Reform & settlement
The fastest economic liberalisation in the developed world, a nuclear-free stand that ends an alliance, and the Tribunal’s jurisdiction backdated to 1840 — which finally makes real Treaty settlements possible. MMP ends single-party rule.
16 events under way between 1984 and 2000
Rogernomics — the economy is deregulated
A Labour government floated the dollar, removed farm subsidies and tariffs, and sold state assets — the fastest liberalisation in the developed world.
The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior
French secret service agents sank the Greenpeace ship in Auckland Harbour, killing photographer Fernando Pereira. A friendly government had committed an act of state terrorism.
Marsden Wharf, AucklandWaitangi Tribunal jurisdiction backdated to 1840
The single amendment that made Treaty settlements possible: the Tribunal could now investigate Crown breaches all the way back to 1840.
Homosexual Law Reform Act
Sex between men over 16 was decriminalised, after a sixteen-month campaign and one of the most vitriolic public debates in modern New Zealand.
Parliament, WellingtonNew Zealand becomes nuclear free
Legislation banned nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered ships from New Zealand waters, effectively ending the ANZUS alliance with the United States.
WellingtonTe reo Māori becomes an official language
Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori
Te reo Māori gained official status and the right to be spoken in court, fifteen years after the language petition and following a Waitangi Tribunal finding that it was a taonga.
The 1987 sharemarket crash
The New Zealand market fell further than almost any other and took years longer to recover, wiping out a generation of small investors.
AucklandCyclone Bola
Over 900 millimetres of rain fell on the East Coast in three days, stripping hillsides and cutting the region off. Three people died.
GisborneThe Sealord fisheries settlement
The Crown funded a Māori half-share in Sealord and allocated quota, settling commercial fisheries claims nationally in one deal.
New Zealand votes for MMP
By 54 to 46 percent, voters replaced first-past-the-post with mixed-member proportional representation — largely as a punishment for a decade of unmandated reform.
The Pākaitore occupation
Pākaitore
Whanganui iwi occupied Moutoa Gardens for 79 days, claiming the site had never been sold. The town divided sharply, and it ended peacefully.
Pākaitore, WhanganuiThe Waikato-Tainui raupatu settlement
The Crown apologised for the invasion of the Waikato and the confiscations that followed, and returned $170 million in land and cash.
Tūrangawaewae Marae, NgāruawāhiaThe first MMP election
The first proportional Parliament took nine weeks of negotiation to produce a government, and looked more like the country than any before it.
Jenny Shipley becomes the first woman Prime Minister
Shipley replaced Jim Bolger in a party-room coup. Two years later Helen Clark won an election outright, and a woman held the office continuously until 2008.
WellingtonThe Ngāi Tahu settlement
A claim first lodged in 1849 was finally settled: $170 million, an apology, and the return of Aoraki/Mount Cook, over land covering most of the South Island.
Ōnuku Marae, AkaroaHelen Clark elected Prime Minister
Labour returned in coalition, closing the century with the first woman elected to the office rather than appointed to it.
Wellington