The Liberal experiment
The world’s first organised party government breaks up the great estates, gives women the vote, and builds arbitration and pensions. Overseas observers call it the social laboratory of the world. None of it extends to Māori land policy, where purchase continues.
9 events under way between 1890 and 1911
The Liberals take power
The world’s first organised political party to hold national office began two decades of reform that made New Zealand a byword for social experiment.
Te Kotahitanga — the Māori Parliament
Te Kotahitanga o Te Tiriti o Waitangi
A Māori parliament met annually for a decade, seeking the self-government promised by Te Tiriti and passing its own legislation.
Waipatu, Hawke’s BayWomen win the vote
New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world where women could vote in national elections. Kate Sheppard’s third petition carried nearly 32,000 signatures.
WellingtonOld-age pensions introduced
One of the first state pensions anywhere — means-tested, character-tested, and closed to Chinese and other Asian residents.
New Zealand troops sent to the South African War
The first overseas war New Zealand fought as a country: around 6,500 men and 8,000 horses, and 230 deaths.
New Zealand declines to join Australia
A royal commission weighed federation with the new Commonwealth of Australia and recommended against it. The Australian constitution still leaves the door open.
Tohunga Suppression Act
An Act making it an offence to practise as a tohunga, aimed at prophets and healers whose authority the state saw as a threat to assimilation.
New Zealand becomes a Dominion
The colony was renamed a Dominion — a change of title that Prime Minister Joseph Ward wanted for its prestige, and which altered almost nothing legally.
WellingtonErnest Rutherford wins the Nobel Prize
A farm boy from Brightwater took the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and went on to split the atom and discover the atomic nucleus.
Brightwater, Nelson