Responsible government begins

Responsible government means the arrangement used at Westminster: the leaders of the majority in Parliament form the executive, and stay in office only while that majority backs them. New Zealand's 1852 constitution gave settlers an elected House but left the government in the hands of Crown officials, and the first Parliament spent 1854 fighting over it. Canada had already shown how it could be done. There Lord Durham had proposed that the governor act on the advice of ministers who held a majority, except on imperial questions such as constitutional change, foreign relations, external trade and public lands. In 1855 London told New Zealand it had no objection and that no new law was needed, as long as the officials who lost their posts were fairly pensioned. When the second Parliament met in Auckland in 1856 it passed the pensions, and long-serving officials such as Andrew Sinclair, colonial secretary since 1844, left office.

Governor Thomas Gore Browne asked Henry Sewell, the only survivor of the short-lived 1854 'mixed ministry', to form a government. Sewell had come out in 1853 to wind up the affairs of the Canterbury Association and sat for the town of Christchurch. He joined the Executive Council on 18 April 1856 and took office as colonial secretary, the title early premiers held, on 7 May, with Dillon Bell as colonial treasurer. Within two weeks he was out. William Fox, an extreme provincialist who led a 'Wellington Party' in the House, moved the resolutions that brought him down and formed his own ministry on 20 May, which lasted 13 days. Edward Stafford, superintendent of Nelson, had refused to go first, knowing how far Auckland and Wellington distrusted him. On 2 June he emerged as the one leader who could hold a majority, and he stayed in office until July 1861, with Sewell as his first treasurer.

Stafford's government made the system work. A 'compact' of 16 June 1856 settled how revenue, debts and assets would be shared between the central and provincial governments and dealt with the old New Zealand Company debt. Sewell's DNZB biography calls it his major contribution; Stafford's DNZB biography and NZHistory present it as Stafford's. Ministers began meeting privately as a cabinet without the governor, and 36 acts were passed that year. But one great field was left out. In April 1856 Browne set out the rules: on matters the Constitution Act gave to the General Assembly he would follow his ministers' advice whether he agreed or not, but on 'imperial' matters he would receive their advice and, if he disagreed, refer the question to London. Sewell signed a minute accepting that 'among imperial subjects the Governor includes all dealings with the native tribes, more especially in the negotiation of purchases of land'. Ministers still controlled the sale of land once the Crown had bought it, which was a major source of revenue.

Historians call the result 'double government'. In 1856 the posts of native secretary and chief land purchase commissioner were merged under the oversight of a 'native minister', but responsibility stayed with the governor, who leaned heavily on the official Donald McLean. Browne and the Colonial Office had taken the chaotic start of the 1856 session as proof that Māori affairs could not be left to colonial politicians. Stafford wanted the Assembly's authority unrestricted, refused responsibility for spending he could not control, and petitioned the Queen. It was under this split arrangement that Browne pressed the Waitara purchase that started the Taranaki war in 1860. Returning as governor in 1861, George Grey privately called it an 'absurd system of Government'. It ended only as Britain, tired of paying for the wars, withdrew its troops. Te Ara dates full colonial control of Māori affairs to 1870, when the last British battalion left.