Independence of New Zealand

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The independence of New Zealand is a matter of continued academic and social debate. New Zealand has no fixed date of independence from the United Kingdom; instead, political independence came about as a result of New Zealand's evolving constitutional status.

Beginning in the late 1700s New Zealand's existing Māori population was supplemented by sealers and whalers from Europe, followed by sporadic arrivals of adventurers from Europe and the Americas, Christian missionaries, and escaped convicts from Australia.^[1][2] British Resident James Busby arrived in New Zealand in May 1833.^[3] In 1835, a number of Māori chiefs asserted their sovereignty within their independent tribal nations by signing the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand (He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni). On 6 February 1840, William Hobson, as representative of the United Kingdom, and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which established the right of the British Crown to govern, and Hobson subsequently proclaimed British sovereignty over the islands in May of the same year.^[4]

On 16 November 1840, the British government issued the Charter for Erecting the new Colony of New Zealand. The Charter stated that the Colony of New Zealand would be established as a Crown colony separate from New South Wales on 1 July 1841.^[5] In 1853, only 12 years after the founding of the colony, the British Parliament passed the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852, granting the colony's settlers the right to self-governance. New Zealand was, therefore, to all intents and purposes independent in domestic matters from its earliest days as a British colony.

A major step towards nationhood on the international stage came in 1919 when New Zealand was given a seat in the newly founded League of Nations. In 1926 the Balfour Declaration declared Britain's Dominions as "equal in status", followed by the creation of the legal basis of independence, established by the Statute of Westminster 1931 which came about mainly at the behest of nationalist elements in South Africa and the Irish Free State. Australia, New Zealand, and Newfoundland were hostile towards this development, and the statute was not adopted in New Zealand until 1947. Irrespective of any legal developments, some New Zealanders still perceived themselves as a distinctive outlying branch of the United Kingdom until at least the 1970s. This attitude began to change when the United Kingdom joined the European Community in 1973 and abrogated its preferential trade agreements with New Zealand, and gradual nationality and societal changes further eroded the relationship. The final legal constitutional links between the two countries were severed by the Constitution Act 1986.