Auckland

The Musket Wars

Musket-armed war parties reshaped the map of Māori New Zealand. Perhaps 20,000 died and whole districts changed hands before the fighting burned out around 1840.

New Zealand Constitution Act

Representative government arrived, divided into six provinces — and the property franchise excluded almost all Māori, who held land communally.

Settlers outnumber Māori

Around 1858 settlers came to outnumber Māori for the first time. The census counted about 59,000 Europeans; rougher counts put Māori at 56,000 to 60,000, about three-fifths of their number when Cook arrived.

New Zealand Settlements Act — raupatu

Te raupatu whenua

The Crown confiscated land from iwi it deemed to be in rebellion (Te Ara estimates 1–1.3 million hectares), including land of neutral tribes and of some that had fought on its side.

The capital moves to Wellington

Commissioners from the Australian colonies were asked to pick a capital on Cook Strait, and chose Wellington. Auckland protested, and its members pushed for separation.

Māori Representation Act

Four Māori seats were created as a temporary measure, giving Māori men the vote twelve years before all Pākehā men got it.

Vogel’s public works and immigration scheme

Julius Vogel borrowed heavily in London — £10 million by 1876 — to build railways, roads and telegraph lines, and to bring in about 100,000 assisted migrants.

The provinces are abolished

The nine provincial governments were abolished, leaving central government as the single legislative authority, with new counties in rural areas while towns carried on unchanged.

Education Act — free, secular and compulsory

A national primary system, free and compulsory for Pākehā children aged 7 to 13, and deliberately secular to avoid conflict between the churches.

The Liberals take power

New Zealand’s first modern political party began 21 years in government, with reforms that led many to see the country as ‘the social laboratory of the world’.

Women win the vote

New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world where women could vote in national elections. Kate Sheppard’s 1893 petitions held nearly 32,000 signatures.

Old-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: about 6,500 men and 8,000 horses, and some 230 deaths.

New Zealand enters the First World War

About 100,000 served overseas from a population of just over a million. Around 18,000 died and there were some 41,000 instances of wounding or illness; no other British dominion lost a higher share of its military-age men.

The Gallipoli landing

New Zealand troops landed on the Gallipoli peninsula on 25 April. In all, 2,779 died, about one in six of those who served there. The date became the country’s day of remembrance.

Passchendaele — the worst day

An attack on Bellevue Spur in Flanders mud, against uncut wire and without effective artillery support, killed 843 New Zealanders in a few hours.

The influenza pandemic

About 9,000 people died in two months — roughly half as many as died in four years of war. Māori died at more than eight times the Pākehā rate.

The first Labour government

Michael Joseph Savage led Labour to a landslide in 1935 and built the welfare state: state houses, guaranteed dairy prices, a 40-hour week and free hospital care under the Social Security Act.

Social Security Act

Free hospital care, subsidised doctors’ visits and a comprehensive array of benefits, meant to protect New Zealanders ‘from the cradle to the grave’.

New 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.

Māori War Effort Organisation

Over 300 tribal committees took on Māori recruiting, war work and local food production; Māori felt that for the first time they bore real responsibility for their own affairs.

American troops arrive

With Singapore fallen and Japan advancing, more than 150,000 US servicemen were stationed in or visited New Zealand, bringing a considerable clash of cultures.

The great Māori urban migration

Māori went from 26 percent urban in 1945 to nearly 80 percent by 1986 — a migration Te Ara says has been described as the most rapid movement of any population.

Kayforce sent to Korea

About 4,700 New Zealanders served in Kayforce and 1,300 on navy frigates during seven years in Korea; 45 died, 33 of them during the war.

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.

Edmund Hillary summits Everest

An Auckland beekeeper and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest, and the news was released in London on the morning of the Queen’s coronation.

The 1953–54 royal tour

Elizabeth II became the first reigning monarch to visit New Zealand. Perhaps three in four New Zealanders saw her in person.

No Maoris, No Tour

A petition of around 160,000 signatures opposed sending an All Black team to South Africa with Māori players excluded. The tour went ahead anyway.

Western Samoa becomes independent

The first Pacific nation to regain independence in the twentieth century did so from New Zealand, ending more than 47 years of often harsh administration.

Decimal currency day

Pounds, shillings and pence became dollars and cents, promoted by a cartoon character called Mr Dollar.

Ngā Tamatoa formed

A group of young urban Māori activists, many university-educated, began confronting the state over te reo, the Treaty and racism — loudly and publicly.

The Māori language petition

Te petihana reo Māori

Ngā Tamatoa and Te Reo Māori Society delivered a 30,000-signature petition asking for te reo to be taught in schools. The date is now Māori Language Day.

A frigate sails to Mururoa

Norman Kirk sent HMNZS Otago, with a cabinet minister aboard, to sit off the French nuclear test zone in protest.

The Māori land march

Te Rōpū Matakite o Aotearoa

Whina Cooper, aged 79, led a month-long hīkoi from Te Hāpua in the far north to Parliament under the slogan ‘not one more acre’.

The Erebus disaster

An Air New Zealand sightseeing flight to Antarctica flew into Mount Erebus in whiteout conditions. All 257 people aboard died.

The Springbok tour

Fifty-six days that split the country. Protesters occupied the pitch at Hamilton and stopped the game; by the final test, police in riot gear fought crowds outside Eden Park.

Rogernomics — the economy is deregulated

A Labour government floated the dollar, removed farm subsidies and tariffs, and sold state assets in a radical programme of market liberalisation.

Homosexual Law Reform Act

Sex between men aged 16 and over was decriminalised, after a bitter public debate and sixteen months in Parliament.

New Zealand becomes nuclear free

Legislation barred nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered ships from New Zealand’s internal waters. The US had already withdrawn its ANZUS security guarantee.

Te 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, badly burning many small ‘mum and dad’ investors.

New Zealand votes for MMP

By 54 to 46 percent, voters replaced first-past-the-post with mixed-member proportional representation, after decades of falling trust in politicians.

The first MMP election

The first proportional Parliament took two months of negotiation to produce a government, and looked more like the country than any before it.

Helen Clark elected Prime Minister

Labour returned in coalition, and Helen Clark became the first woman to take the office by winning an election, closing the century.