Total war & the welfare state
A second war, the Māori Battalion, and the moment in 1942 when Britain cannot defend the Pacific and the security relationship turns towards Washington. At home, full employment, state houses, and the beginning of the great Māori move to the cities.
14 events under way between 1939 and 1959
The first Labour government
Michael Joseph Savage led Labour to a landslide and built the welfare state: state houses, guaranteed prices, free health care and a 40-hour week.
WellingtonNew Zealand declares war on Germany
‘Where she goes, we go’ — 140,000 served overseas and nearly 12,000 died, from a population of 1.6 million.
The 28th (Māori) Battalion
Te Hokowhitu-a-Tū
A volunteer battalion organised by tribal area fought through Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy, and took proportionally the heaviest casualties of any New Zealand unit.
Māori War Effort Organisation
More than 300 tribal committees organised recruitment, production and welfare — the most effective Māori self-administration the Crown had allowed since 1840.
American troops arrive
With Singapore fallen and Japan advancing, around 100,000 US servicemen passed through New Zealand — a social shock as much as a military one.
WellingtonThe great Māori urban migration
Māori went from about 25 percent urban in 1945 to nearly 80 percent by 1975 — one of the fastest urbanisations recorded anywhere.
The Ballantynes fire
Forty-one staff died in a department store fire in central Christchurch, most of them trapped on the upper floors.
ChristchurchStatute of Westminster adopted
Sixteen years after it was offered, New Zealand finally took full legal independence from the British Parliament — the last Dominion to do so.
WellingtonKayforce sent to Korea
About 4,700 New Zealanders served in Korea under the United Nations flag; 45 died. It was the country’s first UN commitment.
The 1951 waterfront dispute
Lockout and strike ran for 151 days. Emergency regulations made it a crime even to give food to a watersider’s children.
Wellington waterfrontThe ANZUS treaty is signed
New Zealand, Australia and the United States signed a mutual security pact, completing the shift from British to American protection.
Edmund Hillary summits Everest
An Auckland beekeeper and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest, and the news arrived in London on the morning of the Queen’s coronation.
AucklandThe 1953–54 royal tour
Elizabeth II became the first reigning monarch to visit New Zealand. An estimated three in four New Zealanders saw her in person.
The Tangiwai railway disaster
A lahar from Mount Ruapehu swept away the rail bridge over the Whangaehu River minutes before the Wellington–Auckland express reached it, killing 151 people.
Tangiwai