they really called into question that narrative of technological progress and control," Mr Light explains.

That legal battle came swiftly and was a second blow after the crash itself. New Zealanders were shocked by the failure to properly identify what had happened and by the bitter accusations.

The first investigation essentially found the pilots at fault.

They had flown well below the minimum safe altitude set by the airline and it seemed easy to say that sticking to that minimum would have prevented the crash.

While the investigation had also uncovered the mismatch in the flight paths, it nonetheless concluded that a higher altitude would have saved the plane from crashing.

'An orchestrated litany of lies'

Putting the blame on the pilots proved controversial, though, and a second investigation was launched, this time a Royal Commission of Inquiry, New Zealand's highest level of public inquest. The results couldn't have been more different: this time, the blame landed squarely on Air New Zealand.

Yes, the plane had been well below the safe altitude - but the inquiry found that the Antarctic flights had routinely flown at such extremely low levels to provide a better view for its paying customers.

Even a promotional brochure for the scenic route had boasted of the scenery using photographs clearly taken from a way below the safe altitude.

The Royal Commission did not only find that the airline was to blame due to the mistakes in the flight path, but it also alleged that Air New Zealand had essentially tried to cover up its own responsibility: a conspiracy to blame the pilots leaving Air New Zealand morally in the clear - and also in terms of compensation payouts to the victims' relatives.

Famously, the head of the inquiry, judge Peter Mahon, described the airline's defence as "an orchestrated litany of lies" - a phrase which would stick in the national consciousness.

'A sense of betrayal'

The airline took the case to an appeals court and won, with Mr Mahon's allegation they intentionally had obscured the crash causes overturned.

Again, the Erebus tragedy was in limbo, and the blame game grotesquely overshadowed the relatives' grief.

The TE901 crash was also a serious blow to Air New Zealand's reputation.

The airline had very much been a source of pride for the country - as national carriers are, it was part of the fabric of how New Zealand saw itself on the global stage. But over the years, the overwhelming consensus became that the airline had indeed been at fault and not the pilot team.

It never ran the Antarctic flights again - though one private airline does cover the sightseeing route from Australia.

At the time, the crash and its aftermath were seen as "almost a sense of betrayal for people", Mr Light explains.

In 2009, Air New Zealand issued a first apology - although only for its behaviour in the aftermath, not for the actual accident itself.

But on this year's anniversary, the airline finally issued that full apology that so many people felt was overdue.

"I apologise on behalf of an airline which 40 years ago failed in its duty of care to its passengers and staff," the airline's chairwoman Therese Walsh said at the commemorations at government house in Auckland.

"While words will never bring back those lost on Mt Erebus this day 40 years ago, I would like to express regret on behalf of Air New Zealand for the accident which took the lives of 257 passengers and crew."

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also used the day to give a first full apology by a New Zealand government.

"This apology is whole hearted and wide reaching," she said. "We will never know your grief, but I know the time has come to say I am sorry."

New Zealand's loss of innocence?

Forty years on, the crash remains a story crucial to New Zealand's recent history.

For the post-war generation, it was the biggest tragedy they'd witnessed their country go through and there's a lingering sense that it might have been where the young nation lost its innocence, its clear sense of direction, stability and trust in the established order.

Despite this, there is as yet no national memorial to the victims.

A cross and a koru - a stone coiled fern - have been placed near the crash site and Ross Island has been witness to several commemoration events by the victims' relatives, but the debate of what form a memorial should take and where it would go has generated its own frustrations.

Earlier this year, New Zealand approved a plan for a structure in Auckland, which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said "reflects the enormity of the tragedy and provides a strong sense of connection and loss".

As the country remembers the crash this Thursday, thousands of miles away, the ruins of the aircraft still lie on the slopes of Mt Erebus.

Partially covered by snow, the wreckage is a silent tribute to the flight of a lifetime that ended in tragedy.

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Mount Erebus disaster: The plane crash that changed New Zealand

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It remains New Zealand's worst peacetime disaster. On 28 November 1979, a sightseeing aircraft carrying 257 people crashed head-on into the side of a volcano in Antarctica. The tragedy of flight TE901 was a shock for New Zealand, affecting almost everyone in the country in some way, and led to years of investigations and a bitter blame game.

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Effects of Erebus crash on rescuers, police etc

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Tony Taylor, professor of clinical psychology at Victoria University, describes the effects of the disaster on police.

Transcript

Interviewer: [A] leading New Zealand psychologist says many of the Erebus rescue workers took almost two years to recover from the stress of handling and identifying victims of the Erebus crash. Tony Taylor, professor of clinical psychology at Victoria University, says the disaster caused stress symptoms seen among rescue workers during wartime.

Tony Taylor: Certainly there was fatigue because of the long hours that they worked at a stretch and over a period of time. The effects were troubled sleep, troubled in their eating, troubles in their general social activities, in their feelings about themselves. A number really became quite melancholy. These things lifted and the extent to which they lifted was a tribute to the groups to which they belong and to damned good management procedures and to camaraderie that came.

Interviewer: How long did some of these effects last then?

Tony Taylor: Well, some of them lasted as long as 20 months, which is a long time, and others didn't emerge until fairly late, and then they gradually subsided. People used various ways of coping with them as any human being would under these very difficult and very trying circumstances.

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Sound clip: effects of Erebus disaster on police

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Tony Taylor, professor of clinical psychology at Victoria University, describes the effects of the disaster on police. Interviewer: [A] leading New Zealand psychologist says many of the Erebus rescue workers took almost two years to recover from the stress of handling and identifying victims of the Erebus crash.

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On 28 November 1979, an Air New Zealand DC-10 crashed into Mt Erebus, Antarctica, killing all 257 people on board. It was New Zealand's worst civil aviation disaster and at the time, the fourth worst in the world. Flight 901 was the first in-depth documentary on the accident. It surveys the novelty of Antarctic tourist flights, the search and rescue operation, and controversy over causes stirred by Peter Mahon's Royal Commission of Inquiry. This 15 minute excerpt was edited for NZ On Screen by director John Keir, who won private funding to make the documentary after state TV executives had second thoughts.

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Flight 901 - The Erebus Disaster | Television | NZ On Screen

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Flight 901 - The Erebus Disaster - On 28 November 1979, an Air New Zealand DC-10 crashed into Mt Erebus, Antarctica, killing all 257 people on board. It was New Zealand's worst civil aviation disaster and at the time, the fourth worst in the world. Flight 901 was the first in-depth documentary on the accident.

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On 17 November, the Waitematā Local Board voted in favour of granting land owner approval to the $3.5 million national Erebus memorial in Dove-Myer Robinson Park in the Auckland suburb of Parnell.

The proposal was first made in 2018 and, after vigorous opposition by many Parnell residents, the resolution passed narrowly, with four votes to three.

The Board's decision means that the Erebus families will finally have a memorial to remember those who lost their lives on Mt Erebus in 1979.

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erebus plane crash te901 air new zealand

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Erebus Disaster | Mt Erebus Plane Crash OFFICIAL Facts Website | 1979 Air NZ | NZALPA

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On 17 November, the Waitematā Local Board voted in favour of granting land owner approval to the $3.5 million national Erebus memorial in Dove-Myer Robinson Park in the Auckland suburb of Parnell. The proposal was first made in 2018 and, after vigorous opposition by many Parnell residents, the resolution passed narrowly, with four votes to three.

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On the morning of 28 November 1979, Air New Zealand Flight TE901 left Māngere airport, Auckland, for an 11-hour return sightseeing flight to Antarctica. At 12.49 p.m. NZST, the aircraft crashed into the lower slopes of Mt Erebus killing all 237 passengers and 20 crew on board. It was the worst civil disaster in New Zealand's history.

Search and rescue aircraft in Antarctica were activated and at midnight (NZST) wreckage was sighted on the lower slopes of Mt Erebus. Final confirmation that there were no survivors came later the next day. Professionals and volunteers from Antarctica and New Zealand took part in difficult and often harrowing investigative, recovery and identification operations.

Debate raged over who was at fault for the accident. While the chief inspector of air accidents attributed the disaster to pilot error, Justice Peter Mahon's Royal Commission of Inquiry placed the blame on Air New Zealand and its systems. The controversy continues.

The Erebus disaster has been remembered in many ways. Memorial services for the victims were held in the immediate aftermath of the crash, and on significant anniversaries. Construction of a National Erebus Memorial is currently underway in Auckland.

At an event to mark the 40th anniversary of the disaster the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the chair of Air New Zealand, delivered an apology.

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On 28 November 1979, 237 passengers and 20 crew were killed when Air New Zealand Flight TE901 crashed into Mt Erebus, Antarctica. The tragedy was followed by a demanding recovery operation and a raging debate over who or what was to blame

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White camellias, bursting into springtime, are forever a symbol of women's suffrage

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White camellias, bursting into springtime, are forever a symbol of women's suffrage

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Stuff Article 2018

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MEMORY LANE: White camellias are bursting into springtime bloom now and this week they're a reminder of he hectic days when New Zealand women were agitating for the right to vote - won on September 19, 1893.

The camellia was activist and historical heroine Kate Sheppard's signature flower. Suffragists, nicknamed suffragettes, campaigning for their rights presented white camellias to their supporters - and red camellias to those who thought they should just sit down and be quiet.

And, every now and then, around this time, Henry Charles Clarke Wright seems to get at least a passing mention.

Who was Henry Wright? He was the man who tacked up this printed notice on the front gate of his house at 117 Mein St, Newtown, Wellington: "Notice to epicene [meaning, of uncertain gender] women: Electioneering women are requested not to call here. They are recommended to go home, to look after their children, cook their husband's dinners, empty the slops and generally attend to the domestic affairs for which nature designed them. By taking this advice they will gain the respect of all right-minded people - an end not to be attained by unsexing themselves and meddling in masculine concerns of which they are profoundly ignorant."

The original notice was printed early in 1893. Afterwards, copies apparently "started to appear on front doors all over Wellington".

Was Wright serious, or was this a joke? Described as a colourful and sometimes notorious character around town, he had been secretary of the Gear Meat Company and was involved in the first shipment of frozen meat out of Wellington. His interests included ornithology, philosophy, photography, comparative religion and gardening. He was a familiar sight, strolling the Wellington streets in top hat, frock coat and check trousers, an opal pin in his brightly coloured tie. He was 49 when the notice appeared on his gate. There is no record of what Mrs Wright thought of it.

On September 20, 1893, the Feilding Star, the only local newspaper with a now-existing copy of that date, published an introductory piece that today seems strangely muted. No banner headlines, no exclamation marks - considering that one of this country's most dramatic events had occurred the day before. On September 19, New Zealand had become the first self-governing country in the world to give all adult women the right to vote.

The piece just states: "The following is a copy of a circular received from Mrs Shepphard [the actual spelling was 'Sheppard'], head superintendent of the [Women's Christian Temperance Union], and is now printed for general information." The circular reads, in part: "Womanhood suffrage having at last been obtained, it is eminently desirable that our women should avail themselves of their privileges at the coming elections. As the elections will be held almost immediately, and the electoral rolls will be closed directly the elections are commenced, it is absolutely necessary that not a day should be lost in getting women enrolled..."

Sheppard continued with instructions for neighbourhood workers to map out their districts into sections and get women's signatures on the "claims for enrolment" forms, before the general election in a few weeks. Despite this haste, about 84 per cent of the country's women enrolled to vote and on the day, 90,290 pākehā women and 4000 women on the Māori roll would cast their vote.

The long, hard slog was over.

In Manawatū, the suffragists had heroic supporters. One was a Feilding woman named Learmonth Dalrymple. A single, plain, devout and self-effacing Scotswoman, she had spent most of her life taking care of family members.

Yet Learmonth was a true activist at heart. In her younger days in Dunedin she had waged a seven-year battle to get the first girls' school in New Zealand up and running (Otago Girls' High School); agitated for female students to be admitted to the planned University of Otago, and campaigned for early childhood education.

In Manawatū, she was a member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the banner under which Kate Sheppard campaigned in Christchurch.

She joined forces with Feilding's Margaret Giesen and her daughter Florence, whose menfolk were active in politics and business. Florence's husband was pharmacist and optician Richard Leary, whose premises stood in the Grand Hotel block in Palmerston North's Square. Leary's brother was Joseph P Leary, founder of the Manawatū Times. His wife Polly was an active suffragist.

These women and others footslogged around the streets of their districts, collecting signatures from all kinds and classes of women for the final suffrage petition.

Their champion in Parliament was Sir John Hall, but in the end, the suffrage tussle was finally won almost miraculously when two wavering opposition legislative councillors, annoyed by prime minster Richard Seddon's pressure to vote against the bill, changed sides and voted in favour. Those two "yes" votes won the day.

In other countries the wait was longer. For Australia: 1902; in the United Kingdom, 1918; for America, 1920.

In Canada, the women's vote would be granted gradually, province by province, Quebec being the last in 1940. In 1929, Canadian women would be officially declared "persons" under the law.

On Wednesday this week, among white camellias blooming in the Esplanade, a group of female historians, authors, professionals, librarians, archivists and others got together in the sunshine to honour Kate Sheppard and the 125th anniversary of the vote.

Massey emeritus professor Margaret Tennant said: "We are among our ancestors today" and spoke about her great-aunt Emma Belk, who signed the 1893 petition.

On Saturday at 2pm, historian Dorothy Pilkington will give a talk entitled "Epicene Women" at the Palmerston North central library.

So, what became of Henry Wright? He died in 1936. His villa, though refurbished and renumbered 117 Mein St, still stands.

Email: tinawhite29@gmail.com

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White camellias, bursting into springtime, are forever a symbol of women's suffrage

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MEMORY LANE: White camellias are bursting into springtime bloom now and this week they're a reminder of he hectic days when New Zealand women were agitating for the right to vote - won on September 19, 1893. The camellia was activist and historical heroine Kate Sheppard's signature flower.

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NZ Parliament - Suffrage Day celebrates women’s right to vote

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NZ Parliament - Suffrage Day celebrates women’s right to vote

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On 19 September 1893 the Governor signed the Electoral Bill into law giving women the right to vote to elect members of Parliament. New Zealand became the first country to extend this right to women. This was followed by legislation in 1919 enabling women to stand for Parliament. Elizabeth McCombs was the first woman elected as a member of Parliament in 1933.

The issue had been aired in Parliament since the 1870s but it had not been taken very seriously at that time. In the early 1890s the movement for women's suffrage, led by Kate Sheppard and involving the Women's Christian Temperance Union and women's franchise leagues, made the issue a matter of national importance. The movement combined a demand for equal political rights and moral reform, particularly through temperance or the prohibition of alcohol. A number of extremely large petitions were presented to Parliament.

Bills were introduced into Parliament in 1891 and 1892 but were blocked by the Legislative Council (the Upper House). Premier Richard John Seddon and some of his ministers were happy to have the Legislative Council obstruct the measure. When the Bill was again introduced in 1893 two members of the Legislative Council unexpectedly changed sides and the Electoral Bill was passed. Women turned up to the polling booths for the election later that year and cast their votes alongside men.

Parliament celebrated the centenary of women's suffrage in 1993 with the planting of 'Kate Sheppard' white camellia shrubs in the grounds (gifted by the National Council of Women), the placing of a commemorative time capsule close by and the donation to Parliament by the New Zealand Women's Christian Temperance Union of a bust of Kate Sheppard (displayed in the main foyer of Parliament House). Various artworks commemorate the centenary, including sculptural flowers on the walls of the chamber. A select committee room has been dedicated to women in Parliament.

Many of these artworks and commemorative features can be seen when taking a public tour of Parliament. Further details on the daily public tours can be found via the related link on this page.

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Suffrage Day celebrates women's right to vote - New Zealand Parliament

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On 19 September 1893 the Governor signed the Electoral Bill into law giving women the right to vote to elect members of Parliament. New Zealand became the first country to extend this right to women. This was followed by legislation in 1919 enabling women to stand for Parliament.

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NZ Parliament - Women, the vote and the 1893 election

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NZ Parliament - Women, the vote and the 1893 election

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Draft legislation allowing women to vote was introduced into Parliament in the early 1890s. Premier John Ballance, strongly in favour of women's suffrage, considered that allowing them to vote in the 1893 election was too soon. He felt that women were politically uneducated and would require some time to become more informed. With Ballance's death in April 1893 Richard John Seddon became Premier. Seddon was personally against women's suffrage and thought he could rely upon the Legislative Council (the Upper House) to continue to obstruct the legislation.

However, the Electoral Act passed on 19 September 1893 when two Legislative Council members unexpectedly switched sides. The Act specified that every person aged 21 years or over (who qualified and was registered) was entitled to vote. To make it perfectly plain, the Act also stated that the definition of 'person' included women.

The first task was to get women on the electoral rolls so that they could vote. Premier Seddon assured Parliament in October that 'the Government were doing their best to get the rolls completed so that they 'should give a fair chance to the electors of both sexes to give expression to their views at the ballot-box'. Some felt that women wouldn't be sufficiently interested but women immediately began queuing outside electoral registration offices.

The suffragists strenuously organised women to turn out so that the maximum number would be registered. Once registered, suffragists could act as witnesses for others to register. The Women's Christian Temperance Union, central to the fight for women's suffrage, worked hard to enrol women and to advance their views to prospective female voters. Various groups undertook educational activities so that women would vote for candidates advocating better laws to protect women and children's rights, abolition of gambling through the totalisator, and control of the liquor trade. Meanwhile the date of the election was not yet set. The writs were issued on 13 November for the election on 28 November.

Now that women's suffrage was a reality both the Liberal Party and the Opposition sought the women's vote. The Liberal Association opened its membership to women. Politicians who had opposed the legislation now solicited women's votes. Premier Seddon advised women to exercise this power with the guidance of their husbands or, if unmarried, their brothers. Organisations such as religious pressure groups wanting Bibles in schools or state aid for private schools, and the Licensed Victuallers' Association, worked to take advantage of this massive new group of voters.

Efforts to get women onto the electoral rolls resulted in the vast majority of women registering and a very high proportion turned out to vote on polling day. A total of 109,461 women registered. This was about 80 percent of the adult female population. Some 90,290 women voted. The turnout of women was far higher at 85 percent than that of men (70 percent).

The election resulted in the overwhelming return of the Liberal Party to government, leaving the conservative Opposition very demoralised. History has judged that the introduction of the woman's vote did not result in greatly changed politics but reinforced the powerful trend towards the dominance of the Liberal Party. The Liberals had already introduced popular land and labour policies which were an important factor in the election. Certainly, women had not as some expected voted as a bloc for the conservatives. However, the female vote probably played a role in the defeat of a number of prominent opponents of women's suffrage and it bolstered the temperance presence in Parliament.

The fears of those opposed to women's participation in elections were not realised; the election had proceeded in peaceful and orderly fashion. The decisive Liberal victory led two decades of social and economic reform in New Zealand, including the Old-age Pension Act of 1898 and other humanitarian measures.

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Women, the vote and the 1893 election - New Zealand Parliament

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Draft legislation allowing women to vote was introduced into Parliament in the early 1890s. Premier John Ballance, strongly in favour of women's suffrage, considered that allowing them to vote in the 1893 election was too soon. He felt that women were politically uneducated and would require some time to become more informed.

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Media release: 15 September 2011

Did one of your ancestors sign the historic 1893 petition calling for women's right to vote? If so, you can now search for their names online and contribute information about them. To mark Women's Suffrage Day on 19 September, Manatū Taonga/Ministry for Culture and Heritage has made the names and address details of the women who signed the petition available as a searchable database on NZHistory so New Zealanders can search for family ties to this historic event.

'Women's suffrage is rightly celebrated as a great milestone in New Zealand history,' says Neill Atkinson, Chief Historian at Manatū Taonga. When the governor signed a new Electoral Act into law on 19 September 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to grant all women the right to vote in parliamentary elections. In most other democracies - notably Britain and the United States - women couldn't vote until after the First World War. 'New Zealand's world leadership in women's suffrage has become part of our national identity,' says Atkinson.

That achievement was the result of years of effort by suffrage campaigners. In 1891, 1892 and 1893 they compiled a series of massive petitions calling on Parliament to grant the vote to women. The biggest of them all, submitted on 28 July 1893, was signed by 'Mary J. Carpenter and 25,519 others' - about one in five New Zealand women at the time.

The petition contains the signatures of many leading suffragists and feminists, including Kate Sheppard, Marion Hatton, Rachel Reynolds, Ada Wells, Tailoresses' Union leader Harriet Morison, writer Edith Grossman, and sisters Christina and Stella Henderson (whose younger sister, Elizabeth, then too young to sign, would later achieve fame as New Zealand's first woman MP - under her married name, McCombs).

This huge roll of names is now preserved at Archives New Zealand, alongside the Treaty of Waitangi. The international significance of both documents has been recognised by their inclusion on the UNESCO Memory of the World register of documentary heritage.

Manatū Taonga worked with Archives NZ and the Ministry of Women's Affairs to make the petition available online. Now, members of the public can help preserve and contribute to our rich history by accessing the database, which contains information on more than 24,000 New Zealand women. You can search by name or location, arrange the database according to town, city or region, and add your own comments (or email information to the NZHistory team at: ).

To search the petition visit: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/womens-suffrage/petition.

Or learn more about the history of women and the vote in New Zealand at: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/womens-suffrage.

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Media release: 15 September 2011 Did one of your ancestors sign the historic 1893 petition calling for women's right to vote? If so, you can now search for their names online and contribute information about them.

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National Library Links

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Archives NZ - women’s Suffrage Petition

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When Governor Glasgow signed the Electoral Bill on 19 September 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing nation in the world where women had won the right to vote. The Bill was the outcome of years of meetings in towns and cities across the country, with women often travelling considerable distances to hear lectures and speeches, pass resolutions and sign petitions. A number of petitions were presented to both Houses of Parliament from the early 1880s till 1893.

In 1891 eight petitions containing more than 9000 signatures were gathered, and in 1892 six petitions containing almost 20,000. These were the culmination of many years work by the Women's Christian Temperance Movement and prominent suffragist, Kate Sheppard, among others.

Despite the failures of these petitions, another was organised in 1893. It was described by Kate Sheppard as "a monster petition" demanding the right for women to vote. Petition sheets, circulated throughout New Zealand, were returned to Christchurch where Kate Sheppard pasted each sheet end on end and rolled it around a section of a broom handle.

In the end, 13 petitions were submitted to the House of Representatives in 1893. They contained the signatures of 31,872 women from across the country and across the social spectrum. Twelve of the petitions have not survived, but the "monster" that was pasted together did. This contains 25,519 signatures, including some men.

The roll was presented to Parliament with great drama. John Hall, Member of Parliament and suffrage supporter, brought it into the House and unrolled it down the central aisle of the debating chamber until it hit the end wall with a thud. Less than two months later, 109,461 women enrolled to vote in the 1893 election.

The 1893 Women's Suffrage Petition is on display at He Tohu, a permanent exhibition of three constitutional documents that shape Aotearoa New Zealand.

The Women's Suffrage Petition database on NZHistory is an excellent way to search for a signatory. This database allows you to search by surname, by suburb or town, by city or region, or by Sheet number. A digital version of each Sheet of the Petition is available.

If you would like to write a biography for He Tohu and NZHistory, check out the Women's Suffrage Biography Guide .

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Archives New Zealand || The women's suffrage petition

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When Governor Glasgow signed the Electoral Bill on 19 September 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing nation in the world where women had won the right to vote. The Bill was the outcome of years of meetings in towns and cities across the country, with women often travelling considerable distances to hear lectures and speeches, pass resolutions and sign petitions.

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New Zealand women went to the polls for the first time, just 10 weeks after the governor, Lord Glasgow, signed the Electoral Act 1893 into law, making this country the first in which women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

Despite the short timeframe for voter registration, 109,461 women - about 84% of the adult female population - enrolled to vote in the election. On polling day 90,290 of them cast their votes, a turnout of 82% (far higher than the 70% turnout among registered male voters). There were then no electoral rolls for the Māori seats, but women cast perhaps 4000 of the 11,269 Māori votes that year.

Despite warnings from opponents of women's suffrage that 'lady voters' might be harassed at polling booths, election day passed off in a relaxed, festive atmosphere. According to a Christchurch newspaper, the streets 'resembled a gay garden party' - 'the pretty dresses of the ladies and their smiling faces lighted up the polling booths most wonderfully'.

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New Zealand women went to the polls for the first time, just 10 weeks after the governor, Lord Glasgow, signed the Electoral Act 1893 into law, making this country the first in which women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

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Influenza

As a hopeful world waited for an end to hostilities late in 1918, an influenza epidemic of unparalleled ferocity swept the globe, killing tens of millions in just a few months. In Auckland, so many died so quickly that 400 were buried with only a single headstone in Waikumete Cemetery. Inhalations of zinc sulphate were a popular public health preventative, although the practice would find little favour today.

It remains the country's worst natural disaster. Here there are no names by which to remember these people, nothing to say what part they played in their families and in our history. You can tell something was amiss-that here was a situation so urgent that the normal courtesies of death were waived.

In late 1918, right on the heels of World War I, an influenza pandemic swept around the world. The war had killed 16,500 New Zealanders in four years. Yet in just eight weeks, the flu wiped out 8600-at a time when the country's total population was only just over a million. As soldiers arrived home, many found that they had just lost a sister or brother, their mother or father, their wife or a child, to this invisible enemy.

Before me lies only one of the burial grounds of the 1100 Aucklanders who perished. In the third week of that grisly November, a team of 36 council men and volunteers dug graves almost continuously in this strip of land to accommodate the new arrivals. Twice daily, after stopping at Mt Eden to pick up caskets and mourners, a train arrived from Auckland Central with more corpses. Overworked clergymen came in relays to bury them, while distressed relatives of the dead wandered about trying to identify the coffins and burial mounds of their loved ones.

With a twinge of superstition I pace the sodden turf above the hidden bones, close behind me the sound of a passing train-on the same tracks that brought all those bodies here 86 years ago.

Clearly this wasn't flu as we know it, the annoying illness that puts us to bed for a few days. A wave of such flu earlier in the year, running up to October, had been no worse than usual. But a second wave, starting in late October in Auckland and exploding round the country within a week, proved a killer. The illness began mildly, with aches and pains, but ended terribly, with patients drowning in their own body fluids. Death could follow within hours of the first symptoms. Adding to the horror and grief, victims often turned a purplish black.

At the height of the epidemic, in November, between a third and a half of the country's population-and in some districts nearly everyone-was infected. In most towns and cities, services were either scaled back or cut altogether because there were too few fit people to run them. Theatres, hotels, schools and banks closed. Coastal shipping stopped. Food and coal shortages were common. Maori were particularly hard hit: in some areas so many died that the few who were left had to move elsewhere.

Puzzlingly, death was most likely to visit those aged between 20 and 45-not vulnerable children or the frail and elderly. And in New Zealand, unlike other parts of the world, the virus showed an unexplained predilection for young men.

[Chapter Break]

On a cool October morning in 1918, the steamship SS Niagara sailed into Waitemata Harbour. On board were New Zealand Prime Minister William Massey and Finance Minister Sir Joseph Ward. Massey and Ward were returning home after visiting New Zealand troops in France and attending meetings of the War Cabinet and the Imperial War Conference in London.

Niagara was one of the glamour ships of the Union Steamship Company running between Canada and New Zealand and could accommodate up to 700 passengers. She had left Vancouver on September 21 with 254 crew and 313 passengers and sailed via Hawaii and Suva. A few days out from Hawaii, some of her crew had come down with influenza. By the time she had reached Suva on October 9, 83 crew had fallen sick, along with a handful of passengers. Volunteers, including Massey, were running the dining room.

The bosun's mate developed pneumonia after insisting on sleeping on deck in spite of a high fever. By October 11, the evening before the ship reached Auckland, most of the crew were convalescing, but later that night the bosun's mate died.

On shore, the authorities were worried. News had reached New Zealand of a vicious flu ravaging South Africa. Cape Town had reported 250 deaths, Kimberley 466. A month and a half previously, the troopship Tahiti, on her way to Plymouth with New Zealand soldiers of the 40th Reinforcement, had suffered a horror trip. Within days of stopping off in Sierra Leone, where a flu epidemic was raging, 800 of the nearly 1200 on board were ill. Seventy-six died, and a further nine soldiers and a nurse died after the ship had docked at Plymouth.

In New Zealand, the milder form of flu-particularly contagious but otherwise little different from the kind that did the rounds every year-was racing through the population. In Wellington it had sent many shop and office workers home to bed, and in the military camps of Trentham and Featherston hundreds of cases had been reported. It was an inconvenience, but there was no real concern that it would prove anything more serious than that.

Yet there were suspicions about the cases on Niagara. Were they the new super-flu, already killing thousands of people in other parts of the world? This dread disease-dubbed the "Spanish flu" because the King of Spain had been a prominent victim-presented an altogether more worrying prospect.

After a certain amount of hesitation, the decision was made to dock the ship. In future years some would decry this as an act of political expediency, since the Prime Minister would have been inconvenienced by any delay. Be that as it may, the medical authorities deemed the cases on board to be the mild variety of influenza and announced that the remaining seriously sick could be taken to Auckland hospital. So it was that at 10.30 a.m. on October 12, Niagara tied up at Queens Wharf. Regardless of the wisdom of this move-and it should be noted that six other overseas vessels docked in Auckland that month-the name Niagara would forever be associated with the deadly flu that was about to hit.

[Chapter Break]

On October 19, in Auckland hospital, three of the Niagara patients-two crew and one volunteer nurse-died. By now cases across the city were increasing rapidly, with young adults the prime victims. By the third week of October, 12 more had died, and as the remaining Niagara cases gradually recovered, a growing number of severely ill were admitted to the hospital. On October 26, 28 nurses reported sick. Eventually, of 180 nurses, 140 would catch the disease, entirely filling three of the hospital's wards.

On October 29, like a fire flaring from first flickers to inferno, the disease exploded all over Auckland. By the following day, a quarter of the city's 330 post office employees were sick. By November 1, only three of the 25 firemen at the central fire station were fit to work. And by November 6, the telephone exchange had pared back its service by three hours a day because 80 per cent of staff were ill. Schools were turned into temporary hospitals, and the grandstand at the Ellerslie racecourse became a children's convalescent home.

First symptoms of the flu developed suddenly: severe headache, back pain, nausea, vomiting, coughing, aching muscles and joints, and a temperature of 102-104°F (39-40°C). Many people made a complete recovery. But some, almost as soon as these symptoms started to come on, developed pneumonia, and within a few hours or days they died. Yet others, just as their families were thankfully watching them improve, became suddenly feverish again, contracted pneumonia and quickly died.

As they succumbed, the dying developed distinctive mahogany-coloured spots around the mouth that spread until, as one report described, "a white man could not be discriminated from a coloured: a peculiar stench emanated from many patients, they would begin to gasp for breath, bloodstained fluid would froth from their mouth and nostrils, patients would become delirious and death would follow from suffocation".

The purplish black colour of so many of those who died was a consequence of the pneumonia. Damage to the lung membranes meant the air spaces in the lungs filled with blood and other fluid, shutting off the flow of oxygen to the bloodstream and leading to the rupture of countless blood vessels all over the body. The horror of seeing someone you loved change into a hideous stranger in front of your eyes must have been terrifying.

Members of sick families unable to get outside help were often incapable of assisting each other. This led to some dreadful situations. As a St John Ambulance man recorded: "One house I went to was in Grey Lynn. We found a man who had been dead for three days. His body was in the bed and his wife was lying in the same bed, not dead but driven out of her mind that she was lying in bed with a dead husband and could not get up."

By November 6, public life in Auckland was paralysed. Two hundred railway employees were off sick, three-quarters of Auckland's 856 watersiders were absent, and 250 of the 650 tram workers were unable to work and services had to be cut back. The Minister of Health declared influenza a notifiable disease, meaning local authorities could use special powers to try to stop it spreading. Officials marched into billiard rooms-one of the main men's gathering places of the era-and declared them closed. All schools were shut, and public and race meetings banned. University examinations were suspended, and the Catholic bishop put all services on hold until better times.

There was now a full-scale epidemic, with no cures and little treatment. The Public Health Department lamely told those who feared they had caught the disease not to depress themselves: "Don't worry, don't worry, be cheery" it exhorted them in newspaper advertisements. Alcohol was widely prescribed as a cure, and in the face of the hostile temperance movement the health department distributed small bottles of stout, whisky and brandy from central depots.

Some people wore muslin masks, others bags of camphor around their necks. In an attempt to stave off the virus, panicking Aucklanders rushed to inhalation chambers set up throughout the city. There they breathed in zinc sulphate vapours-and breathed out the virus, inadvertently spreading it further. The deaths mounted.

Irma White was a child living in Freemans Bay. "One day I was sent to the shops and being a nosey child I was very interested on my way home to see a big furniture van... making its way down our street stopping every few yards. Men were bringing out of the houses what looked like rolled up rugs and carpets, which is what I thought they were, until I got closer and... then I saw feet sticking out. They were collecting bodies. I passed an empty shop at the top of Wellington Street and saw a card stuck in the window that said "For God's sake help us". I ran home and told my mother and she ran to our corner shop and rang the police. We heard later that the police found a family of five, a man, a wife and his three children, all dead or nearly dead, some lying on the floor."

Other Aucklanders told of seeing coffins lined up on the footpath outside one of the city's largest churches, St Matthewin-the-City, in Hobson Street. Makeshift hearses-commandeered drapers' and furniture vans-picked up bodies and delivered them to overwhelmed undertakers.

The official death toll was kept out of the news-a tactic reminiscent of war secrecy and supposed to contain panic. But day by day in the death columns of the newspapers the true story became apparent.

[Chapter Break]

During the first week in November, the news from the war front was increasingly optimistic. By the 4th, four of the enemy countries had capitulated and it was clearly only a matter of time before Germany also gave in. Then, on November 8, a cable arrived. Germany, it said, had signed an armistice. The news was posted outside the office of the New Zealand Herald in Queen Street, and within hours, as one spectator observed: "As if by magic, Queen Street just filled with people. It was one mass of laughing, crying, coughing and obviously sick people-the feeling of elation in the air that morning was just marvellous."

According to another: "Auckland just went mad, bells, sirens, shouts, cheers... a glad bedlam. Strangers hugged one another and I don't think staid Auckland had ever witnessed such crowds and happy abandon before."

But it was a mistake-the news of the armistice was false. Aucklanders weren't to learn this for some hours, however, and by then every rule for trying to curb the epidemic had been broken. Come mid-afternoon, police had moved into the hotels to send the revellers home. Proprietors were told they would be prosecuted if they didn't close their bars. People drifted dejectedly back to their houses and the following day the Herald reported: "Today the city wears a deserted and gloomy appearance, not improved by the constant rush of ambulances and relief cars."

On November 12, when news of a genuine armistice arrived and New Zealanders all around the country poured onto the streets to rejoice, Aucklanders were barred from celebrating in public and forced to stay at home. That was the blackest day of all for the city, as the flu reached its peak. On that one day 83 people died. Normally in November there were around a hundred burials in Auckland. In November 1918 there were 1028. Bodies were laid out in Victoria Park to await the funeral trains to Waikumete.

By the time the flu left the city the following month, 1128 out of a metropolitan population of 133,712 had died-7.6 people out of every 1000. Some of the smaller centres would easily outstrip this grim statistic.

Nightcaps, in Southland, was home to 718 people, some living on farms surrounding the main settlement. In a few short weeks, 33 of them died-a death rate of 45.9 per thousand. At one stage, according to reports, of all the men only two were not ill. One woman resident would recall commandeered cars taking the sick from Nightcaps to Riverton hospital "and bringing the dead back on the return journey." Was the high death rate a result of the town's men being mainly miners and therefore susceptible because of the generally poor condition of their lungs? More likely, researchers think, is that with everyone sick the dying townspeople simply couldn't get the help they needed to stay alive.

A fast response from community organisations seemed to be critical for survival, and one good thing to have come out of the war was an efficient network of War Relief Committees. When the flu struck, many of these simply changed their name to Epidemic Relief Committee and stepped in.

Wellington's residents were not well organized, nor were its volunteers as willing as others around the country. One Dominion correspondent wrote that while his volunteers were nearing exhaustion, "the courts of a fashionable city tennis club were thronged with fit young men and women who could have been helping-moral shirkers in the midst of an emergency."

Many Wellington doctors became sick, and by Armistice Day the city was as afflicted as Auckland at its worst. Wellingtonians were told to hang a white cloth out of a window or on their gate if they needed help. As one doctor reported: "It was not at all unusual to walk into a house and find three or four people in bed in different rooms with one or two dying or dead." All schools and public places were closed. Mail trucks were commandeered to carry 16 bodies at a time to Karori Cemetery, and funerals passed through the streets with Armistice bunting still fluttering. By the time the epidemic waned, in mid-December, it had claimed 757 lives, and with 7.9 deaths per 1000, the capital had suffered the highest death rate of all the cities.

Able-bodied citizens weren't above profiteering from the situation. Fruiterers sold lemons at many times the normal price. When this happened up the line at Featherston, soldiers smashed and commandeered a fruiterer's stall and reduced the lemons to their old price.

Christchurch and Dunedin were better prepared for the flu than the North Island cities had been, but Christchurch still decided to go ahead with its annual race carnival and A & P show. Carnival Week was famous throughout New Zealand, with hundreds from the North Island travelling south to join in the fun. It was the high point of the year for many country people -along with the hunt club ball, held at the same time.

The carnival was at Addington Raceway, the A & P show right next door, at the showgrounds. On Friday November 8, therefore-the day of the false armistice announcement-there was a good crowd on hand. People mingled and celebrated until deteriorating weather and lack of confirmation of the war's end dampened their spirits. The epidemic took grip through that week, but amazingly, given the reports of deaths from around the country, the celebratory procession on actual Armistice Day also went ahead, with thousands of onlookers sneezing and coughing as the floats passed by. The crowds stayed on in Cathedral Square, and when flu sufferers in nearby hotels complained that the noise was making them still sicker, police tried to send partygoers home. The revellers were having none of it, though, and the day ended in a riot, with police retreating down Hereford Street under a barrage of stones.

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During Carnival Week, newspapers reported that "the city's hotels are like hospitals, full of the sick and dying..." Christchurch hospital admitted 722 patients, of whom 232 died. In Dunedin, of 701 patients hospitalised, 172 died. In Southland, 491 perished-which, with 8.2 deaths per 1000, represented the highest regional death rate in the country.

Looking back, it's clear that South Islanders could have escaped the flu if they had simply stopped all interisland ferry crossings. Elsewhere, efforts at isolation paid off. At Te Araroa, on the East Cape, shotgun-toting locals manned roadblocks to make sure no one passed in or out. Coromandel residents did the same, anyone with a temperature being sent back to Thames-which meant that Coromandel had no deaths but Thames had 50. In addition, a quarantine centre was established on nearby Jones Island for all passengers arriving from Auckland by steamer.

[Chapter Break]

Maori suffered heavily during the epidemic. Of an estimated population of 51,000, 2160 died-a death rate of 42.3 per 1000, seven times the overall European death rate. Maori have always been particularly susceptible to respiratory diseases, and in 1918 they still lived mainly in the country and therefore away from hospitals and doctors. They had been somewhat isolated from the rounds of mild flu that passed through the cities and towns on a regular basis every spring and winter, and this may have made them even more vulnerable. When the November epidemic hit, rural Maori communities were often unable to cope, with nearly every adult down in some settlements.

At Mangatawhiri, in the northern Waikato, confused and sick adults tried to help each other, but lacking any useful knowledge they could only watch helplessly as those around them died hourly. Out of 200 adults, Queen Te Puea's future husband, Tumokai Katipa, was one of only three who did not become ill when the flu struck: "Nobody knew what they were doing. One person told us not to drink water and we believed it for a while. When one of the ones who were ill went mad and jumped into the water and drank water frantically, he got better. Others, my sister among them, were crying out for water. And we didn't give them any. And they died. We just didn't know what we should have done."

Afterwards, Te Puea made an epic trip down the Waikato River gathering all the orphans and old people who had nobody left to look after them. She took them back to Ngaruawahia, to Turangawaewae Marae, where the more than 100 orphans became the core of the Kingitanga, or Maori king movement.

The epidemic tested Maori-Pakeha relations. The Minister of Health forbad tangi, with their large gatherings, even though European funerals were still allowed. In Christchurch and Auckland, railways were told to do "everything within their power" to stop any Maori from travelling-an injunction that extended to the member for Northern Maori, who, on his way back to Parliament after flu-related duties in his constituency, was refused a ticket at Auckland.

Commenting on the lack of support among Pakeha for Maori in south Taranaki, the Hawera Star observed: "People will recollect the persuasive eloquence which assured the Maoris that we were all brothers when it was a question of going out to fight the Hun. Has this relationship ceased now the war is won?"

The war had already depleted the upper orders of many iwi, and the flu epidemic would claim another layer of future leaders. Yet one unexpected outcome of the disaster was the emergence of both a new Maori leader and a new Maori religion that would have a profound and lasting influence. On November 8, 1918, at his home 20 km south of Wanganui, wheat farmer Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana was sitting on his verandah. On that clear sunny afternoon, Ratana saw a cloud approaching his house from the direction of the sea. A voice announced the presence of the Archangel Michael and charged Ratana with the mission of uniting the Maori tribes under one God. They were to abandon the superstitions of the past and forsake the harmful ways of the tohunga, or traditional priests. They were to put aside tribal rivalries and worship the God of the Old and New Testaments.

This was the culmination of a number of visions Ratana had experienced since 1914, and proved the catalyst for him to become one of Maoridom's most influential spiritual leaders. He became a healer, and eventually more than 2000 people claimed to have been cured by him. In 1925, at the Ratana Pa that had grown up around his house, he put his spiritual seal on the new religion. Eighteen months later, volunteers completed construction of a temple there.

Whether Ratana's November 8 vision was the result of delirium induced by the flu isn't clear. But he was ill, and when he recovered he found himself surrounded by dead and dying whanau. His vision coincided with the peak of flu deaths in Wanganui, and his healings formed the basis for his followers' trust in him as their leader. Each year on November 8, the temple is the scene of a commemorative feast.

As spring became summer, the epidemic ran its course, burning itself out as the supply of new victims was exhausted. As quickly as it had begun, it was over.

By mid-December most cities and towns had limped back to a wounded normality, and-oddly-people carried on almost as if nothing had happened. The country turned to welcoming home the living from the war, to Christmas celebrations, and to peacetime. But behind closed doors many families were left shattered, and the season of good cheer that year was bleak.

Now, decades later, it's hard not to be confronted with memories of World War I, most cities and towns having erected monuments in memory of the fallen. But of the flu epidemic there is almost no trace-no stone memorials, very little in print, and almost no public memory. There is nothing heroic about dying of the flu.

[Chapter Break]

Clearly the 1918 flu was a monster, the likes of which had not been seen before. It was a brand-new disease; hence no one had antibodies to the virus, meaning it hit with the deadliness of a shark let loose in a public swimming pool. Dr Lance Jennings, of the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences, is a clinical virologist and the architect of New Zealand's influenza-control and pandemic-preparedness strategies. I asked him if another flu epidemic that lethal could strike again. His answer was straightforward: "Yes. In 1997 we had the bird flu outbreak in Hong Kong, where influenza crossed species directly from birds. This avian virus infected 18 people and killed six before authorities culled all the birds that were potential carriers. That's a 33 per cent death rate. The same thing happened in 2003-a bird virus crossed directly from poultry to humans in Belgium. Again authorities managed to curb it by culling 30 million potential carrier birds. These viruses have been called the nasty bastards of the flu world. If they had managed to cross with one that travelled easily from person to person, we could have had a repeat of 1918 proportions."

In experiments reported at the end of June 2004, Chinese scientists tested how readily samples of bird-flu virus collected from ducks between 1999 and 2002 infected mammals. The more recent samples made mice much sicker than did the samples collected four or five years ago. It is suspected that the viruses are shuffling between birds and pigs-the two often live in close proximity in Asia-and becoming more adept at infecting mammals.

New Zealand is more prepared for a massive public health disaster than are many other countries. Being aware of its approach is critical, and it is the function of the WHO's surveillance and communication network to put the world on alert. New Zealand's Pandemic Committee has contingency plans for such an emergency. The sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) scare gave those plans a dusting off, but dealing with a deadly strain of flu would be much harder than containing SARS. As Jennings explains: "Flu is highly infectious as soon as the symptoms begin to appear. SARS only becomes highly infectious much later into the disease, when pneumonia develops, rather than at the onset of symptoms. You have time to get organized with SARS."

Flu becomes transmissible from one person to another one or two days after the first person has been infected. Adults can continue to pass it on for a further three to seven days, children for 10 days or more. And flu spreads at an astonishing speed. Take this example. In March 1977, an Alaskan flight with 54 passengers and crew was delayed by mechanical failure for three hours. Soon after boarding, one person developed flu symptoms, including a cough. While on the ground, most passengers chose to stay aboard the plane because of the extreme cold outside, and during this time there was no ventilation. Within 72 hours nearly three-quarters of the passengers had developed flu symptoms. On arrival at their destination, they started an outbreak in the city. Air travel has the potential to disseminate a disease to any corner of the globe within one or two days.

Even with early warnings of a new virus and impending pandemic, Dr Jennings goes on, "I doubt if we could isolate New Zealand. We would immediately strengthen our border controls. This might delay entry of the virus, but stop it coming in? No. Vaccines are our best protection against influenza, but there will probably be too little warning time to develop these before the disease gets here. And then our manufacturing capacity would probably be too meagre. WHO is trying to coordinate efforts to speed vaccine development, but at the moment we do not have vaccines capable of dealing with new strains waiting in the wings."

Antiviral drugs would be useful for combating all strains of flu that might hit, but once symptoms are evident it is almost too late for these to work. It would be best to take them in anticipation of catching the disease, but that would mean dishing them out to everyone. "We wouldn't have enough of them," Jennings says bluntly.

Governments have been slow to recognize that stockpiles of these drugs would be a good idea, even though WHO has recommended them. The supply would be rapidly outstripped by demand throughout the world, and the more powerful countries where the drugs are made would undoubtedly be first in the queue.

Antibiotics-there were none in 1918-would deal with the bacterial pneumonia that often follows initial flu symptoms, but they wouldn't touch viral pneumonia.

Would we have enough hospital beds? Would we have enough respirators? Probably not. Even normal yearly flu outbreaks tax hospitals to their limits. In 1996 Christchurch hospital had to restrict its operating schedules for three weeks because it was overloaded with seasonal flu cases-and that was with an epidemic only marginally more severe than usual.

The powers of the state can be called on under the 1956 Health Act, which is being updated. But who would halt inbound tourism, for instance, or pull the plug on the Super 12 final? Who would be brave enough to face the slew of lawsuits that could follow?

Such measures would not be purely a matter of protecting public health, but would have a major political and social impact also. And doesn't that have remarkable parallels with the dilemma of whether to allow Niagara to berth all those years ago?

Magazine

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As a hopeful world waited for an end to hostilities late in 1918, an influenza epidemic of unparalleled ferocity swept the globe, killing tens of millions in just a few months. In Auckland, so many died so quickly that 400 were buried with only a single headstone in Waikumete Cemetery.

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'Stay in your bubble' didn't exist 100 years ago, but our ancestors would want us to know how essential it is to do so, says Jai Breitnauer.
It was a warm but slightly grey January day in 2019 when I pulled the car over to the side of SH1, just south of Temuka. Although it was the middle of the school holidays, the road was relatively quiet. My husband was asleep (this is why I drive!) and my kids were engaged in some backseat game of Rock, Paper, Scissors that now involved blaster rays and being sat on by mountains. They didn't notice as I slipped out of the car and stood on the corner of Huirapa Street.

Arowhenua is a small settlement, even by Aotearoa's standards. Behind me was the white façade of the Holy Trinity Anglican Church, built in 1931; opposite me, the arch of the war memorial. All around were the hallmark flat fields of rural Canterbury, while way down Huirapa street sat the marae. Although I'd never been here before, I was aware that it had barely changed from a century ago, when it was just a small pā at the end of a muddy road with a community of 130 Māori living traditionally, in close quarters. I knew this because I'd read, and written, about Arowhenua while researching my book about Spanish flu.

Officially, Arowhenua comes under the umbrella of Temuka, which in 1918 had a total of 1,633 residents. But when you are looking at the impact of Spanish flu on New Zealand, it's important to make the distinction between the two locales. This is because while statistics don't lie, they often tell more than one story - and although only 17 people in Temuka died of flu, nine of them came from Arowhenua. Nine people out of 130 equals a death rate of 69.2 per 1000. In contrast, the Pākehā death rate was just 5.5 per 1000.

Spanish flu appeared mysteriously toward the end of the Great War, wiping out an estimated 100 million people worldwide over 24 months. I spent most of 2018 writing about it, and it was a weird time for me. I was living rurally with my family, and my older son was very unwell. I spent most days isolated in a cabin with a beautiful view of the sea, and my head filled with the death and destruction of this virus.

I hadn't prepared myself for how much I would be affected by the stories I uncovered during my research. The young woman in Budapest who died sitting on a bench in the middle of the city, because emergency services were too overwhelmed to help her and onlookers were too scared. The men working the mines in South Africa who plunged to their deaths in an elevator cage after the operator momentarily blacked out from his flu symptoms. The boy in Washington whose parents, funeral home directors, had coffins stacked through their home because the grave diggers couldn't bury them fast enough. But of all the heartbreak that spanned the globe from Alaska to Tasmania, it is the suffering of our Māori brothers and sisters that weighs heaviest.

Geoffrey Rice, emeritus professor of history at Canterbury University, researched the impact of Spanish flu on New Zealand extensively during the 1980s, gathering many first-hand accounts. He calculated that Māori were seven times more likely than Europeans in New Zealand to die of Spanish flu. Measles, whopping cough and land wars had already more than halved the pre-European Māori population. Poverty and inequality wasn't helping either, and general immunity to European diseases among tangata whenua was low. The public health decisions made when Spanish flu arrived in New Zealand in the spring of 1918 put many lives at risk, but they placed Māori, as well as lower working class Pākehā, right in the firing line.

The arrival of flu here also coincided with the Armistice. It was a time of celebration. The war was finally coming to an end and people, having been cloistered away through years of hardship, were taking to the streets in joy. Parades were planned, agricultural shows were well-attended, people were gathering together in mutual relief. And through those gatherings the disease spread like wildfire. In Temuka, the 17 deaths came after the Armistice day celebrations - an event that went ahead even though regional authorities were aware of Spanish flu.

In Auckland, almost 8% of the population died from the flu outbreak. If that happened today, there would be 136,000 bodies to bury. Although the city's official Armistice day celebration was cancelled, a false announcement a few days earlier on November 8 had seen people dancing in the streets for hours. This was in spite of the influenza outbreak that had been systematically infecting citizens since late October. People had a casual attitude toward flu; it was not seen a serious disease. But the consequences were dire.

We can to some extent forgive our forebears for their mistakes. The world was at war. Poverty was rife. Communication was limited. Plus, in 1918, we still didn't really know what viruses were. It was not until the electron microscope was invented in the 1930s that we were able to see and study them for the first time. Decision makers were always on the back foot, making policy to fight fires rather than prevent them from starting.

Today, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, we cannot make the argument that we weren't fully informed. We have decades of social history and substantial epidemiological research around viruses to help the government make decisions. The public understanding of what viruses are is high. Thanks to the Health Act 1920, ushered in by the Spanish flu disaster, New Zealand has built a public health system that is relatively robust, and has many dedicated healthcare professionals at the ready. And then there is the advice that wasn't understood or well communicated a century ago - stay at home, wash your hands, keep two metres away from others if you do have to go out, and report symptoms early.

So, now it is over to us, the public. The outcome really does lie in our own hands, so remember: he waka eke noa. We can beat this together, if we stick to the plan.
Jai Breitnauer is the author of the book The Spanish Flu Epidemic and its Influence on History (2019). The Spinoff Weekly compiles the best stories of the week - an essential guide to modern life in New Zealand, emailed out on Monday evenings.

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The lessons New Zealand learned from Spanish flu

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'Stay in your bubble' didn't exist 100 years ago, but our ancestors would want us to know how essential it is to do so, says Jai Breitnauer. It was a warm but slightly grey January day in 2019 when I pulled the car over to the side of SH1, just south of Temuka.

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University of Canterbury Emeritus history professor Geoffrey Rice is the author of Black Flu 1918: the Story of New Zealand's Worst Public Health Disaster, Canterbury University Press, 2017. On the 100-year anniversary of the flu that wiped out thousands of Kiwis, he recounts the misery.

It took four years for the First World War to kill 18,000 New Zealand soldiers.

Yet in just six weeks, from early November to mid-December 1918, at least 9000 New Zealand civilians and soldiers died from influenza and pneumonia in the so-called 'Spanish Flu' pandemic.

This was New Zealand's share of a global calamity. The most reliable estimates place the death toll at between 50 and 60 million, or about 3 per cent of the global population at that time.

We know nothing about large parts of Africa and Asia, and may never know, for simple lack of evidence. Sixty million dead would be about three times the total death toll from the First World War, soldiers and civilians combined.

Many people thought the 1918 flu was a return of the bubonic plague because the cyanosis of severe influenza and pneumonia turned the victims' bodies black.

READ MORE:
*One hundred years after the Spanish Flu, where are the memorials?
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*'Black November' deserves to be remembered the way Gallipoli is

It was a seriously bizarre pandemic. Influenza normally kills only the vulnerable, the very young and the frail elderly, or those with lungs damaged by TB or other respiratory diseases. But this A/H1N1 virus (now commonly known as 'Swine Flu') killed mostly young adults aged 25 to 45.

Children and teenagers seemed virtually immune to the 1918 flu, as did the older middle-aged. The latest explanation posits that the cohort born during the previous flu pandemic, the so-called 'Russian' flu of 1889-93, suffered from compromised immune systems that over reacted when confronted by a different flu virus in 1918. This is a neat and plausible hypothesis, but it doesn't explain all of the quirky and unusual features of the 1918 flu.

Laura Spinney's recent book Pale Rider: the Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World describes the 1918 flu as a 'Protean' event, massive and complex, affecting different places in different ways. Some countries got off lightly (most notably Australia, thanks to a strict maritime quarantine) while others such as India and Indonesia lost millions.

Indigenous peoples suffered worst of all. Western Samoa, then under New Zealand military control, lost 22 per cent of its people, while American Samoa, protected by maritime quarantine, had no flu cases at all. John Ryan McLane's recent research has found an even bleaker picture in Western Samoa. The loss of adults and disruption to agriculture caused a famine in 1919, and the population dropped by a third between 1917 and 1920.

The most striking discovery was the great disparity between Pakeha and Maori death rates. New Zealanders of European descentdied at a rate of about 6 per 1000, whereas Maori died at a rate of 42 per 1000, or seven times the Pakeha rate. While virtually all Pakeha deaths were registered in , only about two-thirds of Maori deaths were officially recorded.

Reports from relief parties visiting pa and kainga suggest many deaths were not recorded. Maori flu monuments in Northland and Hawke's Bay support this view: fewer than half of the names can be found in the death registers.

Resistance to conscription and the boycott of the 1916 census by Waikato Maori further complicate the picture, but it seems likely that Maori mortality in the 1918 flu has been underestimated and was more like 2500. That would push their death rate up to 49 per 1000, or nearly five per cent, which is similar to the death rate among indigenous Fijians, and eight times the Pakeha death rate.

Why were Maori so much more at risk of death in the 1918 flu? There is no single simple answer. A combination of factors made for a perfect storm. The Maori population was still largely rural, and many remote settlements may have missed the immunity conferred by the mild first wave of the pandemic.

Land loss had impoverished many Maori communities, traditional food-gathering had been curtailed, and standards of nutrition and housing were generally low. A communal life style, with crowded sleeping whare, facilitated the spread of droplet infection. Many Maori had lungs damaged by widespread TB and tobacco smoking. Traditional herbal medicines were ineffective against pneumonia.

How did the flu get into New Zealand? At the time it was commonly believed that the passenger ship Niagara had brought the flu, along with Prime Minister Massey, returning from a war conference. His political enemies accused him of pulling strings to avoid quarantine.

But this has been shown to be a mistaken myth. Auckland was still in the grip of the mild first wave influenza, which lasted from mid-September to mid-October. The most likely sources of new infection in October 1918 were troopships returning with hundreds of sick and wounded soldiers from camps in southern England where the severe second wave of the pandemic had been raging. Many were now symptomless carriers of the virus. They scattered to their homes, all over New Zealand, and a fortnight later severe influenza burst out almost simultaneously up and down the country.

This coincided with the end of the war, and in many towns people gathering to celebrate the Armistice unwittingly spread the severe flu even more widely. Influenza was declared a notifiable disease on November 6 and schools, bars, billiard saloons and dance halls were closed. Very soon shops and offices and factories were also closing for lack of staff and customers.

The whole country seemed to shut down for a fortnight in the middle of November, and streets were deserted apart from hurrying ambulances or volunteers door-knocking to find the worst cases. Temporary influenza wards were set up in schools and church halls - even under racecourse grandstands in Hastings, Reefton and Gore - and soup kitchens were hastily arranged to feed the feeble convalescents. Boy Scouts and Girl Guides helped to distribute food and medicine to stricken households.

So many people were dying at the same time that undertakers could not cope, and councils stepped in to commandeer trucks and vans to take coffins to the cemeteries, where teams of men were digging graves. In Auckland special trains took coffins from the city to Waikumete Cemetery twice a day for a fortnight to clear the backlog. Some people think that the large open area of unmarked graves at Waikumete is a mass grave. Not so. All victims were buried individually in numbered plots with ministers of religion officiating. But these were mostly paupers' graves, and no headstones were ever erected.

Auckland certainly had the first of the flu pandemic in New Zealand, but not the worst of it. The final count was 1128 Pakeha flu deaths in Auckland, a death rate of 7.6 per 1000. Wellington lost 773 residents, at a rate of 8 per 1000. Christchurch lost 458 at a rate of 4.9, and Dunedin even fewer, 273 at 3.9 per 1000.

The impact was extremely diverse and uneven. Some towns such as Cambridge, Tauranga, New Plymouth, Nelson, Westport and Timaru had low death rates, possibly because they had gained more immunity from the mild first wave, while others such as Hastings, Dannevirke, Hawera, Masterton, Amberley, Kaiapoi, Temuka, Oamaru, Winton and Invercargill had high death rates.

A few unlucky places had exceptionally high death rates: Huntly, Inglewood, Taumarunui, Taihape, Denniston, Owaka, Winton. The worst Pakeha death rate was at Nightcaps in Southland, where nearly all the adults were stricken and left without care: they suffered a Maori death rate, 25 per 1000.

Fortunately it is in the nature of influenza outbreaks that they peak rapidly and die away almost as quickly. Most places were clear of fresh flu cases by early December 1918, and the economic effects were negligible. But for thousands of families life would never be the same again. Over 6400 Pakeha children had lost a parent, and 135 had lost both parents.

New Zealand coped well with the 1918 flu. Neighbours helped neighbours, and communities organised themselves promptly to help the stricken. We must remember, however, that New Zealand had been brain-washed by four years of wartime propaganda to volunteer and 'do your duty'.

How well would New Zealand cope with a similar crisis today? Though we have an excellent Pandemic Plan, mandating a 'whole of government' response and incorporating many of the lessons learned from 1918, New Zealand has changed and all sorts of things could go wrong.

The best advice is to be prepared and self-reliant, with stocks of face masks, aspirin and paracetamol, bedpans and spare sheets. And be nice to your neighbours. They just might save your life in a future pandemic.

Extracts from Geoffrey Rice's forthcoming book, That Terrible Time: New Zealand Eyewitnesses of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

Maurice O'Callaghan, St John ambulance volunteer

One house I went to was in Grey Lynn, where we found a man who had been dead three days. His body was in the bed, and his wife was lying in the same bed, not dead but driven out of her mind by the fact that she was lying in bed with a dead husband and could not get up. We had to get the husband buried and an order from the health authorities for the woman to be placed in Avondale Mental Hospital.

Grace Stewart, from Papakura

My father, myself and my twin sisters caught the flu. Another sister who was delicate nursed the twins whilst my mother nursed father and me, and she never caught it. I was then about 17 years of age. Until then I was very healthy and robust, never even knew what a headache was.

For myself I never regained my usual health... I was in bed for six weeks. My fingers and fingernails went black. My tongue was covered in some sort of fungus half an inch thick, which I would scrape off and then rinse my mouth every morning. The pain in the whole of my body was unbearable. One of the twins had a very severe nose bleeding, and the doctor said that saved her life.

Jean Forrester, St John volunteer who helped at the temporary influenza hospital in the Seddon Memorial Technical College in Auckland

I was there when my eldest brother died at Kilbryde, another emergency hospital...I was assigned to the Art Room on the first floor, which was tiered like a lecture theatre. All day we went up and down those steps, bed-making, sponging the patients, working between the beds and doing whatever was required . . . [One man] was delirious and kept asking if it was four o'clock, as he was going to die then. Four o'clock came and went but he did not die then. He just couldn't accept that he hadn't died, and became so deranged in his ravings that he was removed to the mental hospital.

Irma Pickett's father worked for the Auckland Harbour Board

One day before I got sick I had been sent to the shops on a message. I was a very nosy child so I was interested on the way home to see a big furniture van stop in Wellington St and men were bringing out of houses what seemed to be rolled up rugs, and then I saw feet sticking out at one end.

Another time on my way home I was passing an old shop and saw a note in pencil stuck to the door which said 'For God's sake help us.' I told my mother who rang the police. I heard later that a family of five were dead, some found on the floor. The house at the back of the shop had to be hosed out by the Fire Brigade

Another time I was told not to go near Victoria Park. Needless to say curiosity got the better of me, and I went to see why. There were bodies wrapped in canvas lying in the grandstand, waiting to be buried . . . My late husband lived in Greenlane near the Ellerslie racecourse and he told me that a hospital was set up under the big grandstand there and that bodies were put out on the grandstand seats, the same as at Victoria Park.

Bert Ingley was a cadet in the Customs Department in Wellington

I woke from a most disturbed sleep with some sort of irritation in my nose, and when I switched on the light I found that blood was beginning to pour from both nostrils. I tumbled out of bed to the wash stand, half filled the basin with water from the jug, placed the basin on the chair beside the bed, and got back under the blankets.

After a while the bleeding stopped, but by this time the basin appeared to be full of blood. You can imagine the horror of my landlady and her husband, who had heard the commotion and came in to see how I was. I believe the lady almost fainted...The only after-effect was the shedding of all my hair. I became quite bald for a time. I also became extremely hungry during my convalescence, and lived only for food and yet more food.

Edith Chapman, from Waimate, South Canterbury

You must have heard about Dr Cruickshank, she was a wonderful doctor in Waimate who died of the flu in 1918. Such a tragedy, to lose her own life after helping to save other people. I heard this funny story about her, that shows how hard she worked. She went to one place and found she'd left her stethoscope in the buggy, so she put her ear to this man's chest and told him to count out loud while she listened to his lungs. So he started off, 'One, two, three, four' and so on. And she fell sound asleep! She woke up to hear him still going, 'Nine hundred and ninety seven, nine hundred and ninety eight . . .' I think he was one of the survivors. But there weren't many funny stories like this one. That was a terrible time.

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New Zealand's worst disease-disaster: 100 years since the 1918 influenza pandemic

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University of Canterbury Emeritus history professor Geoffrey Rice is the author of Black Flu 1918: the Story of New Zealand's Worst Public Health Disaster, Canterbury University Press, 2017. On the 100-year anniversary of the flu that wiped out thousands of Kiwis, he recounts the misery.

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Influenza Pandemic | NZHistory, New Zealand history online

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The lethal influenza pandemic that struck New Zealand between October and December 1918 killed about 9000 people in two months. No other event has claimed so many New Zealand lives in such a short time.

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In the early 21st century, anxiety over the danger of Influenza A virus subtypes H5N1 (avian flu) and H1N1 (swine flu), and the COVID-19 coronavirus, has revived interest in New Zealand's worst disease outbreak, the lethal influenza pandemic that struck between October and December 1918. In two months New Zealand lost about half as many people to influenza as it had in the whole of the First World War. No other event has killed so many New Zealanders in such a short time.

Many people believed that this severe form of influenza was borne by 'a deadly new virus' that arrived on the Royal Mail liner Niagara on 12 October, but this is unlikely to have been the case. However the pandemic arose, by the time it eased in December about 9000 New Zealanders had died. Māori suffered heavily, with about 2500 deaths. But death did not occur evenly among either Māori or Pākehā. Some communities were decimated, while others escaped largely unscathed. The only places struck with uniform severity were military camps.

There were consistencies, though, in the ways in which the country responded to the crisis. Committees were established to coordinate relief efforts, and areas were divided into blocks or districts, each with its own depot or bureau. Many public facilities and businesses closed, and public events and gatherings were postponed. With the medical workforce already stretched due to the war, volunteers filled the gaps, whether in their own household or in their local community.

In the aftermath, the public sought answers from the government. What they got was a major reorganisation in the form of the 1920 Health Act, which Geoffrey Rice, author of Black November: the 1918 influenza pandemic in New Zealand, describes as 'the most useful legacy' of the pandemic.

COVID-19 (novel coronavirus)

See the Ministry of Health website for information about New Zealand's response to COVID-19 (novel coronavirus).

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In the early 21st century, anxiety over the danger of Influenza A virus subtypes H5N1 (avian flu) and H1N1 (swine flu), and the COVID-19 coronavirus, has revived interest in New Zealand's worst disease outbreak, the lethal influenza pandemic that struck between October and December 1918.

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In 1917 and early 1918, the H1N1 strain of influenza swept the world, reaching New Zealand in early summer. It was carried home by soldiers returning from Europe at the end of the First World War. Over 8,000 people died.

The influenza epidemic became New Zealand's forgotten disaster, as people tried to forget the horror of the First World War. Healthy adults proved particularly vulnerable while the young and old, with weaker systems, seemed to have a better chance of survival.

The pandemic begins

The 1918 epidemic appears to have had its source in Haskell County, Kansas. It spread through military recruits and thence to the European theatre of war. Halfway through the elaborate burial service of the first soldier-victim at Ede, Holland, the bugler playing the Last Post collapsed. The military chaplain said gravely: My friends, this is the first. Which of us will be the next? . A medic saw men

... literally choking to death with pulmonary oedema, the lungs so swamped with blood, foam and mucus that the faces were grey and the lips purple, and each desperate breath was like the quacking of a duck .

War helps the spread

From the battlefields, the scourge spread throughout the world.

The Great War was not the cause but a complicating factor in the advance of the plague. Soldiers weakened by mustard gas, shell-shock, injury and illness were being sent to field hospitals or their homes. This population was susceptible to and could easily spread influenza.

The Armistice was signed at a time when the illness was most rife, and excited civilians revelled in what became dance-of-death celebrations.

Calling it names

To Spaniards the epidemic was 'the Naples soldier', to Germans it was the 'blitz katarrh' and to the Japanese, 'wrestler's fever' . English soldiers fighting in France used the term 'Flanders grippe' , while in Hong Kong, Western wits mimicked the pidgin English of the bazaars and used the term 'the-too-muchee-hot-inside-sickness' .

Each country blamed the illness on other nations but, eventually, the name 'Spanish flu' was adopted by all. The reason for the name can be readily traced. Nations at war practised censorship, but Spain, a neutral country, did not. It reported the epidemic in detail, especially when, in May, King Alfonso XIII became ill. Thus was the myth born that the plague originated in Spain .

The image of a woman to personify a disease or pandemic dates back to medieval and, perhaps, classical times . When disease struck Russia, which had pulled out of the war, a Pravda journalist commented: Ispanka [the Spanish lady] is in town . Perhaps the journalist knew and was making an oblique reference to the traditional Irish song, 'The Spanish lady'. However, this woman, who washed and dried her feet, in public, by candlelight, at midnight, would seem to have been eccentric rather than malevolent . The epidemic inspired a children's skipping rope song:

I had a little bird.
Its name was Enza.
I opened up the window
and in-flu-enza.

Influenza reaches New Zealand

By mid-November 1918, influenza had gripped New Zealand. Which ship carried the deadly flu to this country has never been proved conclusively.

The Niagara often gets the blame. The Niagara sailed from North America and, on 12 October, docked in Auckland. She carried soldiers and civilians, including Prime Minister William Massey and his deputy, Sir Joseph Ward. It was widely believed that the vessel introduced a new, septic and pneumonic form of the influenza virus to which the population had no immunity; that the use of quarantine regulations could have prevented this; and that, on the instruction of his political superiors, Public Health minister George Warren Russell allowed passengers to disembark .

In fact, the Niagara berthed well before the arrival of virulent influenza. Neither Massey nor Ward sought preferential treatment. Of its complement, only a few succumbed.

In October, six other troopships brought soldiers home. Influenza has an incubation period of about 48 hours, yet in Auckland it was a fortnight, and elsewhere a month, before the plague reached its peak. Bacteriologist Robert Mackgill argued that the plague was the result not of a new super-flu but of a mutation in the existing disease .

The infection spreads

By November there were reports of outbreaks of flu in other parts of New Zealand. But the Department of Health still had not restricted travel around the country, and the infection kept spreading. People came down with the symptoms of the flu very quickly, sometimes collapsing within a matter of hours, and even dying the same day. The only way to avoid catching the virus was by keeping out of contact with other people. There were no flu vaccinations available, and no antibiotics for those who fell ill.

One of the worst effects of the influenza was on the lungs, which could lead to pneumonia, and, more often than not, death. Infected patients found it hard to breathe, and often there was not enough oxygen in their blood. Because of this some of the victims turned a purple-black in colour after they died.

Inhalation chambers were set up so that people could breathe in fumes which were supposed to help clear their lungs. This method of prevention was not proved to be effective, and by bringing people together, it may have helped spread the infection.

Between one third and one half of the population of New Zealand was infected with the flu. In some places the death rate was as high as 80% of the town's population, while in others there were very few deaths. Military camps, where the soldiers were crammed together in their living quarters, had higher death rates than places where living conditions were less cramped.

Many doctors and nurses had been overseas with the military forces, and went they came back home several fell ill themselves. Medical supplies began to run low. Hospitals became full very quickly, and emergency hospitals were set up in schools and church halls, and even in tents in some places. Soup kitchens were organised to feed those people unable to help themselves.

The health czar

Because senior health officials were overseas or sick, Christchurch politician 'Ricketty' Russell, aging but feisty and capable, became health czar.

He co-opted the Defence Department which established temporary hospitals and sent medical teams to badly-hit areas. Russell's November 12 telegram to all local authorities set out a practical system of relief organisation for them to adopt. Six days earlier he had declared influenza a notifiable infectious disease, meaning that district health authorities could use special powers to deal appropriately with persons, places, ships, animals or things .

Influenza in major centres

In Auckland, officials tried to restrict the spread of disease by closing public venues and keeping people at home. In Wellington, the attempt to maintain an appearance of normality meant that such places often remained open . In Christchurch, schools and picture theatres were closed. However, no attempt was made to screen ferry passengers from the North Island who came to attend Show Week, the races and associated festivities.

On 12 November the Armistice was celebrated in Cathedral Square and Dunedin's Octagon; in both centres, the casualties mounted .

Christchurch folk were, as with people elsewhere, sprayed with zinc sulphate. Unique to Christchurch was the way that tramcars were parked and people instructed to pass through them, on the way being sprayed by the concoction. The medical profession remained divided as to whether the inhalation method was of value. Find out more about how Christchurch coped with the epidemic

Influenza in the countryside

The celebrations in Christchurch caused the epidemic to spread south. In the small towns of Canterbury, as in Christchurch, volunteers did sterling work. Three men - George Judson and Messrs Uden and Goodman - did the heavy laundry at the Temuka Influenza Hospital, freeing up women for nursing duties.

In the country towns a heavy burden fell on local doctors. Two Canterbury doctors, Dr Margaret Cruickshank (New Zealand's first woman general practitioner) of Waimate and Dr Charles Little of Waikari, died during the epidemic.

Epidemic reaches its height

At the height of the epidemic in November, for 2-3 weeks, ordinary life was impossible. Shops, offices and factories shut down without enough staff to keep them going, and schools, hotels and theatres were closed by order of the government. Because shipping from port to port around New Zealand came to a halt, many towns suffered from a shortage of basic supplies, such as flour and coal.

In some places it became impossible to hold proper funeral services for the victims of the influenza. Many undertakers and grave diggers were ill, and the number of victims too great to deal with. Coffins were made by volunteers.

By December the worst of the epidemic was over, and many who were ill began to recover.

The terrible toll

In all, the official total of deaths from the 1918 influenza epidemic (including New Zealand troops overseas) was 8,573 from a population of 1,150,509.

With some advance warning, preparation and organisation, Christchurch came off better than Auckland and Wellington (4.9 deaths per 1000 versus 7.6 for Auckland and 7.9 for Wellington). Doctors and nurses were among those who lost their lives. At least 14 doctors died from the flu.

The influenza took a terrible toll on Māori. Over 2,160 died (a death rate of 42.3 per 1000 compared with the European rate of 5.5. per 1000). The Māori settlement of Arowhenua near Temuka had 9 deaths out of a population of 130, a rate of 69.2 deaths per 1000).

The Epidemic Commission

G. W. Russell demanded that there be 'the most open inquiry' on the epidemic. A royal commission, commonly known as the Epidemic Commission, met. Its report, which was made public on 18 June 1919, acknowledged that the department was understaffed; nevertheless, it thought bureaucrats slow in reacting to the crisis.

As NZ Truth put it: the graves of many victims of the dreadful scourge are the monuments of incompetence . Bowing to public pressure, the commission accepted that the arrival of the Niagara was a substantial factor in the introduction of the epidemic... .

Aftermath

Retired judge Sir John Denniston, chair of the Epidemic Commission, suffered an attack of pleurisy and died of pneumonia in July 1919.

G. W. (Ricketty) Russell, once the darling of Christchurch's eastern suburbs, lost the Avon seat in the November 1919 general election. For the rest of his long life (he died in 1937), Russell defended his and his department's conduct during the crisis.

As a result of the Epidemic Commission in 1919 there were major reforms in the health system, the most important being the 1920 Health Act.

This was the world's worst recorded pandemic of influenza, in just four months killing more than 25 million people, or over twice the number killed in the fighting of the First World War. The other major disease epidemic in history was the Black Death of the fourteenth century, in which an estimated 55 million people died of bubonic plague in the course of four years.

The influenza epidemic became New Zealand's forgotten disaster, as people tried to forget the horror of the First World War.

More information and sources

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Footnotes

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In 1917 and early 1918, the H1N1 strain of influenza swept the world, reaching New Zealand in early summer. It was carried home by soldiers returning from Europe at the end of the First World War. Over 8,000 people died.&#013; &#013; The influenza epidemic became New Zealand's forgotten disaster, as people tried to forget the horror of the First World War.

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Ōmāio Marae sits nestled in the Bay of Plenty. At the beginning of the 20th Century, the area was home to a whaling and commercial farming community, all owned and managed by Te Whānau-ā-Apanui. As the Great War came to an end, everyone was eager to see their boys come home and families reunited. However, there was one passenger they were unaware of: H1N1. This novel strain of Influenza A was brought into New Zealand by returning military and medical forces, and the population was quickly overwhelmed.

The flu snuck into Ōmāio on November 8th, 1918 when "two men were sent from Maraenui to Ōpōtiki to get whiskey and cakes for a dance to be held at Maraenui that evening". The virus had already swept through Ōpōtiki, so when the men went to gather supplies they exposed themselves, and their community, to a deadly new strain of flu.

By the following Sunday, several attendees of the dance at Maraenui had come down with the illness. A week later, 137 people had caught it, and had been placed in strict isolation in bed for two weeks. Nine people were lost to this outbreak, six in Maraenui itself, and three in the greater Ōmāio area. The illness shut down the community entirely, as seen in the notice and report put out regarding the closure of the local native school.

Life changed in Aotearoa during the outbreak of Influenza in 1918. Though the war was over, many public celebrations of armistice were delayed until the following year, with public officials scared of increasing the spread of flu. In Auckland, public buildings such as schools were turned into temporary hospitals and morgues, including the recently constructed Northcote Infants School, and the Ellerslie Racecourse grandstand. Everyone was involved in helping the infirm, including the boy scouts, who ran errands for patients such as collecting prescriptions. Communities worked together in the spirit of national cooperation that had blossomed during the war. By uniting en masse and listening to government restrictions, the outbreak waned by December in New Zealand, though it still resulted in around 9000 deaths.

The 1918 pandemic also wreaked havoc across the world. The flu vaccine was another 20 years away, and advice for care included recommendations to drink borax, a bleach-based substance which we now understand to be highly toxic and harmful to humans. Public inhalation stations were set up to enable people to breathe in Zinc Sulphate, a herbicide now known to harm and even kill humans. Other recommendations included taking quinine, a treatment which is useful in combating malaria, though we now know it can cause several adverse side effects.

It was undoubtedly a scary time to live through. It is not dissimilar to what we are experiencing now. However, unlike those in 1918 we are fortunate to have the benefit of modern science, with ample knowledge and resources to find a way to respond to this crisis. Let's learn from the mistakes of our past. Don't break the bubble, even if it is for whiskey and cakes!

You can learn more about the 1918 influenza pandemic on NZ History and Te Ara.

You can discover more stories from our history by searching through our archives , and can even access some of our records from home , courtesy of our Digitisation Team.

Last modified on 04 May 2020 /

Authored by Digitisation Team

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Archives New Zealand || The 1918 influenza outbreak in new zealand

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Ōmāio Marae sits nestled in the Bay of Plenty. At the beginning of the 20th Century, the area was home to a whaling and commercial farming community, all owned and managed by Te Whānau-ā-Apanui. As the Great War came to an end, everyone was eager to see their boys come home and families reunited.

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On 2 August 1838, at Little Port Cooper, Captain Jean Langlois, a French whaler from Havre, negotiated with a number of Maori chiefs for the purchase of a portion (30,000 acres) of Banks Peninsula. In the following year, when Langlois returned to France, he set to work to market the property he had "acquired". After complex negotiations, groups of merchants in Nantes and Bordeaux reached agreement with him to form a company to establish a French settlement at Banks Peninsula. The Nanto-Bordelaise Co. was formed on 8 November 1839 and immediately entered into negotiations to secure Government support for the scheme. On 11 December 1839 King Louis-Philippe approved an agreement whereby the Government undertook to provide transport for 80 colonists who would found a French settlement at Akaroa, now renamed Port Louis-Philippe. In order to protect the colonists a warship was to be sent out in advance of the emigrant ship. Its commander would exercise the powers of Commissaire du Roi, both in regard to the proposed settlement and to French whalers working in New Zealand waters.

On 19 February 1840 the Commissaire du Roi, Captain Lavaud, sailed for New Zealand in the corvette Aube, while Langlois and the emigrants followed on 20 March in the Comte de Paris. When Lavaud reached the Bay of Islands in July he found that Governor Hobson had secured British sovereignty of the whole of the country in the previous May; moreover, by a separate act on 17 June, Bunbury had acquired similar rights over the South Island. Confronted with this fait accompli, Lavaud could only report the situation to his superiors and make his way to Akaroa to meet Langlois and superintend the establishment of the colonists in their new home. In the meantime, and in order that he might reinforce his prior British claim by an act of Government in the district, Hobson dispatched HMS Britomart with two Magistrates to Akaroa. Lavaud followed leisurely and arrived five days later than the Britomart. The Comte de Paris arrived on 17 August, two days after Lavaud. In this connection it must be admitted that the "race to Akaroa" between the Britomart and the Aube for the possession of the South Island is, as McLintock says, "nothing more than a particularly tenacious legend of the period" which has no basis in fact.

When Lavaud came to investigate the validity of Langlois's title to the land, he discovered that other Europeans held equally valid claims to parts of the territory. He also found that the Akaroa chiefs had not been consulted when the original deed was drawn up and that very few of the Maoris who had signed this had received the subsequent payments made by Langlois. The Akaroa Maoris were willing to sell their land, but resented any attempt to occupy it without payment. In order to avoid this difficulty Lavaud promised to arrange for the necessary payment, while the Maoris agreed to allow the settlers to occupy the site in the meantime.

On 27 August 1840, when the Britomart left, C. B. Robinson remained in the settlement as British Magistrate. He quickly established a modus vivendi with Lavaud and they worked harmoniously together. The former agreed not to display the British flag on shore pending a settlement of the question of sovereignty, while the latter agreed to provide what-ever force was needed to maintain law and order.

In the following years the settlement became firmly established and, as the soil proved to be extremely fertile, the colonists prospered. Lavaud's period of service at Akaroa expired on 18 January 1843 when he was succeeded by Post-Captain A. Bérard. He was the last Commissaire du Roi to hold office in New Zealand and with his departure on 10 April 1846 the formal connection between France and the Nanto-Bordelaise Co. settlement ceased.

During most of this period the company's land title remained unsettled. The Land Commissioners, Colonel Godfrey and Mathew Richmond, who investigated the matter, found it too complicated for them to solve. Accordingly, they merely recapitulated the evidence which Sir George Grey forwarded to London. There, after protracted negotiations, the company was awarded 4 acres for every £1 they could prove to have spent on the settlement. On 30 June 1849 the French company's remaining interests in New Zealand were bought by the New Zealand Company for £4,500.

Today, apart from a few French street names, there remains little to show Akaroa's origin as a French settlement. It is a county town within the Canterbury Provincial District and has a population of 630.

Akaroa is the South Island form of Whangaroa and the generally accepted meaning of both is the literal one, "long harbour".

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

OLC/1048 (Nanto-Bordelaise Company), National Archives

History of Canterbury, Vol. 1, Hight, J., Straubel, C. R. (joint editions) (1957)

Crown Colony Government in New Zealand, McLintock, A. H. (1958)

The French at Akaroa, Buick, T. K. (1928).

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In 1966 the first encyclopedia of New Zealand was published in three thick volumes. An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand was a critical and publishing success at the time, and has been used as a basic reference work about the country since then. We are proud to make it available online.

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Township 84 km south-east of Christchurch and about 25 km east of Little River. The resident population is slowly declining and more than 60% of the dwellings are holiday homes. The town sits on the eastern side of the splendid harbour from which it takes its name. Canterbury's oldest town, Akaroa was founded in August 1840 by French settlers. It has been suggested that French interest in New Zealand speeded up Britain's decision to annex New Zealand. By the time French settlers arrived, the Treaty of Waitangi between the British Crown and Māori chiefs had been signed. Akaroa has a fine collection of 19th-century cottages and houses. Once a fishing and farm service town, it now serves mainly holidaymakers and tourists. The French associations are evident in street names. About 5 km south is a small Māori settlement, Ōnuku, with a historic church and modern meeting house.

Meaning of place name

South Island variant of 'Whangaroa' meaning 'Long Harbour'. Originally spelt 'Hakaroa'.

Images and media for akaroa

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Akaroa | NZHistory, New Zealand history online

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Township 84 km south-east of Christchurch and about 25 km east of Little River. The resident population is slowly declining and more than 60% of the dwellings are holiday homes. The town sits on the eastern side of the splendid harbour from which it takes its name.

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The Moriori are the indigenous people of Rēkohu (Chatham Island) and Rangihaute (Pitt Island), the two largest islands in the Chatham group, 767 km south-east of mainland New Zealand. It was once believed that Moriori were a Melanesian people, but it is now thought that they share the same Polynesian ancestry as Māori people.

Current research indicates that Moriori came to the Chatham Islands from New Zealand about 1500. Moriori traditions, however, hold that there were already people on Rēkohu when the canoe voyagers arrived.

The dawn of existence (Ko matangi-ao)

Moriori creation stories tell of how in the beginning, Rangi (the heavens) and Papa (the earth) dwelt in darkness. As Rangi clung to Papa, the spirit Rangitokona arose and asked them to separate. They refused, so Rangitokona pushed them apart and propped Rangi up with 10 pillars, one above the other. This was his incantation:

Rangitokona prop up the heaven, Rangitokona prop up the morning. The pillar stands in the baldness of heaven, in the bare part of heaven. The pillar stands, the pillar - the pillar stands, the pillar of heaven.

Then for the first time there was light, and the world came into being. Rangitokona heaped up earth to make the first man, called Tū. This is part of the incantation:

... heap it in the waving of the tree, heap it in the pattern of the tree, heap it in the finishing of the tree, heap it, it grows; heap it, it lives; the heaven lives, e! Stem heaped up, stem heaped up, let the heaven stand which lives.

The descendants of Tū were numerous. The first group, called 'heaven born', spanned 30 generations. A group of ancestors spanning 26 generations came next. Then the ancestor Te Ao-mārama (the world of light) was born. His son was Rongomaiwhenua.

The ancestor Rongomaiwhenua

The name Rongomaiwhenua means 'land god' (and also 'peace to the land', and 'song of the land'). Rongomaiwhenua had a brother, Rongomaitere ('ocean god'), who according to tradition travelled to New Zealand, providing sailing directions for the return journey by later generations.

According to Moriori, the descendants of Rongomaiwhenua belonged to a race called Hamata. They were described as 'no ro hunu ake' (sprung from the earth). They were said to be very tall, and were living on Rēkohu when the first visitor, Kahu, arrived. In other theories they were descendants of Kahu's crew or a previous migration.

Kahu, the first visitor

Kahu, captain of the Tāne canoe, was the first recorded arrival from Hawaiki - the homeland in Polynesia, which was also the origin of the Māori of mainland New Zealand. He found Rēkohu and its adjacent islands in an unsettled state, and is said to have joined up their disparate parts and anchored them in their permanent positions. He arrived at the south-west corner of Rēkohu, and left the canoe to travel on foot.

In some accounts Kahu met two people, Kahuti and Te Akaroroa, at Kāingaroa in the north. He planted fern root, and also kūmara (sweet potato), but found this would not grow. Disliking Rēkohu, Kahu returned to Hawaiki.

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The Moriori are the indigenous people of Rēkohu (Chatham Island) and Rangihaute (Pitt Island), the two largest islands in the Chatham group, 767 km south-east of mainland New Zealand. It was once believed that Moriori were a Melanesian people, but it is now thought that they share the same ...

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The myths and misunderstandings around Moriori have proved remarkably resistant to evidence. But, as Moriori leader Maui Solomon writes, that's only one of the battles Moriori continue to face in their long struggle for peace and justice.
"Those who discovered the law of nonviolence in the midst of violence were greater geniuses than Newton." - Gandhi.

In 1983, I was appointed by the wider Solomon family as the chairman of the Tommy Solomon Memorial Trust Foundation. I was only 23 and didn't have a clue what I was letting myself in for.

Our hunau (family) had decided to erect a statue of our grandfather as a memorial to all Moriori people on Rēkohu (Chatham Island). I'd just graduated with a law degree from the University of Canterbury and had helped organise the family reunion. Perhaps these two things had helped convince the family that I was "qualified" to take on this job.

I wasn't convinced myself but, being a determined sort of person, I applied myself to the task. The first thing I did was to read all I could about Moriori history and culture by spending many hours at the Turnbull Library and National Archives in Wellington, where I was living and working as a law clerk in 1984.

What I learned made me feel great sadness and some anger at the fate suffered by my ancestors after their islands were invaded in 1835 by two Māori tribes, Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Mutunga. Moriori were slaughtered (many were cannibalised), or enslaved.

They had offered peace, food and shelter to the recent immigrants who had arrived on an English sailing ship, the Lord Rodney, from Port Nicholson in Wellington, on a mercenary expedition. But the Moriori had their offer of peace thrown back in their faces and, from 1835 to 1866, they were held as slaves on their own island, treated brutally, and forced to do menial labour for their Māori slavers.

During this 31-year period of trauma for Moriori, their population fell dramatically - from about 1700 in 1835 to only 100 survivors by 1870. The Crown knew what was happening but stood by and did nothing to help, despite their obligations to protect Moriori as "British citizens", as guaranteed in Article 3 of the Treaty of Waitangi.

What happened to our people has been, and to a large extent remains, an inconvenient truth and stain on the history and conscience of our nation.

In 1862, Moriori elders led by Hirawanu Tapu wrote to Governor George Grey petitioning him for justice, emancipation and restoration of their land rights. They had been convinced by missionaries, who had settled on Rēkohu from the 1840s, that their pleas for justice would be well received by the colonial government.

But they were to be dramatically disappointed. In 1870, a Native Land Court was set up, which proceeded, in just one week of sittings, to award 98 percent of all the land on and around the Chatham Islands to Ngāti Mutunga.

Ngāti Tama, who had returned to their homes in Taranaki by 1868, didn't make any claims to land. By 1870, a significant majority of Ngāti Mutunga had also returned to their traditional home in Taranaki.

Judge John Rogan, who had sat on the Taranaki courts in the mid-1860s and had "fixed ideas" before he even arrived on the island, presided over the court hearings. He determined that Moriori had been "conquered" by Māori and therefore had forfeited their right to practically all of their lands - even though, by 1870, Moriori outnumbered Māori living on Rēkohu.

Judge Rogan paid no regard to the ancient custom of peace that Moriori had lived by on Rēkohu for many centuries, or to the fact that they had made a conscious decision, at a large gathering in early 1836, not to fight and kill the Māori invaders by way of retaliation. Many of the young men present at that meeting wanted to fight back but the leading elders, including my own rapuna (ancestor), Torea Takarehe, forbade it.

But worse was to follow for Moriori. Having lost their lives, lands, liberty, and language (they were forbidden to speak their language by their captors) they were then subject to widespread slander and deliberate mythmaking by some historians and the education system.

As historian Michael King wrote in his 1989 book Moriori: A People Rediscovered:

Nobody in New Zealand - and few elsewhere in the world - has been subjected to group slander as intense and as damaging as that heaped upon the Moriori. They were regarded by many Victorians as the lowest in God's hierarchy of created beings; and by non-Christians as negative proof of the Darwinian precept that only the fittest survived.
The Moriori myth
As a 23-year-old, I struggled to reconcile this portrayal of my Moriori ancestors as weak and inferior because of their decision to abandon warfare and cannibalism and to live in peace on their island home for over 600 years.

Surely, it took great strength of character and courage to do what they had done? And even more courage and commitment to stand by those ancient principles in the face of the greatest provocation they would ever face following the 1835 invasion of their homelands?

It seemed to me that something was seriously wrong with this picture. Not only had Moriori suffered genocide and loss of all their lands, but they were now being deliberately used by the "system" in New Zealand to justify colonisation of Māori in Aotearoa and their displacement from their lands by European settlers - "If Māori can do it to Moriori, then the British can do it to Māori."

And so the myth was created and taught to generations of New Zealand school children. According to that story, Moriori arrived on mainland Aotearoa before Māori but were pushed out to the Chathams by later and more dominant Māori migrants arriving from Polynesia. To add a touch of colour, the mythmakers also described Moriori as red-headed and of Melanesian "stock".

Many still believe that myth today, despite many efforts by Moriori writers and Pākehā writers, too - such as Henry Skinner (writing in the 1920s) and Michael King - to set the record straight. But the myth was a powerful political weapon to justify European colonisation of New Zealand and so it stuck fast in the consciousness of Pākehā New Zealanders.

For the record, the first Moriori ancestors, according to our own traditions, arrived directly from Eastern Polynesia to Rēkohu. Later waka came over from mainland Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu (it's a three- to five-day sail) about 500 or 600 years ago. Some stayed and settled and intermarried with ngā uri o Rongomaiwhenua, our founding ancestor from whom all Moriori descend today.

Moriori acknowledge two streams of settlement. The first is our tuākana line direct from Eastern Polynesia via Rongomaiwhenua and Rongomaitere. The tēina or later migrants, such as Kahu and Moe and other waka, came from mainland New Zealand.

But for 600 years, the people we now know as "Moriori" - before colonisation we were known only by our various hapū names - lived in splendid isolation from the rest of the world and developed their specialised culture, becoming highly adapted to their island environment and its many marine and avian resources.

When I was reading much of this history for the first time back in 1984, I made a promise to my karāpuna (ancestors) that I'd do all I could to have the truth told about Moriori and to have justice done by them, so as to honour my Moriori ancestors and ourselves, their living descendants.

From that day to this, I've dedicated my life to seeking justice for Moriori and to ensuring that our stories are told.

They are the stories of a people who once were warriors but who made a decision to become warriors for peace. A people who've been unjustly and unfairly maligned by New Zealand history for political gain at the expense of the truth - which is an inconvenient truth for many Pākehā and for many Māori.

I still read social media comments from Māori such as "Moriori are just another Māori tribe, so what happened to them is only what happened to other Māori tribes." Wrong. We are not another Māori tribe. We are Moriori, the indigenous peoples of Rēkohu and Rangihaute (Pitt Island), with our own unique language - 70 percent of our surviving re Moriori differs from te reo Māori - history and traditions.

And then there are the Pākehā who are still voicing the perspective we heard from Don Brash on the Kim Hill show last year: "What have Māori got to complain about? Moriori were in New Zealand first and look what happened to them." (To her credit, at that point in the interview, Kim Hill disconnected Mr Brash.)
A centre of peace
Since the 1980s, Moriori descendants have been rebuilding and reclaiming our place on Rēkohu and within New Zealand, as a living people. We did not die out or become extinct upon the death of my grandfather, Tommy Solomon, in 1933, which was another popular myth peddled by journalists and misinformed schoolteachers all over the country.

In January 2005, Moriori opened our beautiful marae, Kōpinga, on Rēkohu. As I said at the time, it was our aspiration to develop Kōpinga Marae into a national and international centre for peace and conflict studies. It turned out that there was another group on mainland New Zealand, headed by people of goodwill belonging to the Quaker movement and the Anglican Church, who wanted to do likewise. So we joined forces - and, in 2006, the Hokotehi Moriori Trust (the mandated organisation representing Moriori people) and the Aotearoa New Zealand Peace and Conflicts Studies Centre Trust established Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa, the national peace centre based at the University of Otago.

The centre, which opened in 2009, was set up to be a bicultural place of study and research based on tangata whenua histories and traditions of peacemaking - such as Waitaha, Moriori and Parihaka - as well as western academic peace research practices.

It was heralded as a unique and groundbreaking bicultural model for co-operation and learning between Moriori, Māori and Pākehā. Sadly, this vision took almost 10 years to see the light of day as the "bicultural" practices of the predominantly Pākehā power brokers (who were in control of the purse strings and direction of the centre) didn't extend beyond learning a waiata and occasionally attending a local marae.

But three months ago, the newly appointed director of Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa, Professor Richard Jackson, brought a group of eight post-graduate students down to Rēkohu on a study visit that showed what can be gained from genuine engagement between tangata whenua and academia.

The students had come from all over the world, some from war-torn and violent countries. To a person, they told us that they had been inspired by the fact that, despite all that Moriori had endured, we have not given up, and our commitment to peace and justice is as strong today as it was for our ancestors.

In the words of one student:
The rich and unparalleled culture of peace that has come to define the Moriori was in full expression in every part of the marae. . . . It seemed that every site at Rēkohu has a story and symbolic peace message attached to it.
Many students also noted the resilience of Moriori:
Despite hardship, Rēkohu's people find ways to survive and remain afloat. This drive to survive, to innovate, and to coalesce, is worth remembering in conversations over climate change and conflict. In the face of historical and political abandonment, communities can still thrive, and Rēkohu is a prime example of that.
We were inspired and heartened by the students' response. And last month, at the tenth anniversary of the peace centre's establishment at Otago University, we had keynote speakers here, including Moana Jackson, Moana Maniapoto and Oscar Temaru, the former president of Tahiti. Each of them reinforced the need to re-examine our colonial past (and present) as a necessary first step to moving towards a more peaceful and tolerant future that doesn't keep suppressing the indigenous voice.
Still battles to be fought
Moriori have made considerable progress over the past 30 or 40 years in terms of receiving recognition from the Crown (we are about to sign a deed of settlement) and also from nga iwi Māori in Aotearoa (we are members of the National Iwi Chairs Forum).

But there are still battles to be fought.

Some of these are with our Ngāti Mutunga neighbours and relations on Rēkohu/Wharekauri. Only a few months ago, we were confronted with an application to the High Court by Ngāti Mutunga o Wharekauri Iwi Trust (NMOWT), to stop Moriori initialling our deed of settlement with the Crown.

The basis of their argument is that Moriori have no mana whenua (that's no authority over land) on Rēkohu and Rangihaute because Ngāti Mutunga "conquered" Moriori - and, as the Native Land Court in that 1870 decision had awarded them all the land, the Crown would be acting in breach of their rights if they awarded Crown lands to Moriori as part of any Treaty settlement. That argument overlooks the fact that Ngāti Mutunga sold or leased much of the land to European settlers immediately after receiving it in 1870 - and then returned home to Taranaki.

To make matters worse, NMOWT don't want the land for themselves (because most of it is held as reserves by DOC), but say it shouldn't be returned to Moriori as a "matter of principle" - the "principle" being that Moriori have no mana on our own island and therefore can't receive Crown land as part of our settlement.

Fortunately, the Crown hasn't bought into this untenable argument and neither did the High Court judge, Justice Francis Cooke, the son of Lord Cooke of Thorndon. The case has been thrown out.

But the legal battles go on. NMOWT is also seeking to prevent the transfer to Moriori of a block of DOC land of special cultural and ecological significance to Moriori. In addition to arguing that Moriori lack "mana whenua", they claim that the minority rights of NMOWT will be violated under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 if the transfer goes ahead.

Interestingly, Justice Joe Williams, who was sitting on the Appeal Court which heard that case in April, made a couple of concerning observations in open court to the effect that what happened on the Chathams was no different from what happened elsewhere on the mainland among Māori tribes. Actually, what happened on Rekohu in 1835 was a clash between two different Polynesian peoples and cultures - and applying mainland tikanga Māori at the expense of, or in ignorance of, the more relevant tikane Moriori, fails to acknowledge that. We're still awaiting a decision from the Court of Appeal on that.

In recent years, Moriori have also been faced with culturally-motivated attacks on our sacred miheke (taonga) on Rēkohu. This includes having the eyes of one of our prized rakau momori (sacred tree engravings) attacked with a machete back in 2011, and others shot at with .22-calibre rifles. As well, the entrance to the cave of Nunuku Whenua, our revered Moriori rapuna and tohuk (spiritual leader) who laid down the peace covenant 600 years ago, has been defiled with graffiti and signs claiming that Nunuku comes from Taranaki - a thoroughly basely and offensive claim.

These incidents are a direct attack on Moriori and deeply upsetting - which is the point of the attacks in the first place. But these miheke Moriori are not just important to Moriori but to the local community as a whole. They are rare cultural treasures of national and international significance, and key visitor attractions.

NMOWT also insist that visitors - especially the Crown and ministers - must always be first welcomed at their marae (Whakamaharatanga), as they claim that they are the "mana whenua" iwi. The Moriori position is that while we can, with greater justification, claim "pole position" on Rēkohu as tangata whenua tuturu ake and mana(wa) whenua, and equally insist that Crown officials first come to Kōpinga Marae to be welcomed, the sensible and respectful stance is to share that responsibility, and to support each other at each other's marae when welcoming visitors. So far that position has been rejected by NMOWT.

Despite our differences with the trust representing Ngāti Mutunga o Wharekauri, Moriori have a very positive relationship with Ngāti Mutunga people and families on the island, which is as it should be.

I've often said that we have more that unites us going forward than divides us looking back, so we need to co-operate with one another. We all live together on the island and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It behoves us all to find a more peaceful way of living together and respecting each other and our differences. It shouldn't be a competition of who has the most mana. That's not a recipe for harmony anywhere, let alone on a small island community - something that our karāpuna recognised centuries ago when they first laid down the covenant of peace on Rēkohu and Rangihaute.
A legacy of peace and hope
I've recounted these negative experiences here not as a source of complaint - although there is much to complain about - but to highlight that the struggle for peace and justice is never-ending.

But it would be a mistake to focus too much time, energy and resources into fighting these battles and neglect the greater work that must be done to uplift and move forward with the kaupapa of shaping a better future for all the peoples of Rēkohu/Wharekauri/Chatham Islands. That's Moriori, Māori, and Pākehā.

Ninety percent of Moriori live off Rēkohu these days, but most of our people now on the islands also have Ngāti Mutunga hokopapa/whakapapa. So it doesn't make sense to create divisions.

Having said that, nor is it acceptable to expect that, in order for peace to prevail, Moriori must agree to unreasonable and untenable positions and proposals put forward by others - whether that's the Crown, NMOWT, or mainland institutions such as the Peace Centre.

There cannot be peace without justice, and justice must not only be seen to be done but must, in fact, be done. Even if it takes another 200 years to accomplish.

Such was the commitment of my Moriori karāpuna to living in peace and sharing the resources of their islands, that they refused as a people to ever fight to the death again. They had developed, here on their home island, a greater respect for the sanctity of human life, and had agreed to observe the law of peace, literally through life and death. In doing so, they suffered greatly, and many died.

But they did not die in vain. Their legacy of peace and hope lives on through the thousands of descendants living today - many of whom are just learning the truth. For, when all the wars and battles have been fought, what then? Humans must learn to live in peace with one another and with their environment if we are to survive and thrive as a species. That's the bottom line.

To quote Gandhi: "Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being."
Maui Solomon is the executive chairman of the Hokotehi Moriori Trust and has been a legal and political advocate for Moriori, Māori, and indigenous peoples' rights and responsibilities at a local, national and international level for the past 35 years. He and his wife Susan (who between them have five children of Moriori and Ngāti Mutunga o Wharekauri hokopapa/whakapapa) live on Rēkohu, on Maui's hunau lands at Manukau, in the south eastern corner of the island.
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Moriori: Still setting the record straight - E-Tangata

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The myths and misunderstandings around Moriori have proved remarkably resistant to evidence. But, as Moriori leader Maui Solomon writes, that's only one of the battles Moriori continue to face in their long struggle for peace and justice. "Those who discovered the law of nonviolence in the midst of violence were greater geniuses than Newton."

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The Crown and Moriori initialled a Deed of Settlement on 13 August 2019. The Deed of Settlement is under 'Deed of Settlement documents' below.

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A history of the Chatham Islands. (1924)

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A history of the Chatham Islands. (1924)

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University of Canterbury

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In writing a history of the Chatham Islands the actual story of white settlement seems to pale into insignificance beside that of the occupation by the Morioris and their subsequent displacement by the Maoris.

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NZ Herald article
June 2001

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A failure to stop slavery is found to be a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi. TONY VERDON reports.

The Crown must pay Chatham Islands Moriori compensation for appalling, brutalising slavery under their Maori invaders, the Waitangi Tribunal has recommended.

Its failure to stop the slavery, imposed by two Taranaki iwi who invaded the Chatham Islands in 1835, was a breach of the Crown's obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi, the tribunal says in a long-awaited recommendation released yesterday.

Moriori spokesman Maui Solomon welcomed the historic report as "courageous," particularly because the Government and some Maori had been "sensitive' about the slavery findings.

The tribunal said European accounts showed that after the 1835 invasion of Rekohu (Chatham Islands) by Taranaki iwi Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga, Moriori were housed inadequately, forced to undertake "extreme labour," brutalised and, for a time, gratuitously killed at whim.

"They were forbidden to marry or to have children," the report said.

"In 1862, Moriori elders made a plea to the Government for relief, listing the names of 226 killed and 1366 who, they wrote, had died of 'despair.' But the Government did not respond."

Moriori claimed the Crown was in breach of its treaty obligations by failing to take reasonable steps to secure their release from slavery.

The tribunal found that the Crown knew of the plight of the Moriori. There was an official resident on the Chathams and there were many reports on the Moriori's situation, but the Crown did not intervene.

"Despite the difficulties of distance, it was feasible for the Crown to have intervened," the report said.

"A few missionaries ended mainland slavery by moral persuasion alone, and Chathams Maori had special cause to be persuaded by government wishes, for their rights to Taranaki land had been under question since 1844."

That failure, the report said, cost Moriori many lives and prejudiced later land claims.

"The continued survival of the Moriori as a people is now at risk as a result of the loss of people over this time," the report said.

"We recommend compensation with negotiations to that end."

Tribunal chairman Justice Durie said the tribunal had looked carefully at the claim by Moriori and concluded they were Maori, of the same Polynesian stock, but unique as Maori through the development of a distinctive culture.

"The scientific evidence is compelling: Moriori are the same people as Maori but, through isolation, they are unique as a Maori tribe," the tribunal concluded.

Justice Durie said that, with hindsight, the Moriori claim deserved an early hearing in the tribunal's process "for it raised issues at the frontier of our modern government."

"A just conclusion to recent warfare was an issue squarely before Maori and the Governor when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, and the issue shed light on a major purpose of the treaty: to ensure justice for all people," he said.

Among the report's main findings were that the Native Land Court adopted criteria set by the Crown that were inadequate in treaty terms when it excluded Moriori from ownership of any but the main island, awarding 97 per cent of the land to Ngati Mutunga and only 3 per cent to Moriori.

The tribunal considered the awards were "patently wrong" and that Moriori were entitled to at least 50 per cent.

The ancestral right to land was with Moriori, the tribunal decided. Maori were recent invaders.

It recommended that compensation was due to Ngati Mutunga for the lasting impact of the Crown's policy on tenure reform.

The tribunal has proposed a new indigenous land law for Rekohu, with land titles held in trust by a runanga (committee) which allocated long-term occupation rights.

Mr Solomon thanked the tribunal for an "honest" appraisal. Terrible things had happened but it was time to move on. "I look forward to a journey ahead with the Crown, to build a future for all our people."

Another principal claimant, Denis Solomon, the chairman of the Moriori Tchakat Henu Association of Rekohu, described the report as "a beacon lighting up our future."

It corrected the many hurtful myths about the Moriori people that they had lived with for generations.

The report was a huge step forward in helping Moriori rebuild their mana and their culture, he said.
Related articles

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Crown owes Moriori says tribunal - NZ Herald

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A failure to stop slavery is found to be a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi. TONY VERDON reports. The Crown must pay Chatham Islands Moriori compensation for appalling, brutalising slavery under their Maori invaders, the Waitangi Tribunal has recommended.

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Links to information in Auckland Museum.

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This search function lets you find records from Auckland Museum's natural sciences, human history and documentary heritage collections.

Explore

Be inspired by collections through a sampling of our Collection images.

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This search function lets you find records from Auckland Museum's natural sciences, human history and documentary heritage collections. Be inspired by collections through a sampling of our Collection images.

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Includes interview with Paul Moon - noteworthy NZ historian.

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The stage is set for the annual Ratana Church celebrations which start today.

Maori leaders were welcomed yesterday, with politicians arriving today kicking off the start of the political year. It's the first time in nine years Labour has attended as the ruling party.

And as politicians line up at Ratana, RadioLIVE's Morning Talk host Mark Sainsbury seeks to find out what exactly Ratana is and why it has such an influence in New Zealand politics today.

The Ratana church was started by Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana who was a prominent faith healer in 1920.

As his fame spread Maori people travelled from all over New Zealand to be healed by Ratana.

The Ratana movement then took attention to the Treaty of Waitangi and the wrongs affecting the Maori people. From then Ratana moved to the field of politics.

AUT History professor Paul Moon told Mark Sainsbury while Ratana's influence has waned, the annual political pilgrimage is one of the few links to an earlier time in the country.

"It's a place where a lot of politicians from different political parties can get together, discuss things on the side of the fence, and that doesn't happen often - it only happens a few times a year, where they're not combative and where they get a chance to hear what a lot of Maori are concerned about," he said.

Despite the church's small membership, Dr Moon says T W Ratana's influence extends to all Maori.

"They may not be members, they may not even believe in what the church preaches, but they say well look 'we've got relations who are in it, we're sympathetic to what they do...

And so the political influence of the church extends beyond its membership

It's the church's centennial year with a large celebration planned for November.
Listen to the full interview with Dr Paul Moon above. Morning Talk with Mark Sainsbury, weekdays from 9am-noon on RadioLIVE and streaming live to the ROVA app on Android and iPhone.
RadioLIVE.

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The stage is set for the annual Ratana Church celebrations which start today. Maori leaders were welcomed yesterday, with politicians arriving today kicking off the start of the political year. It's the first time in nine years Labour has attended as the ruling party.

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Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana, of Ngāti Apa and Ngā Rauru, founded the Rātana Church, which remains a major religious and political force today.

Read more...

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Amalgamating Māori into colonial settler society was a key part of British policy in New Zealand after 1840. Economic and social change, along with land-purchase programmes, were central to this process.

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Page 5 - Growing interest in the TreatyThe early 20th century saw new approaches to dealing with Māori grievances and a renewed interest in the Treaty of Waitangi as the nation's founding

The 1920s was the decade that modern New Zealand came of age. Despite political and economic uncertainty, the country shrugged off the gloom of war to embrace the Jazz Age - an era of speed, power and glamour. Explore an overview of the decade and a year-by-year breakdown of key events.

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Page 7 - 1924 - key eventsA selection of key New Zealand events from

Eruera Tirikatene was the Member of Parliament for Southern Maori from 1932 to 1967 and leader of the Maori War Effort Organisation after the death of Paraire Paikea in 1943.

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Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana | NZHistory, New Zealand history online

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Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana, of Ngāti Apa and Ngā Rauru, founded the Rātana Church, which remains a major religious and political force today. Read more... Amalgamating Māori into colonial settler society was a key part of British policy in New Zealand after 1840. Economic and social change, along with land-purchase programmes, were central to this process.

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Ratana: church, state and whanau

Every year pilgrims flock to a small settlement just outside Whanganui. They gather to celebrate the birthday of Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana, the founder of a movement that changed the religious and political landscape of New Zealand.

A salvaged motor turns a pipe on which several chooks and a substantial chunk of pork have been tethered with fencing wire. Tongues of blue gas-flame lick at the rotating meat, which Robin Muru bastes with care. "Here, take a piece," he offers, slicing off a chunk of crackling from the pork with a butcher's knife, his giant hands performing the task like a delicate surgical operation. In the tent his nieces and nephews are running through a rehearsal on their brass instruments, competing with numerous bands which march up and down the street outside. His nephew keeps time by whacking a cardboard box with a wooden spoon.

Every year Muru erects his family tent across the road from the marae at Ratana pa, a celebration of Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana's birthday on January 25. The festivities last for the best part of a week and attract thousands of devotees to the town of Ratana, once the site of the Ratana family farm. For Muru, coming here is partly summer holiday, but also an opportunity to pay tribute and remember his family's own connection to the spiritual leader of the Ratana movement which has impacted on the social and political well-being of Māori for almost a century.

"Our grandfather contracted some disease that covered his eyes and inevitably he went blind," he says. "So my grandmother sent a telegram to the pa, and the response she got from Ratana was to take him to the water's edge, bathe his eyes and to have whakamoemiti [worship] morning, noon and night. The children used to take turns leading him down to the water's edge and over the period of a week and a half, it cleared.

"The first day he could see the horizon, the second day he could see the birds on the horizon. As kids we were brought up with that story, and it's quite a sensitive story to hold and pass on."

[Chapter Break]

Born in 1873, Ratana grew up to be a champion ploughman and wheat stacker on the rolling country-side just south of Whanganui. He was also the local bookie and a frequent visitor to the local taverns.

Ratana's aunt Mere Rikiriki had been a renowned spiritual leader but it wasn't until Ratana was 45 that he started following in her footsteps. The story goes that he was enjoying a night at the pub when he received a call to tell him that his son-who had a chronic infection-had taken a turn for the worse. Ratana rushed home and prayed for the boy, then walked out onto the verandah. As he was gathering his thoughts, he saw a cloud coming towards him and a vision of pathways and roads leading to his house. A voice told him to unite the Māori people and turn them towards God.

His son recovered, but Ratana's claims of spiritual insight led some to believe he was simply going mad. However, the strange events and Ratana's growing reputation for being able to heal through prayer caught the attention of Māori throughout the country, a people increasingly in need of hope.

The times were not good for Māori. An outbreak of influenza in 1918 hit Māori communities particularly hard-including Ratana's own family-and this followed decades of sickness, warfare and the rapid loss of land.

Word of Ratana's spiritual gifts spread quickly. One early claim of healing was of an elderly man from Te Kuiti who could only walk with the aid of crutches. After a visit to Ratana he returned home and astonished his family by walking briskly down the street. The most famous beneficiary of Ratana's unique gift was Fanny Lammas of Nelson, who'd been bedridden and encased in a steel frame for 19 years. Specialists were at a loss to diagnose or cure her condition, but after writing to Ratana in 1921, who told her to put her faith in Christ, she apparently recovered completely within a few weeks.

Consequently, the family homestead became a magnet for those looking for healing and guidance. Ratana also went on healing tours. Members of other denominations flocked to see him, although some church and Māori leaders regarded Ratana with disdain. Older members of the church still remember the arduous journeys people were willing to endure to get to the homestead, a tradition that carried on after his death.

Raiti Aperahama, a cousin of Robin Muru's grandfather and a senior minister in the church, remembers the trip down from Te Hapua every year on the back of a truck. It took three days and was a journey of faith on its own. "We slept on the back of the truck, and if you couldn't fit on the back you'd get underneath. All we had was empty wool bags, so if it rained you got all wet. Sometimes if we were a bit short of cash we'd go and see a cockie around shearing time and do a bit of shearing...we'd use the money to get some more petrol to carry on."

Every January people from around the country make the pilgrimage to Ratana. "Even today, I wonder why people still do it," says Wayne Johnson, a commercial lawyer and the legal adviser to the church, whose father was a senior minister. In the shade of a tent awning he lights a cigarette as he ponders the question.

"What makes people still come here? Is it obligation? Is it memory? We used to come here because our parents and grandparents used to come here. Not everyone can afford it, some people make it their holiday of the year. They save up for it, and they get here whatever way they can. We used to come across in the Hawke's Bay motor company buses."

Buses still come and a huge tent city springs up on a vacant piece of land in front of the temple, with its two towers at the front looking like an improvised version of a Greek Orthodox church. "This place is a real melting pot. You have people here from Nga Puhi, from Ngati Kahungunu, from the South Island. You only have to look at the street names to see it."

[Chapter Break]

Ratana's public career was split into two distinct periods, one dealing with spiritual concerns and the other which turned his attentions to political issues.

From 1918 through to 1928 he was famed for his healing ministry. He encouraged his followers to put aside some aspects of traditional Māori spiritual beliefs while still upholding the essence of their culture. He believed the gospel of Christ could overcome tribal factionalism, a desire borne out by the church he founded, which has become one of the more successful pan-tribal movements.

The church's creed was orthodox, although the emphasis on angels and the perceived cult of personality surrounding Ratana was still a matter of controversy for mainline denominations. However, Reverend Seamer from the Methodist Church continued to support Ratana as did Reverend Joseph Kemp, the Baptist minister at the Baptist Tabernacle in Queen Street.

Ratana was also credited with prophetic insight and a number of cryptic utterances he made continue to be seen as evidence. When the Manuao building was opened in 1938, Ratana made a prediction that, at the time, seemed odd. "He made reference that one day the two towers of power and greed will crumble to the ground," recalls Johnson. "That was opened on September 11, 1938."

Ratana's extensive travels around the country, not to mention a world tour with a brass band concert party, left large pockets of converts scattered around the country. He left behind other legacies as well. "He'd cure something and leave them with an obligation, something for them to carry on. A lot of those marae still honour those," says Johnson.

Ratana's spiritual mission culminated in the building of the temple which was officially opened in 1928 and has been the focal point of the township of Ratana ever since. The huge structure was built by members and features two large bell towers at the front, a feature that is echoed in similar but more modest Ratana churches throughout the country.

But by this stage Ratana's attention was shifting to more secular concerns.

"When he finished the building of the church, he realised that to advance the social and economic well-being of our people we needed to have a political voice," explains Johnson.

The first Ratana candidate to enter parliament, E.T. Tirikatene, was elected in a by-election in 1932. A second followed in 1935 and by 1943 all four Māori seats were held by Ratana members, including Eastern Māori, previously held by Sir Apirana Ngata.

From the outset, the Ratana MPs campaigned on a platform of honouring the Treaty of Waitangi. Ngata and other Māori MPs had worked tirelessly to have it honoured, but it had fallen off the political agenda.

The Ratana movement has had a huge influence over Māori political tendencies and national politics as a whole. As early as 1922, it highlighted the importance of the Treaty of Waitangi, arguing it should be entrenched in legislation. When he was in England in 1924, he also sought an audience with King George V to highlight breaches of the treaty, but to no avail.

It wasn't until 1975 that Matiu Rata, a Ratana member and Labour MP, finally pushed through the Treaty of Waitangi Act, which brought about the formation of the Waitangi Tribunal, an institution that has been fundamental to the treaty settlement process ever since.

[Chapter Break]

The basis for the close alliance between the Ratana movement and Labour was a visit by Ratana to the new Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage, in 1936. In a famously symbolic gesture, Ratana met Savage in parliament and laid out four objects in front of him: a potato, a broken gold watch, a greenstone tiki and a huia feather. The potato was a symbol of the ordinary Māori needing his lands. The broken watch, which had belonged to Ratana's ancestor, Ratana Ngahina, represented broken promises relating to Māori land. The tiki represented the spirit, mana and traditions of the Māori people. And the huia feather represented the sign of a chief, something Savage would be entitled to wear if he protected Māori. This meeting was, in years to come, seen as something of a pact being signed between Ratana and Labour. Ratana also warned Savage that if he forgot his responsibilities to Māori, his government would fail.

Ratana members were once a predictable and reliable Labour bloc, and while there is unofficial support for the Labour party, these days the church membership of 56,000 has a diversity of political views.

"Obviously we have very strong historical links to the Labour Party, but when those links or allegiances were formed there were only two choices," says Johnson. "Now our options have changed, especially with MMP. Our people now have a lot more options politically."

A key character in the new political landscape, Tariana Turia, has set up camp a couple of blocks away, where her son is cooking paua fritters. He wanders over to his mother, barbecue tool in one hand, cellphone in the other. "It's some guy from Radio Live," he announces flatly, handing her the phone. The politician answers the phone politely, although the warmth of the family banter only a few seconds earlier has somehow dissipated. It's as if the journalist has caught her in a private moment at home.

Part of Turia's childhood was spent in the Whangaehu Valley where she attended the school at Ratana. Her father was related to Ratana. Turia absorbed much of her politics by osmosis, listening in on conversations about Ratana, and also a generations of politicians that she would follow into parliament.

"When I was a teenager I started to knit things together about Ratana, what he was trying to do. As a kid Ratana defined who you were when you went to the pa. Even today, if I'm away from home and a Ratana band strikes up, I will cry. It affects me quite deeply and I can't explain why. Must be a wairua thing.

"When I first had my children I began to think about my dad and the things that he said and the things I had heard when I was out at the pa. It all began to come together, make some sense to me about what had happened to us as a people."

Turia's mix of political pragmatism and principle is heavily influenced by memories of Ratana MPs who were also whanau; ideals that still shape her politics today. She is now allied with National, although doesn't regard this as political betrayal.

"I can remember when Aunty Iriaka was with Labour, the relationship wasn't always that rosy. For her to get houses in Ratana Pa she had to go to National-Labour wouldn't do it. I remember that being talked about as a kid and it kind of gave me an understanding when I went into politics how important it was to have alliances across the house. Of course it was frowned upon to build alliances with National, me being in Labour [at that time]."

"The alliance was never unconditional," agrees Johnson. "If one day Labour passed bad laws for our people, they would go elsewhere."

And they have. Last month the Māori Party, once so wedded to Labour, honoured Ratana's warning to Savage, crossed the floor and signed an historic confidence and supply agreement with National.

[Chapter Break]

It's the morning of the 25th, the day of Ratana's birthday and the focus of the celebrations. Crowds gather. A snare drum strikes up a rhythm and a brass ensemble in brightly coloured uniforms blows a giant chord that cuts through the afternoon heat.

As the band marches down the street towards the temple a bunch of children tag along, swinging their arms and imitating the band members, giggling and dancing. Behind, ministers of the church glide along in crisp white gowns with brightly coloured sashes draped around their necks, accompanied by women in purple dresses and white headgear.

After a rousing service the congregation spills out onto the temple grounds and surrounding streets. After kai, the brass bands battle it out in a fiercely contested competition. One band begins with what sounds like a Wesleyan hymn before chopping seamlessly to Santana's Black Magic Woman. Impromptu dancing breaks out and an elderly couple launch into a creaky jive.

While Ratana never fully achieved the unity among Māori that he had aspired to, the influence of the church that he founded has continued. The hope that it offered, and the possibility of redemption that drew Māori in the early 1900s has the same relevance in this century as the last.

Robin Muru turns a giant roll of mutton on the spit, the last big kai he will cook for the week. He prods at the meat to see if it's cooked and makes a mental appointment. "We'll be back next year."

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Every year pilgrims flock to a small settlement just outside Whanganui. They gather to celebrate the birthday of Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana, the founder of a movement that changed the religious and political landscape of New Zealand. A salvaged motor turns a pipe on which several chooks and a substantial chunk of pork have been tethered with [...]

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The Ratana settlement is remote on its hilltop but strongly linked to Rangitikei and Whanganui. LAUREL STOWELL asks what it's all about.

Ratana's Temepara Tapu glows with devotion in its beautifully manicured garden.

Everything inside the church is symbolic and significant, right down to the placement of the potplants on the walls. The place is clean, empty and peaceful, and photographs cannot be taken inside it.

It's a centrepiece of the settlement and visited by both the faithful and the curious. At times 1500 people are there for a service.

The Ratana church has at least 30,000 members, with parishes and uniformed bands nationwide.

Despite its size, no one in the entire structure is paid for what they do.

It all began in 1918, a troubled time for Maori grappling with land loss, the effects of World War I and the devastating Spanish flu. The bible and the Treaty of Waitangi were foundations for its founder, Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana.

It's essentially a Christian church, with the addition of belief in anahera pono - holy and faithful angels as co-workers between people and God. TW Ratana told his people to put away their atua Maori (Maori gods) and locked up objects they had used for "witchcraft" in a building with barred windows.

Most reporters go to the Ratana settlement on January 25, when it's buzzing with thousands of people, and uniformed brass bands usher on politicians on their traditional day for making a pitch to Maoridom.

At midmorning on August 23 the village was empty and quiet. Three people were gossiping on the seat outside the shop, two mums were taking their preschool children for a walk. The streets were wide and empty.

Ratana Church secretary Piriwiritua Rurawhe appeared promptly, in suit, shiny shoes and sunglasses to beat the glare of a bright spring morning. He took on the role at Easter, voted and sanctioned by the church, and is the youngest secretary it has ever had.

He's the person mandated to speak on behalf of the church and movement. He's previously worked in policy and analysis but his church role is full-time and unpaid.

Asked what he does for money, he answers "I pray. We all have to maintain our own. When required you put your hand to the plough and if that means taking from your pocket you do it, to benefit people and ensure the integrity of the church."

In the church office he enthusiastically unwraps some of the mysteries of the place.

The founder, TW Ratana, was the grandson of Ngahina, one of the biggest landowners in the Nga Wairiki/Ngati Apa iwi. Ngahina was one who signed the Treaty of Waitangi on the tribe's behalf. His Waipu farm was flat and grew so much wheat that the railroad of the time had a station there, to take it to Wellington.

TW Ratana was a humble man, a hardworking farmer, Piri said. His wife, Te Urumanao, was a chieftainess.

"If it wasn't for her he would never have been able to carry the mana of the Holy Spirit. She was his backbone and strength."

On November 8, 1918, TW Ratana was visited by the Holy Spirit as he stood on his own veranda.

"I have been all around the world and the world had forgotten me. I have come back to you, the Maori people, to establish a turangawaewae for me on this earth," TW Ratana was told.

He became a person of influence, and a healer, though he didn't heal by laying on hands. Instead he asked sick people to think of themselves and think of the spirit of God within them.

"It was themselves that created the miracle. He was a vessel of God."

People flocked to join him. Some of them were then rejected by their own communities and churches and stayed to build little shacks on the hill near Turakina. A settlement grew.

Ratana told them to give up their atua Maori (Maori gods) for the one true God, Ihoa o Nga Mano (Jehovah of the Hosts).

His beliefs were Christian, with the addition of belief in anahera pono (holy and faithful angels).

"You have to have faith in those things you can't see, touch or hear. I believe that the angesl are here around us all the time," Piri said.

There are still a few at Ratana Pa who can remember TW Ratana. Church elder Hawira Gardiner was a child when the prophet was alive.

"He talks fondly of the memories that he has of our papa."

TW Ratana was concerned about the plight of his people and in 1924-25 he set off on a world tour. He went to England to ask King George V for answers about honouring the Treaty of Waitangi - but was not given an audience.

In 1932 he took a petition to Parliament, asking for the Treaty of Waitangi to be entrenched in statutes.

Ratana became both a church and a political movement, Piri said, and the two have to be in balance.

TW Ratana gave Labour Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage symbolic gifts in 1936, and declared himself a member of the Labour Party. A series of Ratana followers were member of Parliament - Eruera Tirikatene, Tokoura Ratana, Iriaka Ratana, Matiu Rata, Whetu Tirikatene, Rino Tirikatene and others - and now Adrian Rurawhe.

Labour has sought to rekindle that past relationship. But these days the movement is trying to be politically fair. The church executive has now met with MPs from Labour's Maori caucus - but will also meet with any other party. A second meeting with Labour takes place on October 13, and one with the Green Party takes place the next day.

"We want to build a relationship with all political parties so that we can be part of the decisionmaking process and development of policy."

The church and movement are now headed by tumuaki (principal) Harerangi Meihana, TW Ratana's grandson. It has a 30-member executive, at present the youngest ever, chaired by Andre Meihana.

According to the last census, the church had 30,000 to 40,000 followers. But there are likely 100,000 to 120,000 in total, Piri says.

Those baptised in the Ratana Church are called Ratana. Others, Morehu, believe in Ratana's teachings.

In New Zealand the church is divided into 18 takiwa (areas), each with apotoro (apostles/ministers) and parishes. The South Auckland takiwa has eight parishes. The apotoro for the Taranaki-Whanganui takiwa is Te Rino Rapana.

The distinctive shape of the Ratana Temepara Tapu (temple) has been duplicated in smaller buildings in five other places - Raetihi, Te Kao, Te Hapua, Ahipara and Mangamuka.

The church is especially strong in Te Tai Tokerau (Northland) because a prophet there, Aperahama Taonui, predicted TW Ratana's influence.

"A man is coming from the west, holding two books, a bible and a Treaty of Waitangi. You must follow him," he said.

Music is a major feature of the church. There are seven Rātana bands across the country and they have a spiritual role. Called Nga Reo, they each have uniforms in their own colour.

They're used to clear the way for important occasions. The Ratana band, Te Reo o te Arepa, wears blue and always goes first.

"They lead everything that we do, because their reo doesn't change and it's universal. Music is universal so therefore it's sweet to the ear of God," Piri said.

The settlement, Ratana Pa, has 105 houses. Most of the time there are about 300 residents, but that swells to thousands during the January 25 celebrations of TW Ratana's birthday.

The celebrations are really for youth, with sport and entertainment provided for them.

"It's the one time of the year, in the holidays, when the rangatahi can come together and talk about things happening across the country in their districts."

Another important date in the Ratana year is August 21, the annual celebration of the Maori King Movement. There's always a Ratana presence there because TW Ratana formed an alliance with the fourth Maori King, Te Rata Mahuta.

"He said "You be the king of the Maori people and I will be the prophet, so that we can forge the pathway together"," Piri said.

November 8 is the most important day of all, because it was the day TW Ratana was visited by the Holy Spirit in 1918. Its 100 year anniversary in 2018 will be huge, with more thousands coming to the settlement and celebrations in the takiwa as well. He and others are already making plans for it.

Ratana Pa is a pan-tribal village - which is unusual in Maoridom.

It's lucky to have a very stable workforce, Piri said. Many residents are meat workers, and many others work in health, either in the community or for Whanganui District Health Board or Te Oranganui Iwi Health Authority or Te Kotuku Hauora o Rangitikei.

"You can't walk across the marae without bumping into a nurse or a community health worker."

Ratana Pa has a sports club, kapa haka groups for old and young, a school and a kohanga reo, a gym, a computer hub and archives, kaumatua flats and a health clinic with a weekly visit from Marton's Dr Benic.

On a political level it has a community board, and resident Soraya Peke-Mason represents the larger Turakina Ward on Rangitikei District Council.

Sixty more houses will be added to the village when the Ratana Ahuwhenua Trust's subdivision is complete. Infrastructure for that is going in now.

The settlement clusters around some remarkable buildings. One is the original Ratana family homestead, Orakeinui. TW Ratana used to speak to the people from its veranda, the same veranda where tangata whenua (local Maori people) sit to welcome visitors.
The marae atea where visitors gather is spread out before it.

The huge marae building to one side is Te Manuao. It was Ratana's last gift to his people in 1938.

Facing it across the grass is the Whare Maori, a locked and barred building where relics of TW Ratana's healing powers are stored - spectacles, splints, crutches. It also houses items he took away because they were used in sorcery to cause harm - taiaha, tewhatewha, mere pounamu, greenstone rocks. There are also more ordinary objects, including a sheepskin with the Treaty of Waitangi etched into it.

The items belong to TW Ratana's descendants, and he warned bad things would come back 10-fold if items were removed from the house.

To the rear of the marae's stage is Tikaraina, the meeting house from Parewanui that was used by TW Ratana's aunt, Mere Rikiriki. She had her own following and predicted her nephew's powers.

Finally there's the immaculate Temepara Tapu, the temple in its tended gardens, with the graves of TW Ratana and Te Urumanaao in front. It was officially opened in 1928 and seats 1500 at times. Every least aspect of its decoration is symbolic.

The many potplants and paintings inside, the shape and number of the windows, the two doors and the garden clock with its hands at a minute to midnight all have their meaning.

It's open to all, with a service at 11am every Sunday, and it glows with a quiet devotion.

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Ratana - the man, the movement, the settlement - NZ Herald

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The Ratana settlement is remote on its hilltop but strongly linked to Rangitikei and Whanganui. LAUREL STOWELL asks what it's all about. Ratana's Temepara Tapu glows with devotion in its beautifully manicured garden. Everything inside the church is symbolic and significant, right down to the placement of the potplants on the walls.

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Looking at fire arms legisation in NZ. mentions Aromoana ad how this led to changes in gun licensing laws in NZ.

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To view PDFs
Back to Firearms-Control Legislation and Policy
Summary

The New Zealand Police operate a firearms licensing system, but only certain classes of weapons are registered, namely handguns, military style semiautomatics, and restricted weapons. In order to possess these types of weapons license holders must also obtain license endorsements, which can be granted in limited circumstances. Permits to procure such weapons must also be obtained. The licensing system includes background and reference checks, as well as safety training and a written test. The Police inspect and approve firearm storage before issuing licenses and endorsements. Law changes in 1992 aimed at further restricting access to firearms included stricter firearm storage requirements, prohibiting the sale of ammunition to non-licensed persons, and new processes relating to mail order purchases of firearms and ammunition.

There are estimated to be about 1.1 million firearms in New Zealand-about one for every four people. The rate of deaths involving firearms has decreased in the past twenty years, including those resulting from assault, suicide, and accidents. The authors of one study suggested that the 1992 law changes contributed to a "detectable reduction in firearm suicides." Another study concluded that New Zealand has seen "the most pronounced decline in firearm homicide over the past two decades" compared to Australia and Canada.

Introduction

The current legal regime for firearms can be characterized as a "licensing but no registration" system since the majority of firearms in the country do not need to be registered. A range of amendments aimed at further restricting access to firearms were introduced in 1992 following a massacre in which thirteen people were killed by a licensed gunman carrying semiautomatic firearms.

This report provides an overview of the history of firearms control legislation in New Zealand, sets out details about the licensing and registration systems, and discusses firearms dealing and importation restrictions. The final section of this report provides statistical information relating to firearm ownership and the number of deaths involving firearms.

History of Firearms Control Laws in New Zealand

Early Laws

1983 Legislation

The original Arms Act 1983 provided for lifetime licenses that could be issued to persons over 16 years of age who were considered by police to be "fit and proper" to be in possession of a firearm. A firearms license allowed the holder to own as many firearms as he or she wished, including pistols and restricted weapons where the person obtained a special license endorsement to possess such weapons. There was no requirement for the registration of most weapons, apart from pistols and restricted weapons, for which an acquisition permit was also required.[ 15]

1992 Amendments

The 1992 amendment bill and accompanying regulations also required firearms licenses to be renewed every ten years; provided that ammunition sales only be made to firearms license holders; introduced a written permit system for mail order guns and ammunition; added tighter storage requirements along with inspections; and gave police powers to seize weapons in cases of domestic violence.[ 18]

1997 Report and Subsequent Actions

2012 Amendments and Current Discussions

Current Firearm Control Laws

Licensing System

Firearms license applicants are required to provide a photo, which is displayed on the license;[36]

License holders are required to produce their license when required to do so by a member of the Police;[37]

Persons in possession of a firearm must give their full name, address, and date of birth if requested by a member of the Police;[38]

License holders are required to notify the Police of a change of address (Persons holding an endorsement as described below must also inform the Police of the arrangements made for safe custody of the firearm during the shift to the new address);[39] and

A person must notify the Police if any firearm is lost or stolen.[40]

The Arms Act and associated regulations are silent regarding the ownership or possession of firearms for the purposes of self-defense. However, the Arms Code (a firearms safety manual and guidance document produced by the Police and the New Zealand Mountain Safety Council (NZMSC) and provided to license applicants) states the following:

Self-defence is not a valid reason to possess firearms. The law does not permit the possession of firearms 'in anticipation' that a firearm may need to be used in self-defence.

Citizens are justified in using force in self-defence in certain situations. The force that is justified will depend on the circumstances of the particular case. Every person is criminally responsible for any excessive use of force against another person.

A firearm is a lethal weapon. To justify the discharge of a firearm at another person the user must hold a honest belief that they or someone else is at imminent threat of death or grievous bodily harm.[ 41]

Standard License

In applying for a license, a person must supply various details, including whether he or she has been convicted of any offense or been refused a firearms license, whether in New Zealand or any country, and the name and address of two referees (references): one a near relative of the applicant, and the other a person "of whom inquiries can be made about whether the applicant is a fit and proper person to be in possession of a firearm."[ 50]

The Arms Code states:

People who have

history of violence or

repeated involvement with drugs or

been irresponsible with alcohol or

a personal or social relationship with people who may be deemed to be unsuitable to obtain access to firearms or

indicates [sic] an intent to use firearms for self defence

may find it difficult to satisfy the Police that they are fit and proper to have a firearm.[ 51]

While there are no provisions that deal directly with psychiatric assessments of firearms license applicants, a history of mental illness may also provide reason for the Police to refuse or revoke a license on the grounds that the person is not fit and proper to possess a firearm.[ 52]

Pistols and Restricted Weapon Endorsements

The Arms (Restricted Weapons and Specially Dangerous Airguns) Order 1984 provides a list of restricted weapons in a schedule. The list includes anti-tank projectors; grenade launchers; incendiary grenades; mines; rocket launchers; devices designed for the purpose of discharging toxic gas or smoke; and "machine carbines or guns, submachine carbines or guns, and machine pistols, of any kind whatsoever, including those operated by gas or compressed air and including all other firearms capable of full automatic fire."[ 60]

MSSA Endorsements

As noted above, the definition of an MSSA firearm in the Arms Act 1983 was amended in 2012. It is now expressed in the positive rather than the negative, is more detailed, and provides for greater flexibility. The definition states that an MSSA is

(a) a semi-automatic firearm having 1 or more of the following features:

(i) a folding or telescopic butt:

(ii) a magazine designed to hold 0.22-inch rimfire cartridges that-

(A) is capable of holding more than 15 cartridges; or

(B) is detachable, and by its appearance indicates that it is capable of holding more than 15 cartridges:

(iii) a magazine (other than one designed to hold 0.22-inch rimfire cartridges) that-

(A) is capable of holding more than 7 cartridges; or

(B) is detachable, and by its appearance indicates that it is capable of holding more than 10 cartridges:

(v) a flash suppressor:

(vi) a component of a kind defined or described by an order under section 74A as a pistol grip for the purposes of this definition; or

(b) a semi-automatic firearm of a make and model declared by an order under section 74A to be a military style semi-automatic firearm for the purposes of this Act; or

(c) a semi-automatic firearm of a description declared by an order under section 74A to be a military style semi-automatic firearm for the purposes of this Act; or

(d) a semi-automatic firearm that has a feature of a kind defined or described in an order under section 74A as a feature of military style semi-automatic firearms for the purposes of this Act.[ 67]

Safety Training and Testing

Security Requirements

Standard Rules

The Arms Regulations 1992 set out conditions relating to safety precautions that apply to all licenses. These conditions require that license holders[ 74]

not put a firearm in such a place that a young child has ready access to it;

take reasonable steps to ensure that ammunition is not stored "in such a way that a person who obtains access to the firearm also obtains access to the ammunition," or, where ammunition is stored with the firearm, ensure that the firearm is not capable of being discharged;

take "reasonable steps" to ensure that firearms are secured against theft, which includes using a lockable cabinet, container, or stout receptacle; or a lockable steel and concrete storeroom; or a display rack in which firearms may be immobilized and locked so that none can be fired; and

ensure that no firearm in the holder's possession is left in an unattended vehicle.

The Arms Code states that the Police will ensure that an applicant can provide safe storage prior to granting a firearms license.[ 75]

Pistols, Restricted Weapons, and MSSAs

a steel and concrete strong room "of sound construction" and of a type approved (either generally or in the particular case) by a member of the Police;

a room "of stout and secure construction capable of being secured against unlawful entry" that meets certain specified requirements; or

a locked steel case, box, or cabinet of a type approved by a member of the Police that is bolted or securely fixed within a building (again in a manner approved by a member of the Police).

Where the weapon is stored in a steel case, box, or cabinet, ammunition must be stored separately.[ 83]

Permits to Procure and Registration of Pistols, Restricted Weapons, and MSSAs

Although license holders are not required to report "A" category firearms to the Police, the Arms Code contains a recommendation that people record the make, model, and serial number of all firearms, and states that the Police can record the information in their database if requested.[ 91]

Dealer Licenses and Record Keeping

A dealer's license (known as a "D" license) can be issued where the Police consider the applicant to be a fit and proper person to carry on a business as a dealer or manufacturer of firearms.[ 92] A dealer's license is personal to the holder and cannot be transferred;[ 93] therefore, all employees or agents of a dealer must also hold a license.[ 94] Dealer licenses must be renewed annually[ 95] and can be revoked at any time by the Commissioner of Police.[ 96]

It is also an offense to import any firearm, pistol, MSSA, restricted weapon, or restricted airguns,[ 105] or any parts of such weapons, without first obtaining a permit from the Police.[ 106] Various details must be included in the permit application under the regulations.[ 107] Permits expire twelve months after they are issued[ 108] and can be revoked at any time.[ 109] The Police have broad discretion to refuse to grant such permits[ 110] and can require the importer to produce samples for testing.[ 111] Furthermore, in order to grant a permit to import a pistol, MSSA, restricted weapon, or restricted airgun,[ 112] or any parts, the Commissioner of Police must be satisfied that there are "special reasons" why the weapon to which the application relates should be allowed into New Zealand.[ 113] When these types of weapons are imported, the importer must ensure that each bear a serial number by which they can be identified[ 114] and must provide a written notice to the Police that includes this number.[ 115]

Statistical Information

Number of License Holders and Firearms

Because sporting-type rifles and shotguns are not formally registered, the total number of such firearms can only be estimated broadly.[ 116] Estimates for the total number of firearms in New Zealand have remained relatively steady since the mid-1990s. For example, in the context of the 1997 Thorp Report, it was estimated that, as of 1996 (when the population was about 4.17 million people[ 117], there were between 700,000 and 1 million firearms in New Zealand, including 6,919 registered MSSAs.[ 118] The total figure included an estimated 10,000 to 25,000 illegal guns.[ 119] The report stated that about 3% of the country's firearms were handguns,[ 120] with handguns, restricted weapons, and MSSAs therefore making up a total of "no more than 4 percent of the total armoury."[ 121]

The following year, in 2007, the Small Arms Survey research project estimated that there were approximately 850,000 to 1 million firearms in civilian ownership in New Zealand, with an average ownership rate of 22.6 firearms per 100 people (the twenty-second highest rate of the countries surveyed).[ 127]

Firearm Deaths

There are various sources of information available regarding firearm deaths in New Zealand, including annual crime statistics produced by the Police and Statistics New Zealand, the National Injury Query System operated by the Injury Prevention Research Unit at Otago University,[ 135] and international studies. Analysis of the data from these sources may produce slightly different results due to differences in definitions and counting methods. The following sample of the available data and analysis is provided for information purposes and is not intended to be exhaustive.

Assault/Homicide

Using the National Injury Query System, a search for fatalities resulting from assaults involving firearms between 1988 and 2009 shows that the crude rate was 0.5 per 100,000 people in 1988 (a total of eighteen deaths), increasing to 0.7 in 1990 (twenty-four deaths, including thirteen people killed in the Aramoana shooting massacre). During the 1990s the rate ranged from 0.5 per 100,000 people in 1994 (seventeen deaths, including five members of the Bain family killed in a shooting massacre) down to less than 0.1 in 1998 (four deaths). Throughout the 2000s the rate was between 0.1 and 0.2 per 100,000 people, up until 2009 when the crude rate was 0.3 (twelve deaths).[ 136]

The results for deaths resulting from assaults involving all external causes also show some fluctuations in the rates over the period between 1988 and 2009 (e.g., 1.7 per 100,000 people in 1988, 2.3 in 1992, 1.3 in 1995 and 1999, 1.2 in 2004 and 2008, and 2.0 in 2009).[ 137] However, comparing the two sets of data shows that the percentage of assault deaths involving firearms dropped from 31% in 1988 to 14% in 2009.

Using the most recent crime statistics published by Statistics New Zealand to calculate the percentage of recorded murders involving firearms compared to total recorded murders produces the following results for the period from 1994 to 2011:[ 138]

A 2011 study that compared long-term firearm homicide trends in "three countries with similar social histories but different legislative regimes: Australia, Canada, and New Zealand," concluded that "the most pronounced decline in firearm homicide over the past two decades occurred in New Zealand."[ 141]

Accidental/Unintentional Deaths

Suicide/Self-inflicted Deaths

The results of the National Injury Query System search for self-inflicted deaths involving firearms between 1988 and 2009 shows that there were much higher rates of such deaths compared to those resulting from assaults or accidents involving firearms. However, the numbers reduced significantly over that period.

In its advice on the Arms (Military Style Semi-Automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Bill, the Police discussed the impact of the new requirements relating to firearm storage and security under the Arms Regulations 1992. The agency referred to the above findings and further stated that "[d]espite firearms leaking to the criminal community the misuse of firearms continues to decline as a percentage of all violent crime, and across the board is either steady or reducing. The number of incidents remains relatively static. Non-intentional death and injury in the home has decreased to single figures."[ 148]

2019 Updates

Prepared by Kelly Buchanan
Chief, Foreign, Comparative, and
International Law Division I
February 2013

Arms Act 1983, http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1983/0044/latest/DLM72622.html. [Back to Text]

Arms Regulations 1992, http://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/1992/0346/latest/ DLM168889.html. [Back to Text]

Arms (Restricted Weapons and Specially Dangerous Airguns) Order 1984, http://www.legislation. govt.nz/regulation/public/1984/0122/latest/DLM95640.html. [Back to Text]

Arms (Military Style Semi-automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Act 2012, http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2012/0117/latest/DLM3653106.html. [Back to Text]

T.M. Thorp, Review of Firearms Control in New Zealand: Report of an Independent Inquiry Commissioned by the Minister of Police 9 (1997), http://www.police.govt.nz/resources/1997/review-of-firearms-control/review-of-firearms-control-in-new-zealand.pdf. [Back to Text]

Id.at 10. See Arms Act 1860 (24 Victoriae 1860 No 38), http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/ aa186024v1860n38188/. [Back to Text]

Id.; Arms Act 1920 (11 GEO V 1920 No 14), http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/aa192011gv1920n 14140/aa192011gv1920n14140.html. [Back to Text]

Id.at 21-22; Arms Amendment Act 1992, http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1992 /0095/latest/DLM278351.html. [Back to Text]

Id.at 238-47 (Appendix 1: Recommendations). For an analysis of the Thorp Report, see Greg Newbold, The 1997 Review of Firearms Control: An Appraisal, 11 Soc. Pol. J. of N.Z. (1998), http://www.msd.govt.nz/ about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/journals-and-magazines/social-policy-journal/spj11/1997-review-of-firearms-control-an-appraisal.html. [Back to Text]

See Kerry Williamson, Why No Action on Guns?, Stuff.co.nz (May 13, 2009), http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2405890/Why-no-action-on-guns; Kerry Williamson, Registry Idea Shelved After Pro-Gun Lobbying, Stuff.co.nz (May 16, 2009), http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/2415864/Registry-idea-shelved-after-pro-gun-lobbying. [Back to Text]

See New Zealand Parliamentary Library, Bills Digest No. 1228: Arms Amendment Bill (No 3) 2005,http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/B1E7E92C-5473-4B6F-B0C4-E02B632A0C71/27184/1228Arms1.pdf. [Back to Text]

See Arms Amendment Bill (No 3), New Zealand Parliament,http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Legislation/Bills/0/7/4/00DBHOH_BILL6590_1-Arms-Amendment-Bill-No-3.htm (last visited Jan. 9, 2013); Arms Amendment Bill (No. 3): Report of the Law and Order Committee (Mar. 2012), http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/4C60851B-26DF-44F1-8F30-77BA5C3019D3/241315/DBSCH_ SCR_5371_ArmsAmendmentBillNo32481_8853_5.pdf (recommending that the bill not proceed); Question for Written Answer 465 (2012), Hon. Phil Goff to the Minister of the Police (Feb. 15, 2012), http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Business/QWA/d/3/5/QWA_00465_2012-465-2012-Hon-Phil-Goff-to-the-Minister-of-Police-Includes.htm (stating that the 2005 bill does not constitute the current Government's policy). [Back to Text]

Lincoln v. Police [2010] NZHC 183 (1 Mar. 2010), http://www.nzlii.org/nz/cases/NZHC/2010/183.pdf. [Back to Text]

See New Zealand Police, Arms (Military Style Semi-Automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Bill - Initial Briefing, http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/4B9AE9E2-302B-47C4-BFF7-A75F8AC0904E/198543/49SCLO_ADV_00DBHOH_BILL10610_1_A191404_Initialbrie.pdf. For information on the passage of the bill along with associated documents, see Arms (Military Style Semi-automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Bill, New Zealand Parliament, http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Legislation/Bills/c/6/5/00DBHOH_BILL10610_1-Arms-Military-Style-Semi-automatic-Firearms-and.htm (last visited Jan. 9, 2013). [Back to Text]

See Commentary, Arms (Military Style Semi-Automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Bill (2011), as Reported by the Law and Order Committee, http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2011/0285/latest/whole.html; Arms (Military Style Semi-Automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Act 2012, s 12 (inserting new sections 74A and 74B). Under the amendments, orders that declare specific semi-automatic firearms to be MSSAs must by confirmed by an Act of Parliament. (Footnote updated Oct. 2015)[Back to Text]

New Zealand Police, Annual Report 2011-2012, at 22 (2012), http://www.police.govt.nz/ sites/default/files/resources/annual/new-zealand-police-annual-report-12.pdf. See also Letter, Kevin Kelly to Jacqui Dean MP paras. 2-8 (July 22, 2011), http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/24462618-0763-4A5E-9242-55A669725008/198547/49SCLO_ADV_00DBHOH_BILL10610_1_A198511_NewZealandP.pdf. [Back to Text]

See Peter Marshall, The Debate About Arming Police, New Zealand Police (July 14, 2010), http://www.police.govt.nz/blog/2010/07/14/debate-about-arming-police/24684; John Kelly, Why British Police Don't Have Guns, BBC News Magazine (Sept. 18, 2012), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19641398. [Back to Text]

See, e.g., Michael Daly, Armed Police Calls 'Scaremongering', Stuff.co.nz (Dec. 28, 2012), http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/8124960/Armed-police-calls-scaremongering; Michael Daly & Jody O'Callaghan, No Move to Arm Police Despite Attacks, Stuff.co.nz (Dec. 29, 2012), http://www.stuff.co. nz/national/crime/8127288/No-move-to-arm-police-despite-attacks; Editorial, Do Not Arm Police, The Press (Dec. 28, 2012), http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/editorials/8123653/Do-not-arm-police; Editorial, Attacks on Police Unacceptable, Otago Daily Times (Jan. 4, 2012), http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/editorial/241284/attacks-police-unacceptable. [Back to Text]

See Peter Marshall, We're Not About to Short-Change Staff, New Zealand Police (June 14, 2012), https://www.police.govt.nz/blog/2012/06/14/were-not-about-short-change-staff/31874. [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, ss 43(3) and 43B(3). [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, s 26. [Back to Text]

New Zealand Police, Arms Code 41 (Wellington, 2010), http://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files /services/firearms/NZP-Arms-Code-R3.pdf. See also Thorp, supra note 5, at 102-103 for a discussion of firearms and self-defense under New Zealand law. [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, s 23(1). [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, s 24(1)(b). [Back to Text]

Arms Regulations 1992, reg. 15(2). [Back to Text]

See, e.g., id. at 53 (recommending that license holders discuss with family or doctors any reasons, "including mental health problems," that may mean they will be judged unfit to hold a firearms license); Thorp, supra note 5, at 166-76 (discussing the impact of mental illness on violence and options for reducing the risk of misuse of firearms by the mentally disordered), 252 (referring to a multiple shooting carried out by "a young man with a psychiatric history which had earlier resulted in the revocation of his firearms licence"), and 253 (referring to a shooting incident where the individual's license and firearms had previously been removed "as a police officer believed Radcliffe not a fit and proper person by reason of his mental illness."). [Back to Text]

Arms (Restricted Weapons and Specially Dangerous Airguns) Order 1984, sch. [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, s 29(2). [Back to Text]

Arms Regulations 1992, reg. 22(1). [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, s 2 (as amended by Arms (Military Style Semi-automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Act 2012, cl 4). The previous definition of an MSSA firearm was "(a) a firearm which, after being loaded, fires, ejects, and chambers a cartridge with each pull of the trigger; but (b) does not include- (i) a pistol; or (ii) a semi-automatic firearm that, with its magazine (if any), is maintained at all times in a sporting configuration." [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, s 30B. [Back to Text]

Arms Regulations 1992, reg. 14(a). [Back to Text]

Arms Regulations 1992, reg. 14(b). [Back to Text]

Arms Regulations 1992, cl 19. [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, s 45. [Back to Text]

Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004, cl 7.21, http://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/ 2004/0427/latest/DLM302188.html. [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, ss 32 & 33A; Arms Regulations 1992, reg. 28. [Back to Text]

Arms Regulations 1992, reg. 29(1). [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, s 32. [Back to Text]

Arms Regulations 1992, reg. 24. [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, s 5. [Back to Text]

The relevant regulations were amended by the Arms (Military Style Semi-automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Act 2012, s 15 (inserting new reg. 7 into the Arms Regulations 1992). [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, s 43. [Back to Text]

Added by section 5 of the Arms (Military Style Semi-automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Act 2012. [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, s 16. [Back to Text]

Arms Regulations 1992, reg. 10. [Back to Text]

Added by section 7 of the Arms (Military Style Semi-automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Act 2012. [Back to Text]

Arms Act 1983, s 18(2). [Back to Text]

Arms Regulations 1992, reg. 12. [Back to Text]

See Thorp, supra note 5, at 24-25 (discussing the issues with obtaining data on the number of firearms in New Zealand). [Back to Text]

Statistics New Zealand, National Population Estimates - December 2006 Quarter (Feb. 2007), http://stats.govt.nz/~/media/Statistics/Browse%20for%20stats/NationalPopulationEstimates/previous-releases/national-population-estimates-dec06qtr-hotp.pdf. [Back to Text]

Thorp, supra note 5, at 27. Note that this figure does not include MSSAs that were "sporterised" following the 1992 amendments. It was estimated that, as of 1996, between 33 and 44% of MSSAs were registered as such, making the total number of both registered and "sporterised" MSSAs between 16,000 and 21,000. However, Thorp considered this to be conservative, with the likely total being between 20,000 and 25,000. Id. [Back to Text]

See Mike Steere, Kiwis Go for the Big Guns; 1,100,1000 Licensed Firearms, The Dominion Post (Nov. 7, 2006), available at LexisNexis Library Express (by subscription). [Back to Text]

E-mail from Inspector Joe Green, NZ Police Licensing and Vetting Manager (May 24, 2010), available at http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/1893. [Back to Text]

E-mail from Inspector Joe Green, supra note 128. See also the Regulatory Impact Statement on the Arms (Military Style Semi-Automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Bill, written by the Police in 2010, which states that there were at that time approximately 7,800 MSSAs in the possession of firearms license holders and just over 227,000 firearms license holders. Regulatory Impact Statement: Arms (Military Style Semi-Automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Bill paras. 3 & 9 (2010), available at http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/informationreleases/ris/pdfs/ris-police-aa-apr11.pdf. [Back to Text]

National Injury Query System, Otago University Injury Prevention Unit, http://ipru3.otago.ac.nz/niqs/index.php (last visited Jan. 10, 2013). This system enables database searches to be conducted for both fatal and non-fatal injuries arising from various causes and as a result of different "intents" (unintentional, self-inflicted, assault, undetermined intent, other), with breakdowns also possible by region, age, and gender. The system covers the years from 1988 to 2009. For further analysis of pre-1993 figures relating to firearm deaths and injuries, see Robert Norton & John Langley, The Epidemiology of Firearm Injuries in New Zealand, 4(3) NZ Public Health Report (Mar. 1997), http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/Files/pvol4no3/$file/pvol4no3.pdf. [Back to Text]

New Zealand Recorded Crime Tables, Statistics New Zealand,http://www.statistics.govt.nz/ tools_and_services/tools/TableBuilder/recorded-crime-statistics/ASOC-offence-calendar-year-statistics.aspx#National (last visited Jan. 9, 2013). To build the relevant tables click "National Annual Recorded Offences for the Latest Calendar Years (ANZSOC)" then "Murder"; clicking "Murder" in the next table provides a breakdown by method. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) also reported the following results for the percentage of homicides by firearm in New Zealand, based on information provided by the Police: 1995: 22.5%; 1997: 19.7%; 1998: 7.5%; 1999: 10.0%; 2000: 13.5%; 2001: 11.8%; 2002: 16.7%; 2005: 14.8%; 2006: 18.4%; 2007: 10.4%; 2008: 13.5%. UNODC, Percentages of Homicides by Firearm, Number of Homicides by Firearm and Homicide by Firearm Rate per 100,000 Population, http://www.unodc.org/ unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html (click "Homicides by firearm") (last visited Jan. 9, 2013). [Back to Text]

See Steere, supra note 125. For the most recent summary of overall offense statistics and trends see New Zealand Police, New Zealand Crime Statistics 2011/2012 (Oct. 2012), http://www.police. govt.nz/sites/default/files/resources/crime-statistics/00-national-2011-12-crime-stats.pdf. [Back to Text]

See Michelle Cooke, Murder Rate at 25-year Low, Stuff.co.nz (Oct. 3, 2011), http://www.stuff.co.nz/ national/crime/5723405/Murder-rate-at-25-year-low. [Back to Text]

Samara McPhedran, Jeanine Baker, & Pooja Singh, Firearm Homicide in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand: What Can We Learn From Long-Term International Comparison?, 26(2) J. Interpersonal Violence 348, 348 (2011). This paper referred to a 2008 report by Inspector Joe Green of the New Zealand Police entitled "Arms Control Strategies." A presentation relating to this report is available on the website of the New Zealand Council of Licensed Firearms Owners. Joe Green, Arms Control Strategies: Debunking the Myths (2008), available at http://colfo.org.nz/attachments/article/143/Arms-Control-strategies-&-myths-symposium-paper.pdf. [Back to Text]

Id. (1988 to 2009 New Zealand Fatalities, Firearm, Self-inflicted intent, both genders, all age groups, all regions). In comparison, self-inflicted deaths by suffocation increased from a crude rate of 4.2 per 100,000 people in 1988 to 7.0 in 2009, while self-inflicted deaths by poisoning decreased from a rate of 5.4 per 100,000 people in 1988 to 2.5 in 2009. Id. [Back to Text]

A.L. Beautrais, D.M. Fergusson, & L.J. Horwood, Firearms Legislation and Reductions in Firearm-related Suicide Deaths in New Zealand, 40(3) Aus. & N.Z. J. of Psych.

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Firearms-Control Legislation and Policy: New Zealand

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To view PDFs Back to Firearms-Control Legislation and Policy The New Zealand Police operate a firearms licensing system, but only certain classes of weapons are registered, namely handguns, military style semiautomatics, and restricted weapons. In order to possess these types of weapons license holders must also obtain license endorsements, which can be granted in limited circumstances.

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Today marks 30 years since the Aramoana massacre, a crime that shook New Zealand.

Thirteen people were killed during a rampage by a lone gunman in the seaside town at the mouth of Otago Harbour, including the first police officer on scene, Sergeant Stewart Guthrie.

The gunman was found by police the next day during a house-by-house search, he was wounded and later died.

The massacre let to tighter firearms restrictions at the time and was New Zealand's deadliest mass shooting until the Christchurch terrorist attack last year.

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster acknowledged the 1990 shooting in a statement saying: "Today we acknowledge the lives lost, and the lives forever changed, following the senseless shooting at Aramoana on this day in 1990."

"On days like today the grief of those who knew those who died is felt as keenly as it was all those years ago.

"To the victims' families and friends, to those who helped and protected neighbours, and to the first responders, including our own staff, who risked their own lives to protect the Aramoana community, we commend your strength and keep you in our thoughts today."

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Victims remembered on 30th anniversary of Aramoana massacre

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Today marks 30 years since the Aramoana massacre, a crime that shook New Zealand. Thirteen people were killed during a rampage by a lone gunman in the seaside town at the mouth of Otago Harbour, including the first police officer on scene, Sergeant Stewart Guthrie.

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New Zealand Police today acknowledges the 30-year anniversary of the Aramoana massacre, an event that marked one of New Zealand's darkest days.

On 13 November 1990 an Aramoana resident took the lives of 13 people and injured several others in the small township north of Port Chalmers, Dunedin.

He was shot and killed by Police the following day.

The incident remained New Zealand's deadliest mass shooting for 29 years.

"Today we acknowledge the lives lost, and the lives forever changed, following the senseless shooting at Aramoana on this day in 1990," says New Zealand Police Commissioner Andrew Coster.

"On days like today the grief of those who knew those who died is felt as keenly as it was all those years ago.

"There are also many others still living who will be reliving the emotions they felt on that day.

"To the victims' families and friends, to those who helped and protected neighbours, and to the first responders, including our own staff, who risked their own lives to protect the Aramoana community, we commend your strength and keep you in our thoughts today."

One of those killed was 41-year-old Sergeant Stewart Graeme Guthrie, who was the sole charge officer at Port Chalmers Police Station and immediately responded on hearing about a firearm being discharged.

He knew the gunman, and he and another officer, Constable Russell Anderson, located him at his home address and set about containing him.

When the gunman retreated to the rear of the property, Sergeant Guthrie challenged him. The gunman fired a series of shots, one of which killed Sergeant Guthrie.

Now Superintendent Jason Guthrie is Sergeant Guthrie's nephew.

"I always admired and was very proud of the work he did as a Police officer," says Superintendent Guthrie, National Manager: Professional Conduct for New Zealand Police.

Throughout the ordeal Sergeant Guthrie displayed extreme bravery and courage and he was posthumously awarded the George Cross for conspicuous gallantry.

ENDS

Issued by Police Media Centre

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Police marks 30-year anniversary of Aramoana massacre

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New Zealand Police today acknowledges the 30-year anniversary of the Aramoana massacre, an event that marked one of New Zealand's darkest days. On 13 November 1990 an Aramoana resident took the lives of 13 people and injured several others in the small township north of Port Chalmers, Dunedin.

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By Daisy Hudson for the Otago Daily Times

It has been 30 years, but for some the horror of 13 November 1990 will never fade.

In her darkest moments, Aramoana survivor Julie-Anne Tamati would wake up and write herself a list.

"Get up. Have a shower. Eat food. Go to the garden."

Breaking her day into simple, bite-sized tasks helped her cope with the grief and guilt that has been her shadow since the murder of her adopted daughter and partner.

Rewa Bryson, 11, and Garry Holden were among the 13 people killed at Aramoana on 13 November 1990 in a mass shooting that, three decades on, seems utterly incomprehensible.

Julie-Anne, whose last name was then Bryson, is now 67. She still vividly remembers the day her family was cruelly taken away.

It was hot. Families were fishing, riding bikes, and enjoying a sunny afternoon in the sleepy Otago village.

Rewa, and Garry's daughters Jasmine, 11, and Chiquita, 9, hopped off the school bus and went around to Julie-Anne's Moana St house.

Garry called round and the family had dinner together, before he, Jasmine and Rewa returned to his house in Muri St. They had all planned to go for a bike ride, but Rewa's handlebars needed fixing.

Chiquita stayed behind, helping Julie-Anne with the dishes, before asking if she could stay the night.

She sent her to her father's to ask permission. When Chiquita returned, the nightmare started.

She ran inside, bleeding from shotgun wounds to her arm and stomach.

David Gray had shot at them, she said.

"I was just shocked ... I got a towel, and rang an ambulance, and put her in the van."

As they left Moana St, they saw two young boys out on the road on their bikes. She told them to go to their grandad's, her next-door neighbour.

She never saw the boys again. They would later be found among the dead.

As she drove her van to Garry's house, which had been set on fire with Jasmine and Rewa inside, Gray started firing at her from a grass verge.

Bullets pierced the side of the van, somehow failing to hit either of them.

"I think I had some angels looking after us."

Luckily, she says, she never saw Garry's body, which was lying nearby. She remembers Chiquita, wounded and screaming, begging her to get them out of there.

"My instinct was just to go [into Garry's house] and get the girls.

"Children believe that a house is a safe place to be. I think they hid under a table when David came in."

She had to make the heartbreaking decision to keep driving, to get herself and Chiquita to safety, and to leave the rest of her family behind.

"It's not something you can logically think, it was just survival mode."

It's something she still feels guilty about. She sped back to Moana St, where she told a neighbour to call the police.

As they waited, she spoke to people who were hearing the shots and seeing smoke from the burning house.

"In a small community; it was like 'you go and help', and that's when a lot of people got killed."

Later, Sergeant Stu Guthrie drove past in his police car. She tried to get him to stop, but he did not.

He would later be shot and killed as he tried to take Gray into custody.

"I blame myself, in that illogical kind of way. You know, if only I'd been able to stop him and tell what had been happening."

Eventually someone drove Julie-Anne and Chiquita to a roadblock that had been set up, and they were both taken to hospital. It was not until the next day that her worst fears were confirmed - Rewa, Jasmine and Garry were dead.

In the weeks following, every time she woke up in the morning the reality would hit her.

"I can remember going to town and buying a teddy bear for Chiquita, who was in hospital ... and walking out to the main street and there were just people and cars going by, and it was like 'Stop! My world's stopped', but people were going on with their lives.

"But for me it was like everything had just come to a standstill."

In the years since, she has tried to move on.

She forgave Gray, going so far as to plant daffodils at the section where his house once stood.

It was difficult for people to understand that, she says.

"I've always felt that forgiveness is something that stops you from carrying it through the rest of your life.

"I've always felt that he was a troubled soul ... he was mentally unwell."

She even contacted his family in the aftermath of the shootings.

"They were in a terrible situation where they couldn't openly grieve because the community and people were just really angry at them and angry at David."

As the 30th anniversary of the tragedy approaches, she wonders what Rewa would be like now. Would the shy tomboy with a great sense of humour be just like her older sister and brothers?

She would have been 41 years old.

Instead, if you wander down a little path beside where Garry's house once was, you will see her name among 13 etched on a memorial created for the victims.

At its base are shells, coloured stones, flowers, and a pair of teddy bears.

Julie-Anne lives in Blackball on the West Coast now. She has a quiet, happy life with her dogs.

She still keeps in touch with Chiquita, the little girl she once treated like her own.

"I love her dearly, and I've watched her grow into a wonderful adult."

Like Chiquita, she has spent much of her life working with victims, including more than a decade at Rape Crisis.

"I've always said, rather than be a victim, I'm a survivor."

- This story first appeared in the Otago Daily Times

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Aramoana shooting survivor remembers that day 30 years ago

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By Daisy Hudson for the Otago Daily Times It has been 30 years, but for some the horror of 13 November 1990 will never fade. In her darkest moments, Aramoana survivor Julie-Anne Tamati would wake up and write herself a list. "Get up. Have a shower. Eat food. Go to the garden."

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The small seaside township of Aramoana, near Dunedin, was the scene of what was then the deadliest mass murder in New Zealand history.

David Gray, a 33-year-old unemployed Aramoana resident, went on a rampage following a verbal dispute with a neighbour. After shooting the man and his daughter, he began firing at anything that moved. Armed with a scoped semi-automatic rifle, Gray killed 13 people, including Port Chalmers Sergeant Stewart Guthrie, the first policeman to arrive on the scene.

Police located Gray the next day during a careful house-by-house search. When he burst out of a house firing his weapon, members of the Anti-Terrorist Squad (now the Special Tactics Group) shot and mortally wounded him.

A number of people involved in the incident received bravery awards, including Guthrie, who was posthumously awarded the George Cross for gallantry.

The massacre sparked lengthy debate about gun control in New Zealand and a 1992 amendment to the regulations on military-style semi-automatic firearms. This did not prevent the 15 March 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks, in which 51 people were killed in a premeditated terrorist action.

A Robert Sarkies movie about the Aramoana massacre, Out of the blue, was released in 2006. See the trailer here courtesy of NZ On Screen:

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The small seaside township of Aramoana, near Dunedin, was the scene of what was then the deadliest mass murder in New Zealand history. David Gray, a 33-year-old unemployed Aramoana resident, went on a rampage following a verbal dispute with a neighbour. After shooting the man and his daughter, he began firing at anything that moved.