NZ Book Intro

Welcome to my blog about modern New Zealand history, from the late 1960s. I have decided to publish in this format as I wish it to be accessible to all, for free, whether as a point of general interest, for the student or for anyone who has a nostalgic feel for NZ in the 1970s, '80s and later.

Introduction

The years 1968 to the early 1990s have involved some of New Zealand’s most important economic, political and social changes, which irrevocably altered the dynamic of the country, and will further influence developments into the 2010s and beyond. This was a period of monumental division, redesign and re-definition of the “Shaky Isles”, which would result in a new identity and way-of-life. Never before, in its 130-170-year history, and possibly never again would New Zealand experience such upheaval, questioning of its identity, its economic, societal and political norms than from 1968 to the Millennium and beyond. The shaping of a nation and creation of its identity almost always occurs in times of stress and upheaval, as has been the case with America, France and many other countries; In 1972 twenty of the previous twenty-three years’ conservative National Party rule was terminated with the election of the NZ Labour Party, coinciding with the election of the Australian Labor Party, albeit lasting only three years. This was another common aspect of New Zealand-Australian politics - same-party rule simultaneously in each country since the early twentieth-century, not to be broken until the 1990s. Norman Kirk, the new Labour Prime Minister was to have a sweeping social and political agenda which was not to be realised, and New Zealand progressed more by its social, people and community revolution than its government could ever expect to achieve. Despite a fever for change, brought on by the late sixties hippie and social revolution, New Zealand was not ready for mass hysteria such as occurred in the US and Europe, and there was simply a disenchantment with a new Labour government that promised change, too much change, didn’t deliver and couldn’t manage the changing economy of the early seventies.

This changing economy was shifting at speeds never seen before, as witnessed by Britain all but abandoning its traditional markets in the Antipodes as it became part of the new EEU concurrently with the oil crisis of 1973, never-before seen levels of inflation and unemployment; even greater than during the Great Depression- “Stagflation”- plus a freeing-up of controls by the Government, such as New Zealand travellers being permitted to take unlimited quantities of funds and credits overseas, until then regulated at fixed amounts. Buying real estate or a car overseas was impossible prior to the 1980s for New Zealanders; this all changed, and now as well as having financial freedom at large, they had also become part of the global economy, which was a term not coined until the 1980s.

Under the prime-ministership of Robert Muldoon, from 1975 to mid-1984, the economy underwent another earth-change: from a large victory, mirroring the Australian repudiation of Gough Whitlam’s Labor Government, a number of domestic events took place: The Treaty of Waitangi Act, 1975: this historic piece of legislation was passed by the New Zealand Parliament’s House of Representatives by both government and Opposition, and promised the Maori community redress for any land and property ownership issues from the year 1975 onwards. This was to be furthered by an amendment by Parliament in 1985.

User-Pays and the price-freeze in 1982, which was supposed to last for one year, but continued until 1984, were complete failures from both political points-of-view: the wage, price and rent freeze was unsuccessful, and amazingly didn’t stop inflation or interest rate rises, although the latter were however quite limited. Whether they were responsible for halts on the cost of living, it is questionable that they halted the general march of economic excesses and difficulties into the 1980s. Whilst low to middle income earners were restricted in what they could afford, there was no stopping property hikes, overseas travel increases or shares and bond prices. Despite a willing electorate, the late seventies and early eighties found the Muldoon years little to be admired or lauded; it was a case of New Zealand Labour didn’t know how to govern, but National knew the stuff of government, but couldn’t deliver.

The 1980s in New Zealand would see the nation’s biggest shake-up in its history, socially, politically, and economically, especially the latter. Lange and Rogernomics were to be the words to be remembered in New Zealand and abroad long after the eighties, even at time of writing, in 2012, seven years after Lange’s death and twenty-three years since standing down as Prime Minister, more people outside of New Zealand recognise his name than any other Prime Minister of NZ.

Commencing with “Sesqui 1990”, the 1990s saw a further maturing of New Zealand and its globalisation. Since the Millennium the country has adopted a transnational way-of-life, whilst merging it with nationalistic Kiwi ideals. The new century, like the rest of the world has seen a mind-boggling adoption of technology, mostly in the form of computer, mobile phone, television and photography advancements. New Zealanders have been proud to be not only part of the formative stages of new technology, but significant proponents of it.

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Appendices

 

Appendix 1: New Zealand Political

Courtesy: Google Maps, © 2012

Appendix 2: New Zealand Prime Ministers, 1968-2012

 

Years	Party	Leader
1966-1969	National	Keith Holyoake
1969-1972	National	Keith Holyoake
1972	National	Jack Marshall
1972-1974	Labour	Norman Kirk
1974	Labour	Hugh Watt (Acting)
1974-1975	Labour	William (Bill) Rowling
1975-1978	National	Robert Muldoon
1978-1981	National	Robert Muldoon
1981-1984	National	Robert Muldoon
1984-1987	Labour	David Lange
1987-1989	Labour	David Lange
1989-1990	Labour	Geoffrey Palmer
1990	Labour	Mike Moore
1990-1993	National	Jim Bolger
1993-1996	National	Jim Bolger
1996-1997	National	Jim Bolger
1997-1999	National	Jenny Shipley
1999-2002	Labour	Helen Clark
2002-2005	Labour	Helen Clark
2005-2008	Labour	Helen Clark
2008-2011	National	John Key
2011-	National	John Key

1968-70

Wearing mini-skirts, flares, buffed-up hair, long hair and lamb-chop sideburns, New Zealand progressed, if not slowly, then surely, into the 1960s… 1968. These fashion statements represented a microcosm of radical social change, and these changes were simultaneous with the ‘Mother Country’, England. Auckland had started the movement, but Wellington was eager to follow, and Christchurch and Dunedin would soon copycat. Also occurring in the suburbs of the major centres was the phenomenon of the Beatles, who were King, Mick Jagger and Elvis, who were also royalty, and in some homes, also kings.

New Zealand was starting to lose its conservativeness and rock ‘n’ roll 1950s feel, and there were many in the community that would intensely dislike this change, not only from the older generations but also to some extent from the new baby-boomers.

The National Party of New Zealand had now been in power for sixteen of the last nineteen years, and as what many believed to be the “natural Party of government”, it had what some believed to be the “royal assent” from Britain and was completely accepted by many New Zealanders as the party that was born-to-rule, in the Crown’s “best ex-dominion”, and although not as British and patriotic as Australia, probably more loyal and reserved. New Zealanders, however, were also more ready for significant change and possibly less rigid than their counterparts across the ‘ditch’.

Speaking of Australia, this was the most British and conservative of countries towards the end of the decade, and New Zealand, was not. New Zealand was a proud outdoor-living, rugby-playing, obstreperous, fresh nation that, although not dissimilar to its trans-Tasman neighbour, was perhaps more fiercely independent.

On 10 April 1968 an unusual weather event occurred in Wellington, which created extremely high winds. This wind is a phenomenon peculiar to the capital, which occurs most days of the year, but on this particular day there was a conflagration of a tropical cyclone from the east of Papua New Guinea and a fierce winter storm from the West Coast of the South Island, originating in the Antarctic. Even on the windiest days in Wellington, and they were responsible for the nickname “Windy Wellington”, even more so than Chicago, this day’s winds seemed fiercer. In fact they would grow so fierce that gusts of 275 km/h would later be recorded. As it was a weekday morning there were men working in high-rise office blocks and skyscrapers and many wives and mums looking after the family home, a sizeable portion of the latter group after they had dropped off their kids to school. Many simply thought it a slightly wilder Wellington day than was usual, but no predictions in Wellington’s recorded history would prove what was about to transpire.

Cyclone Giselle was heading sou’ sou ’east from the Solomon Islands/Vanuatu region of the Melanesian tropics, and had already hit Northland, creating much damage and destruction. Simultaneously there was a frigid storm heading north from the West Coast of the South Island, originating in Antarctica, which collided with Giselle in Wellington, creating winds far in excess of what even Windy Wellington had ever experienced. This was now a mega storm and had, by mid-morning already ripped off the roofs of one-hundred houses in the capital. Worse was to come. As three ambulances and a truck were travelling to rescue injured people, they were blown onto their sides. The usual southerly gusts in Wellington, and often equally-strong northerly gusts were nothing new or unexpected for Wellington. Warm days, as well as cold days, would produce winds that were considered wild for other cities in New Zealand, but were hardly worth a mention in the capital. In fact, wind was normal for Wellington, but on this day it was far from normal. The deadly combination of the typical cold southerly gusts in tandem with the also-typically warm northerly gusts was about to create a debilitating disaster that would herald the worst weather event in Wellington history and the worst maritime event, and one of the worst national disasters in New Zealand history.

At 8:40 pm the night before, the Wahine interisland ferry, travelling from Lyttleton Harbour in Christchurch to Wellington had just departed on its regular journey. The Wahine (2) was one of three large ferry vessels owned by the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand which plied the Cook Strait between Wellington and the South Island, and was the largest ship of its kind when completed two years earlier, weighing 1844 tonnes.  It was equivalent in size to a cruise liner, and could carry upwards of 800 passengers. The other two inter-island vessels in Union Steamship’s fleet consisted of the Aramoana and the Aratika. On board were 734 passengers and crew. Even though storm warnings had been issued by the NZ Meteorological Office, rough seas were definitely not a new phenomenon in Cook Strait. Little could anyone know that the Wahine was about to sail into one of the worst storms ever recorded in New Zealand history? As the vessel reached Cook Strait the point of conflagration of tropical cyclone Giselle and the Antarctic storm occurred, and this combination of warm tropical air with frigid air produced an extremely violent and deadly turbulence. Captain Hector Gordon Robertson, aged fifty-seven was a master mariner with the NZ Steamship Company, and commanded seventeen ships over fourteen years until his appointment as Master of the Wahine on 31 October 1966. Throughout the 1950s he was master of a succession of cargo vessels and colliers most notably the 3,543 tonne Komata, first of a number of freighters built for the Union Steam Ship Company after World War Two for moving export cargoes to Australia. Captain Robertson was undoubtedly the first choice by Union Steamship for commander of the Wahine on 10 April 1968. Experienced as a seaman, and experienced as a sea liner master, even the real possibility of a storm situation didn’t faze Robertson when he entered the bridge of the Wahine, and at 8:40pm on 9 April 1968 navigated from Christchurch to Wellington on this rougher than usual night.

Rest of the night and morning up until 5:50 am was fairly routine sailing, but at this time as he entered the narrow funnel entrance to Wellington Harbour the wind had increased to 50 knots (90 km/hr). Suddenly the wind speed raced up to 100 knots (180 km/hr), which was now dangerous for maritime operations and at shortly after 6am the Wahine’s radar system failed. Simultaneously a massive wave smashed into the side of the hull and knocked many passengers off their feet. Now the vessel was being pushed gradually towards the notoriously-grievous Barrett’s Reef, a sizable grouping of rocks protruding above the surface of the ocean and closer to the Seatoun side than the Pencarrow side. At 6:40am the ship reversed onto the Reef, and this knocked off the starboard propeller and stopped the port engine.

Now both engines were inoperable and Captain Robertson made order that all watertight doors be closed and the two anchors dropped. Passengers had now become aware of the grounding and Beacon Hill signal station was informed of the state of the ship. As the crew prepared lifeboats four of the compartments and the vehicle deck became flooded. As the Wahine continued to drift with its anchors dragging due to the immensely strong current, the first tug Tapuhi departed Queens Wharf in downtown Wellington. This was at 11:00am, and by 11:50 the tug had secured a line to the Wahine. However the line broke as attempts were made to tow the ship to safety. Further attempts to attach a line were futile. Deputy Harbourmaster, Captain Galloway, then risked his life by jumping from a dangerously pitching launch onto the starboard ladder of the Wahine. He made it.

It was now 1:15pm and the storm had not abated; in fact winds were now in excess of 275 km/hr, equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane. As the ship listed heavily to starboard, order was given to abandon ship. Until now Captain Robertson, using his lengthy nautical experience and knowledge, had resisted this final step as he believed that being grounded anyway, it would be safer for passengers and crew to remain on board until conditions eased and a rescue attempt could be successfully undertaken. This would shortly be impossibility. There was now confusion and terror on board, with many passengers sliding across the heavily- sloped deck to reach the lifeboats. Some passengers had earlier used their lifejackets as pillows and didn’t know how to put them on. Others didn’t know where the starboard side was and erred by making their way with great difficulty to the high side where it is impossible to launch lifeboats. Out of the eight lifeboats only the four on the starboard side were able to be launched and they were filled too rapidly by frightened passengers. One was swamped on impact with the sea and all its occupants were tossed unceremoniously into the churning waters. Two lifeboats made it safely to Seatoun, one to Pencarrow, many jumped directly into the water, still others clambered into inflatable life rafts. Of these, a large number were pierced by the rocks of Barrett’s Reef and others were flooded or capsized.

At approximately 2:30 pm, although grounded, the Wahine capsized in twelve metres of water, slightly east of Steeple Rock, and crashed violently to the ocean floor. By now the one lifeboat – the first of the survivors – had made it safely to nearby Seatoun Beach. The smaller Wellington to Picton ferry, Aramoana, now stood to pick up survivors, but hundreds were blown to the further Eastbourne/Pencarrow side, which in addition to being a much greater distance, was also more difficult for land rescuers, as the road was blocked by rocks and other storm debris.  Two-hundred people made it to the Eastbourne (eastern) side of the harbour, but many others were drowned or dashed on the rocks. This was the area where most of the fifty-one deaths occurred. Of these, forty-nine drowned or were fatally injured, and two perished from exposure in the cold waters.

Captains Robertson and Galloway were the last to abandon ship.

Co-ordination of the rescue of the Wahine was hampered by several factors: even though it occurred only several hundred metres from New Zealand’s second-largest city there was uncertainty over the vessel’s fate, which delayed the rescue effort. At the same time there were hundreds of emergency calls by residents suffering damage to homes, blocked roads, car accidents, personal distress and these calls were stretching the city’s finite emergency management resources. Slips blocking the Eastern Bays Road to Eastbourne were also severely hampering emergency land services. This created the almost farcical situation where only eight police officers could reach the Eastbourne landing zone. However another one-hundred officers and one-hundred-fifty civilians managed to reach the site to co-ordinate rescue efforts.

At 2:05 pm Chief Inspector George Twentyman of Police National Headquarters officially took charge of the Wahine rescue procedure. An experienced senior officer, he had also helped with another disaster sixteen years previously- the Tangiwai train tragedy on Christmas Eve, 1953. Myriad groups in different locations were created to co-ordinate the rescue effort, also enquiry centres and an assembly station at Wellington Railway Station. A mortuary and property section was also established. Unlike at Tangiwai, where no national civil defence organisation was in place, by 1968, this was no longer the case. Local authority (council), military and civilian volunteer assistance was now possible, and the Wellington harbour master took precedence over the sea rescue.

The Police Diving Squad, which was run by volunteers until Wahine, and consisted of ordinary citizens from Wellington the Hutt Valley, now performed inspections of the sunken vessels and gave evidence in the following court of inquiry. The radio log was retrieved, which even in calm waters, was a dangerous dive.

Thanks to Chief Inspector Twentyman, who with forethought knew that a court inquiry would be held, he maintained a comprehensive paper trail. This police debriefing set a precedent for New Zealand for national disasters. The court of inquiry, which convened in late June 1968, found that the capsizing was caused by the water build-up on the vehicle deck. The momentum of the water sloshing over the huge two-tiered deck that could accommodate up to two-hundred cars, tipped the boat over. Sudden passenger movement to lifeboats exacerbated this push.  As to the timing of the order to abandon ship, an earlier call would have resulted in more deaths; a later call would not have reduced the number of drownings.

Even though Captain Robertson was criticised at the Inquiry for failing to report to shore that the deck was taking on water and the ship’s draught increasing to 6.7 metres after grounding, the violent nature of the storm was held ultimately responsible for the tragic loss of life.

The Wahine disaster, although small by world standards, was one of New Zealand’s top five disasters in 1968, and would come to be known as an important and defining event in the shaping of the modern country. Although overshadowed eleven years later by New Zealand’s largest disaster, the airline crash in Antarctica, this was in New Zealand waters, and in the harbour of the second-largest city, the capital, and therefore was felt by every one of Wellington’s 300,000 residents, whether they had relatives or friends involved or not. Conversely, although one of New Zealand’s biggest disasters, relatively few New Zealanders are familiar with the catastrophe, aside from the knowledge that it in fact occurred; it was, and still is an intrigue to the vast majority. Even those in Wellington today mostly only know the bare facts of the tragedy and perhaps the total lives lost, but it is only a distant memory for those over fifty or a fragment of history for those younger. Add to the story the now infamous Barrett’s Reef, which had always been an unsightly outcrop of rocks in eastern Wellington Harbour, spoiling the Cook’s Strait approach for Eastern suburbs and beaches homes, but now had a more sinister tale. Wellington’s vicious winds had also been known for over a century to mariners (as well as aviators). Ironically however this reef had been known to be a danger to shipping since before 1840, but no sailors had ever surmised that the combination of Wellington’s well-known southerly gales and a vessel in the vicinity would be a disaster in-the-waiting. Perhaps (with hindsight), interisland vessels, commercial and private, may have chosen a more central course through this part of the Harbour. Perhaps not. Nevertheless this event will live on as Wellington’s, and one of New Zealand’s, largest natural disasters, and concurrently one of New Zealand’s least-understood disasters.

On the northwest South Island, near Westport, in the town of Inangahua, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale would leave three dead and seventy percent of dwellings uninhabitable. This occurred at 5:24 am on Friday 24 May. Although not the strength and level of destruction of the 1931 Napier earthquake, this was still one of New Zealand’s strongest earth tremors. The location of Inangahua, which is not widely known amongst New Zealanders, let alone those overseas, is at the junction of the Inangahua and Buller Rivers, thirty kilometres north of Reefton and forty-five kilometres north of Westport, the latter being a major South Island city on the northwest coast.

The death toll of three was gratefully small, but not indicative of the natural disaster, as New Zealand had (and still has) a small, closely-knit population; the town of Inangahua and even Westport consisting of only several thousand residents, but this was still a massive earth movement. At the time New Zealanders were still recovering from the tragedy of the Wahine sinking, and although the most severe damage occurred in Inangahua, people throughout the West Coast of the South Island were affected. It was quickly declared a disaster area. Two persons were killed when a landslide struck a house, a third dying later in hospital from a car crash caused by the landslides. In the area, roads were cut off by landslides and other upheavals, which blocked the roads, buckled the railway lines and knapped the town. It would take two-and-a-half hours to re-establish communication with the outside world, but in the interim residents would have to hold tight in the stricken town.

More worry for the inhabitants of Inangahua was manifest in the Buller River being dammed by a gigantic landslip approximately six kilometres upstream, which threatened to flood the small town. Thanks to helicopters, which hadn’t been invented forty years earlier in the Murchison earthquake, two residents were airlifted to safety, and then sent by bus to Murchison. In addition, unlike the Murchison earthquake of close to forty years before, helicopters could be utilised to airlift persons out of the disaster area. By 2:30 on the day of the earthquake close to two-hundred people had been evacuated and removed to Reefton.

Some data on this earthquake: despite the event in itself being sore, fifteen aftershocks over the next month added heartbreak to injury, with some measuring over five on the Richter scale. The next day there was heavy rainfall, which contributed to difficult road clearance, there were road blockages removing access to the town. New Zealand Police were by this time on the lookout for looters, pillagers and sightseers scouring vacant residences. Food and other supplies were sent from all over New Zealand and the official Inangahua Earthquake Disaster Relief Fund was constructed. Three weeks later the West Coast railway line was reopened, but the roads took longer to make available.  As a minute farming, sawmilling and mining community on the West Coast, as stated above many New Zealanders had not even heard of Inangahua. Residents spoke of their beds being thrown upwards, entire houses being shunted skyward, and fences being handled by giants. At daybreak, Inangahua residents awoke to scenes not dissimilar to military bombardments such as in the then-active Vietnam War. Road access was cut off, electricity was cut off, and radio messages vaguely mentioned earth tremors occurring in the nation as a whole, but did not pinpoint West Coast, South Island in particular. It was utter chaos! In addition to the three deaths, there were another three deaths from a related helicopter crash, and there were fourteen injuries. Seventy percent of the town became uninhabitable. Fifty bridges were destroyed or damaged, one-hundred kilometres of railway track had become twisted and had to be replaced. Property damaged extended south to Christchurch, and north to New Plymouth in the North Island. Brick chimneys in a radius one-hundred fifty kilometres from the epicentre, and including homes in Inangahua, Reefton, Greymouth, Westport, Murchison and Granity, collapsed, some narrowly missing sleeping residents in their beds. Brick walls and brick veneers either completely collapsed or were severely cracked. The general evacuation was to Reefton, and the entire population of the town – about three-hundred persons – was ordered to evacuate. Inangahua was declared by Civil Defence and NZ Police a “no-go area” for one month after the event, although farmers were allowed to briefly return to tend to stock.

Simon Nathan, a Greymouth geologist at the time, commented in 2011 on the chaos as officials tried to cope with the disaster:

“Because there hadn’t been a big earthquake for at least two decades no-one was quite sure how to react, and relationships between organisations were unclear. Emergency response is better organised these days.” (See Flickr. 2011).

Inangahua farmers Warren and Ruth Inwood recall hanging onto their bed as it was tossed around the bedroom, as if the event was from a good book or film. This was a familiar memory of many other West Coasters as they were forcibly ejected from their beds at the early morning shocks:

“I thought it was the end of the world”, Ms Inwood said later. (See Flickr. 2011).

At approximately 5 pm, about twelve hours after the quake, the Inwoods were part of a group of people ordered by Civil Defence NZ to walk out of Inangahua, towards nearby Reefton:

“There were about 50 of us and three torches. We were following the railway line and gingerly crossing slips. You’d negotiate a tricky part and pass the torch back to someone else so they could see where they were going. We could feel the aftershocks and we could hear the rumble of the hillsides slipping – some people found it pretty scary.” (See Flickr. 2011).

1968 was the year of the Summer Olympics, Mexico City, Mexico. There were:

Fifty-nine Athletes

Seventeen Officials

One Gold medal for NZ

Two Bronze medals for NZ

Four Diplomas for NZ

The sport of rowing, which had always been substantial in New Zealand, originating through its fiercely-defended English origins, really became a defining factor in the sports environment of the Mexico Games. The coxed four won the gold medal. In the small-bore rifle shooting, Ian Ballinger won a bronze, and Mike Ryan scored a bronze medal in the marathon.  Highlights were one gold, two bronze and four Diplomas. Gold medals were won by: Rowing: Dudley Storey, Dick Joyce, Warren Cole, Simon Dickie. In the bronze category: Athletics: Mike Ryan; Shooting: Ian Ballinger. In the Diploma category: Hockey: Selwyn Maister, Jan Borren, John Anslow, Bruce Judge; Rowing: Alistair Dryden, Robert Page, Mark Brownlee, John Gibbons; Swimming: Tui Shipston; Weightlifting: Don Oliver. There were many more outstanding athletes in the New Zealand team that won medals or performed in an outstanding way at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games.

Athletics, hockey and shooting were New Zealand’s top events; these top athletes helped cement New Zealand in the 1960s as a newly-respected sporting nation, one that had been little-known by the Commonwealth and rest-of-world previously for its amazing talents in this department. New Zealand was to go onto success at future Olympic and Commonwealth meets and would come to be known as the best country in the world at the other great sport of rugby union.

Back home, The Southland Daily News, which had been acquired by its rival The Southland Times in 1967, ceased publication and was replaced by an evening edition of the Times. The paper was first published as Southern News and Foveaux Strait's Herald in 1861.

In arts and literature, Ruth Dallas wins the Robert Burns Fellowship.  Born in 1919, her name was the pseudonym for New Zealand poet and children's author Ruth Minnie Mumford. Her poetry was influenced by William Wordsworth and the beautiful and rugged landscape of southern New Zealand. She was awarded the 1968 Robert Burns Fellowship by the University of Otago (Dunedin), which she utilised to launch a series of children’s books that commenced with The Children in the Bush. In 1977, she was a joint winner of the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry. Later, as she started to go blind, she received A Blind Achievers' Award. In 1989, she was awarded a CBE. Dallas died in 2008 aged eighty-nine.

In 1968 in the New Zealand Music Awards the Loxene Golden Disc Award went to Allison Durbin for her song I Have Loved me a Man. This was the country’s top honour in the area of new popular music and helped cement Durbin’s further career.

The tragic loss of the Wahine and the storm earlier in the year became the vehicle for top acclaim and a television award for the New Zealand Broadcasting Commission (NZBC) crew who covered the event. The NZBC was the forerunner of TVNZ, which commenced in 1975. The World Newsfilm Award was a relatively new and prestigious honour in 1968, also not being very well-known in New Zealand. The main reporters were Keith Aberdein and Bill Alexander.  A quirk of the broadcast is that South Islanders could only watch the disaster unfold after a cameraman dashed up to Kaikoura and filmed a television set that could only receive a broadcast from Wellington – then returned to Christchurch so the footage could be broadcast. The broadcast can be viewed on the Webpage http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/nzbc-classics---wahine-disaster-1968

Alternatively it may be viewed via YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTrHOe3cSNQ

The latter is a 10:17 minute video in grainy black-and-white, and includes the new anchor introducing the item, which was the only story of the evening, followed by footage of the ship partially submerged on the following day, and interviews with the following parties: survivors, friends and relatives of the survivors, Third Officer Varley from the Wellington Fire Brigade, Chief Superintendent J. A. Saunders , and F. K. Macfarlane who made a desperate attempt to shift the blame from the Union Steamship Company -  he was the spokesman for the company, his main defence being that the Wahine was already at sea when the storm conditions began and worsened and therefore the ship and crew were powerless.

                   In other sporting events of 1968, Jeff Julian won his second national title in the men's marathon, clocking 2:22:40 on 9 March in Whangarei, while the Indian Cricket Team visited New Zealand earlier that year. It was the India’s first win away from home and the second test was New Zealand’s first victory over India. The visit would assist in the friendly (and sometimes not-so-friendly) trans-national rivalry on the cricket green for well into the future.

                   On the 4^th of June 1968 the nation’s twenty-seventh Prime Minister, Walter Nash, from the Labour Party, peacefully passed away at the age of eighty-six. He had led NZ from 1956 to 1959 in only the second Labour government, and one that was the only one for a twenty-two year period between the late forties and early seventies. In 2008, Nash's great-grandson, Stuart Nash entered parliament as a List MP for Labour.

                   The year 1969 was a year of some major socio-political change in New Zealand; it was also the closing year of a decade of never-before-seen social, political and economic alterations globally. In fact the 1960s in New Zealand, as well as worldwide would forever be remembered as the time when life changed inexorably and irreversibly, preparing for a new world in the 1970s. No decade since has mirrored this societal evolution, although New Zealand experienced greater political and economic change in the 1980s. As the last year of this remarkable era, 1969 would also contain some surprises and unexpected events. The Australian Labor backbench MP Gareth Evans, who would go on to become Foreign Minister in the eighties, said in 1969 that Australia would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 1970s, and many would argue that this also applied to conservative, former-British New Zealand. The big difference between each country on either side of the “Ditch” is that it has always been easier for legislation to be passed in New Zealand, and therefore change in society, economy and the law. This has been the case especially since the abolition of the Legislative Council in 1951. Unlike Australia, New Zealand has had a unicameral parliament since then; it has never had a government made up of a coalition/alliance by European or Australian definition, i.e. a balanced mix of multiple parties (although a coalition of parties as in Jim Anderton’s Alliance was a forceful Opposition presence in the nineties; there are no state interests as in Australia, US, Canada or India’s federal system; and the much smaller national population admits change more easily. The relatively new MMP electoral system, modelled on European nations has altered this state of affairs since the Millennium however, and New Zealand governments no longer have a “free rein” when in office. The Opposition and minor parties may even hold a majority in certain cities or regions, via the List seats, and the latter may be considered to serve as a quasi-second House.  In 1969 though, the electoral system was still Simple-majority (‘First-past-the-post’) and a party, National or Labour, would be accepted both politically and morally to pass bills that were reasonable in nature, even in the case of a relatively small majority such as occurred at the polls in that year.  1969 was a crushing blow to Labour and Norman Kirk, but it didn’t hinder or slow down his goal to change government, or his party, or his tens of thousands of ordinary citizen believers who were now prepared to wait until 1972 for a peaceful revolution of sorts.

                  This year   marked the end of the Maori Schools, but it coincided ironically with a new Maori activism and a revival of Maoritanga. Perhaps this was not so ironic, but more a reaction to the closure of the schools, which was seen at the time as a direct threat to Maori life, culture, customs and the teaching of indigenous youth of their background and centuries-old history. Māori activism from the late 1960s definitively led to better treatment from the government. Treaty of Waitangi settlements compensated tribes for some losses. However, until the 1985 amendment of the Waitangi Act to encompass claims going right back to the signing of the Treaty (1840), there was comparatively little leeway between the government and the Maori communities in terms of acceptance, equality and traditional land ownership. Maori activism- a reasserting of the strength and character of the people, their lands, customs and marae- occurred at the same time as the aggressive resurgence of the African-American community in the United States (Black Panthers, etc.) and the somewhat less-aggressive movement by Australian Aboriginal people. The activism by the Maori people comprised two distinct forces:

1.    Passive and pro-active activism in the form of peaceful protests, meetings with politicians, increased practice and understanding of customs, language and song; and

2.    Aggressive action, such as violent protests, rising crime levels and the establishment of bikie gangs such as the Wellington-based Mongrel Mob.

Revival in Maoritanga by young and old, country and city alike was greater than any period since European settlement, and it was a sign of major shifts in Maoridom into the seventies and beyond to the eighties. Instead of being New Zealanders or ‘Englishmen’ with an alternative background and culture to the mainstream, they were now embracing their culture as co-existing with their modern national culture; rather than being secondary it was now becoming equal-primary, and this would immensely help the revival in Maoritanga and provide an impetus for major change from an institutionalised 1950s-style British New Zealand identity, to a more real Maori-Polynesian-New Zealand identity.

A combination of rural displacement, a relative lack of educational, trade and professional qualifications amongst Maori workers created a “brown proletariat” in New Zealand’s major centres (see King, 2003). This was seen to fuel a potentially dangerous ingredient in urban race relations. Professor J.G.A. Pocock wrote four years earlier:

“[We] may be going to have ghettoes – the current term for urban areas where a distinctly pigmented minority have to live with bad houses, bad schools and unrewarding jobs – and, when faced with such ghettoes, the Pakeha may find that he is more prejudiced than he likes to believe … whakama may cease to be the mere feeling of shyness and inadequacy which it is now, and become instead a truly bitter sense of rejection; ideologies of alienation and ambivalence may arise, and the voice of some Maori (or Islander) James Baldwin may someday be heard.” (See King, 2003).

This sentiment was expressed in film a quarter-of-a-century later in the movie “Once Were Warriors”.

The upbeat of Maoritanga and revival of traditional Maori culture – language, dance, music, cuisine (e.g. hangis) – was not only the product of late sixties indigenous revitalisation and overseas indigenous influences - but also the New Zealand and generalised Western phenomenon of urbanisation.  Urbanisation, in addition, created the need to redefine aspects of Maoriness, such as how to hold hui in the city, the context of the extended family in the urban arena, or conduct of tangihanga in a city living room or garage. Also, what was the correct decorum for the Maori who were a generation or two removed from live iwi groupings? Tangata whenua were already immersed by urban expansion – for example, Ngati Whatua (Orakei- near Auckland), Tainui (Mangere, Auckland) or Ngati Toa in Porirua (Wellington) – were  not willing to allow people from other tribal backgrounds to utilise existing marae. The two top tangata whenua in the country, which were already subsumed by urban expansion, were not accepting of Maori from other tribal backgrounds to utilise existing marae. Maori discovered that detribalisation could lead to multi-tribalism and a furthering of Maoriness from such projects as:

Te Una Waka at Epsom (Auckland), led by Whina Cooper,

Hoani  Waititi (West Auckland), led by Pita Sharples, and

Maraeroa in Porirua East (North Wellington), led by Ned Nathan.

Maori urbanisation both strengthened and, at the same time, weakened the culture, but nonetheless assisted the activism and protest efforts of the late sixties/early seventies.

Maori had increasingly become a notable presence in the public service since the 1950s, and these same bureaucrats would be challenged from the late sixties, into the 1970s, by a group of mostly urban-based Maori dissidents, many of which had tertiary education backgrounds. These included important people such as Ranginui Walker and Patu Hohepa from the Auckland District Council, Sydney Mead of Victoria University, Wellington, and members of Tainui kahui ariki, protest groups Nga Tamatoa, Te Ahi Kaa, and individuals. These figures spoke out more aggressively for Maori rights than their predecessors, and achieved recognition for their efforts. The tide was turning in the fight for equality between Pakeha and Maori.

The Apollo 11 moon landing in September 1969 was an event watched by hundreds of millions around the globe, signalling a new era in space exploration and the power of mankind and technology, and New Zealand was part of this viewing audience. Coverage of the landing on videotape was flown from Sydney to Wellington by the RNZAF, and a microwave link was put together to allow its simultaneous broadcast throughout the country. It was truly a momentous occasion for all New Zealanders who watched it, and they would never forget the words of “One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind”.  The historic moon landing also created history in New Zealand, by being the first story on the first bulletin of the new Network News. On the 5^th of November the first Network News bulletin of the New Zealand Broadcasting Commission (NZBC) was read at 7.35 pm by [a youthful] Dougal Stevenson, as well as Bill Todd and Philip Sherry, and was received simultaneously around the country. Both Stevenson and Sherry went on to have long-lasting careers in New Zealand television, through to the 1990s, Sherry remaining as a news anchor on TVNZ One Network News. This moon-landing broadcast is available to view at the following URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPM3t4mLYfY

The general voting age in 1969 was lowered from twenty-one to twenty. This parliamentary act would be superseded in 1974, when it would be further decreased to eighteen. Partly a response to the increasingly rapidly-maturing youth of the late sixties as compared to a decade earlier, this change was also a vote of confidence in young New Zealanders that reflected the social revolution of the sixties.

In 1969 a change in legislation allowed the number of seats in Parliament to vary in order to preserve the number of South Island seats. This increased the number of MPs from eighty to eighty-four. From now on, this number has risen regularly to keep up with population growth in the North Island. In the early days of the new colony, before Dominion – 1840 to 1911 – the South Island was at times a powerhouse of population growth; even more so than the North Island. Although Christchurch or Dunedin were never as large as Wellington or Auckland, growth was brisk, but this slowed down considerably in the twentieth century. This had a directly proportionate effect on the number of electorates, and by the 1960s the South Island was struggling to have a strong voice in Parliament. The change helped rectify this imbalance, and ensured that South Islanders would always be constituted in the House of Representatives.

The 1969 New Zealand Grand Prix was a race held at the Pukekohe Park Raceway, south of Auckland, on January 4, 1969. The race had twenty starters. It was the sixteenth New Zealand Grand Prix (GP), and doubled as the opening round of the 1969 Tasman Series. Chris Amon won his second NZGP, leading home Austrian star Jochen Rindt. The course was a permanent racing facility, length 2.82 km, distance was fifty-eight laps (164 km), and the weather was sunny. Pole position was won by Chris Amon (NZ), from Ferrari racing team, time was 58.2 seconds. Fastest lap was from Jochen Rindt, representing Austria for Lotus-Cosworth, in the time of 58.9. On the podium first was Amon, second Rindt, and third Piers Courage of England for Brabham-Cosworth. Every position from fifth onwards, save one, was won by a New Zealand driver. Points won were: Amon 9, Rindt 6, Courage 4, Bell 3, Geoghegan 2, and Lawrence 1. There was drama before the race had even commenced: as the field moved off for the warm-up lap the 2.5 Brabham-Climax of Bryan Faloon ignited in flames when an errant distributor spark set petrol alight from an overfilled tank. The fire was extinguished quickly but Faloon was a late scratching with non-threatening burns to his hands. Following that Rindt had an unserviceable rev counter replaced on the starting grid. As the minute board went up Gardner's Mildren-Alfa was pushed aside with fuel pump trouble. However the Grand Prix ended with success and as well as Kiwi Amon winning, most of the cars finishing were driven by New Zealanders. This Grand Prix was an important and historical race for the worldwide event as it marked the end of the slower cars and the beginning of the rocket-like vehicles of the Grand Prix races of the 1970s onwards.

On the 29^th November 1969 a general election was held in New Zealand. This election would decide the government into the 1970s and the composition of the country’s thirty-sixth Parliament. The election was a direct challenge to the long-term National Keith Holyoake-led party, which had been running the nation since 1960- for three consecutive terms- and whether, in this time of major social change, the Party would still be a driving force into the new decade. In fact, with the exception of the brief Labour rule of 1957-60, the “natural party of government” had held the upper hand now for two decades, and therefore was an imposing force to beat. On the other side of the coin, New Zealand, like Australia, had changed considerably since the early fifties: it was socially more progressive, more pro-active and the baby boomers and younger were not so keen to accept the socially conservative norms, i.e. the status quo. New Zealand Labour, for the first time in a generation, had a real chance of seizing power in 1969. Voter turnout was 89 percent, one of the largest to date. Perhaps the time was still not ripe for the Opposition as they lost, but only by the narrowest of margins. National won 45 seats and Labour 39, although due to the simple majority – “first past-the-post” system of voting – the real result was masked. In actuality National only won this election by 1 percent, or less than 14,000 votes – less than the population of a Dunedin suburb. The third party, Social Credit, which had only one seat in Parliament prior to the election, lost that constituency, but would remain a presence in NZ politics and Parliament through to the 1980s.

The result of the 1969 election was nothing less than a cliff-hanger; however its significance may have been overstated in the years since. Although the end of sixties and the early seventies was a time of well-documented societal and economic change, the time had not yet arrived for a transformation in the way New Zealanders thought and acted. Change of this nature does not occur overnight, but is a consequence of built-up (and pent-up) feelings and viewpoints over a period of years, perhaps decades. The fact is that New Zealand followed and evocated changes from the powerhouses of America and Europe, in their own way, but these altering temperaments were many years in the making. The early seventies were the era when such altered views were to leave their mark; 1969 was not yet the time.

Norman Kirk was falsely understood to be the force behind a re-invigorated Labour Party, and this force on the part of Kirk and Labour was true to a limited extent, but it was insufficient for a change of government. Some observers and journalists believed that Kirk and Labour were overconfident, started the campaign too late, and did not win in Auckland. The largest city was significant as there had recently been an industrial dispute on the ship Wainui, which according to Kirk, cost Labour three Auckland seats. In addition, relations with the Federation of Labour and the unions were not optimal, and this state-of-affairs is considered essential between a social-democratic party at any time, but especially at the time of a national election: when the Australian Labor Party have lost ties with the ACTU or unions, it has always resulted in a bloodbath for that party at a state or federal election. Kirk’s party achieved a more-than-modest swing of 2.8 percent of the popular vote, which was a considerable effort, and the New Zealand press lauded that effort, but it was not enough. As well as the almost-three-percent swing, the net gain was six seats. New Zealand was still a predominantly conservative nation and still, cliché or otherwise, tied to the apron strings of England. This state-of-affairs would not last though.

Following table shows statistical results of 1969 NZ general election (see Wikipedia, New Zealand General Election 1969:2011):

Political Party	Leader	No. of Votes	Percentage	Seats Won
National	Keith Holyoake	605,960	45.2	45
Labour	Norman Kirk	592,055	44.2	39
Social Credit	Vernon Cracknell	121,576	9.1	0
Country Party		6,715	0.5	0
Independents		8,457	0.6	0
Others		5,405	0.4	0
Total Votes		1,340,168		84

The electoral system of first-past-the-post (simple majority) would be seen from this year onwards as flawed, but it would take a further quarter-century for a new system to be introduced into New Zealand via a referendum at the time of the 1993 general election. This inherent flaw was apparent for three reasons:

1.    A government was formed by less than 14,000 votes;

2.    These 14,000 votes translated to as many as six seats; and

3.    The third party, Social Credit, received votes by one-in-eleven voters, but failed to secure a single seat in the new parliament.

Other factors to be seen as challenging in the 1969 election were the voting discrepancies between city and country, and the Maori seats, mostly in the South Island, which were all Labour. Some quarters would argue that the country was not keeping up with the cities in the changing political perceptions and demographics, but as a democracy, all votes are equally-important. Labour and Norman Kirk were criticised widely after the election as performing poorly, being over-confident, letting the Auckland industrial trouble influence the vote, but when all is said and done, Labour simply didn’t have the impetus to force a change of government. The time had not yet arrived.

1969 was a deciding moment in New Zealand political history, and even though the Labour Party did not gain national government, it would continue to make leeway, and eventually win in the early seventies. Rather than discouraging the Opposition, the close loss provided an impetus that would grow, in tandem with the changing social points-of-view of New Zealanders. This left-of-centre attitudinal awareness and opinion was assisted by Maori, and also by the new arrivals from the South Pacific. Polynesian immigration was about to explode in the 1970s, and Auckland would very soon be known as the city that contains more South Pacific Islanders than any single city – or country - in the South Pacific.

The 1969 election in New Zealand was a significant point in the nation’s history, not so much for the end result, but more so for the undisputed fact that there was a mood for fundamental change due to massive changes in society, politics and culture that were a flagstone of the decade, in New Zealand and worldwide. They would not be silenced; the early seventies would see these shifts explode onto the political arena.

By the year 1970, there was no questioning of the transformation that New Zealand had experienced, and was about to demonstrate in a massive way that many had not dared to imagine. Through Britain’s economic siding with the Euro market, to America’s new world-domination, to hippie, drugs and pop culture, especially women’s lib, to the new (and frightening) airline hijackings and terrorism, to a global shift from colonialism to independence in more than just name, New Zealand would be shaken from its core foundations. Few in the country would realise at the turn of the decade just how much life was about to change, even those in the privileged seats of power in Wellington had any idea of what was to unfold. Although independent from Mother England since 1947, NZ was about to flower, and all the norms of the past 130 years would be questioned, examined and either maintained or thrown out. Whatever the outcome, there would be no turning back.

The Vietnam conflict, now entering its eighteenth year, would finally start to head towards an outcome: 15 January: Police and anti-Vietnam war protestors clash outside the Intercontinental Hotel in Auckland, where visiting U.S. Vice-president Spiro Agnew is staying. New Zealanders had believed in Johnson and Nixon’s “Domino Effect” for years, but this scare tactic was becoming just that. Would Vietnam really alter the whole polity of Southeast Asia, or all of Asia, or bring the region into the Second World? Would the Communisation of Vietnam turn that country into a no-go zone? This was no longer the fifties with the mantra of the Yellow Peril from the north (especially an Australian prerogative but also present in strength in NZ), and many kiwis had a better knowledge and understanding of world events and politics than a generation earlier. The Auckland protesters were mostly of a young age-group, and this fact would be used by the Holyoake administration against them, to denigrate them, but in actuality they were a good representation of New Zealanders as a whole, perhaps not of the majority though. Albeit a forceful and aggressive presence outside Agnew’s hotel, most Kiwis were of the opinion that the USA were correct in their (and New Zealand’s) fight against the Viet Cong, and the latter were indeed a threat. The demonstrators were written off as a bunch of radical anti-authoritarian louts by the government, and quickly removed from the hotel frontage.

However, anti-Vietnam protests were growing rapidly in New Zealand. The Vietnam moratoriums were becoming regular, and the government ministers and MPs were privately reconsidering official policy. The Cold War and anti-communist mentality was starting to wear thin by the seventies; twenty to twenty-five years of government propaganda about the Red Tide had not eventuated and anyway, the tide had turned against the Reds: Russia, China, Cuba and Eastern Europe were communist, but appeared to have a weaker hold on the ideology than earlier in the Cold War. The Western world, and America and Britain, had the powerhouse status for the new decade, and would be seen as superior to the Soviet Union or China, even though the Soviet Union was also a superpower, and therefore still a fierce power to be reckoned with. New Zealand, siding with Britain and America as a key ally, would provide assistance to the US and the South Vietnamese Army without question, but there were many in Parliament (including in the National Party), as well as a sizeable, and growing chunk of the NZ population that would doubt its morality, legitimacy and simply whether it was a war that would be won at all (which it ultimately wasn’t by either side). This notion was also a part of the early seventies culture and cognition in Australia and America.

Philippa Mein Smith suggests that “Protests in the Vietnam War revealed that the class divide in politics was undergoing realignment as the baby boomers grew up to join a New Left progressive middle class, keen to end the reign of the conservative establishment.” (See Smith, 2005). Many may argue that this could almost be construed as churlish, as this generation, more than any generation before (and since) enjoyed the highest standard of living yet achieved. During the 1950s and into the late sixties New Zealanders, in line with those in Britain, Australia and America, enjoyed economic prosperity never experienced to date. The economy was booming, interest rates were low, inflation was low, people’s savings were high, unemployment was virtually non-existent, job security was built-in, and concurrently, and in large part as a result, society was content. The standard of living was comparable, if not better, in New Zealand, to the 1890s. So why was there this enormous ideological shift by a big proportion of the baby-boomers generation, perhaps even a majority, to leftist/socialist feeling, and therefore a seismic brushing aside of conservatism and the National Government, which had if not created this quasi- utopia, then undoubtedly had a seminal role in it? The peace protesters contingent of this generation was seeking an exit from the structure and way-of-life of the Cold War, and the movement in New Zealand mirrored a new non-conservative, fluid style of beliefs and actions that was an antithesis of the previous twenty years. As well as splitting the country, Vietnam marked the end of consensus on foreign affairs, not seen to such as extent since perhaps the Boer War; perhaps never seen in its short history.

The protests in Auckland in January 1970 were only a single instance of the changing face of New Zealanders’ attitudes and consciousness, at least of under-30s, but were indicative of a rising tide of cultural and societal feeling, which would not necessarily be translated to action. Most who opposed the War and embraced the new left politics were quiet husbands, wives, adult children, and although not voicing their concerns, nonetheless were a major part of the “revolution”. The War gave rise to the first real large-scale and self-styled anti-war movement, which then engendered a national criticism of the country’s singularly-consistent alliance-driven approach to war and foreign events. The New Oxford History suggests that “An important reason why the anti-war movement was eventually able to occupy the nationalist high ground in the debate about Vietnam was that growing numbers of New Zealanders came to agree that the communism in Southeast Asia did not pose a real threat to the country.” (See Byrnes, 2009).

Unlike Australia, which is on Asia’s doorstep, New Zealand is a nation that is many thousands of kilometres from even Indonesia and is much closer to Pacific Island nations (and Australia). New Zealand was not bombed during World War II and no aircraft or submarines posed any threat. Paradoxically the conservative, right-wing beliefs in New Zealand that it was firmly a constituent of the white, Western world, was also used by left-wing Vietnam protesters that the war was pointless and ill-founded, viz, NZ didn’t belong in Vietnam.

“The Vietnam conflict threw into question any ‘natural fit’ between New Zealand identity and war-making. It coincided with a time of significant changes in cultural, social, racial and gender relations in New Zealand society and the challenging of numerous elements of national mythology. Debates about the Vietnam War brought to the fore competing visions concerning New Zealandness and participation in military alliances.” (See Byrnes, 2009). Demonstrators in 1970 would utilise these competing visions to advance their cause. The effect of the Vietnam conflict was that unlike past wars where New Zealanders fought to pursue the British cause, this war actually served to diminish the American cause, which New Zealand had been a party to since the end of the Second World War. In fact Vietnam would accelerate broad national feeling against American administration and the Labour Party’s manifesto towards the political rifts of the mid-1980s vis-a-vis the US, brought on by the banning of [US] nuclear ships and the near-termination of the ANZUS alliance. Some would argue that the origins of New Zealand’s peace protests lay in the establishment of the 1968 Peace, Power and Politics Conference in Wellington, which was endemic of an increase in a nouveau generation in politics; a predominantly urban, well-educated and outward-looking one. The influence of the Vietnam protesters undoubtedly affected the foreign-policy decisions of New Zealand governments from then on, and there are those who make the argument that the Lange Government banning of nuclear vessels in 1984 was a direct flow-on of this late-sixties/early-seventies public opinion.

“Save Manapouri” Campaign was another historical protest in 1970 in New Zealand, which although based on a local event, unlike Vietnam, was notwithstanding of equal significance in New Zealand’s late-twentieth-century social and political history. “The Save Manapouri campaign has been lauded as “the birth of the modern conservation movement” in New Zealand”. (See Forest & Bird, 2008). Although its origins were way back in 1958, and the campaign concluded in 1972, 1970 is the year that is widely acknowledged when the protest movement had its largest impact. Originally a campaign to counter the proposal to construct a power station to provide power to supply power to an aluminium smelter in the deep south of New Zealand, it became a greater national issue in the latter 1960s when there was a proposal that the level of Lake Manapouri be raised 8.2 metres to harness the hydro-electric potential for the project. The 1970 mass protests have occasionally been dubbed the birth of the green movement in New Zealand. Conservation of Lake Manapouri was assured in 1972 when Kirk and Labour came to power, and policy has not been altered by any successive governments, National or Labour.

The archetypal campaign plans for Manapouri Power Station development in the 1950s involved raising Lake Manapouri by up to 30 metres, and merging Lakes Manapouri and Te Anau, but this was shelved in the 1960s for the more moderate approach, but one that was still considered disastrous by many Kiwis. Neville Peat, in his 1974 publication said of Manapouri, 1970:

 “At its simplest, the issue was about whether Lake Manapouri should be raised by as much as 30 metres. But there was much more at stake than that. There were strong economic and engineering arguments opposing lake raising, and there were also legal and democratic issues underlying the whole debate. What captured the public's imagination across the country was the prospect that a lake as beautiful as Manapouri could be interfered with, despoiled and debased". (See Peat, 1994).

In 1970 265,000 New Zealanders signed the Save Manapouri petition, which was at the time close to ten percent of the population. However the Cabinet Committee on Manapouri and the subsequent Manapouri Commission of Enquiry both established that the National government had an obligation under the Manapouri-Te Anau Development Act, 1963, to guarantee electricity to the aluminium smelter at Tiwai Point, run by Comalco Corporation. The original six guardians of the lake were Alan Mark, Ronald McLean, Wilson Campbell, Les Hutchins, John Moore, and Jim McFarlane.

The Save Manapouri Campaign, had its origins in the late sixties, but it was not until 1969 when the West Arm turbines commenced operation that it was revealed that legislation passed in 1960 gave the go-ahead for Manapouri Lake levels to be raised by up to eleven metres. This would allow for the generation of up to an additional two-hundred megawatts of electricity, and would cause the lifting of Lake Te Anau. At this juncture scientists and recreational users of the lake started to created environmental assessments, and the news was far from good. A full raising would inundate 160 km of shoreline and submerge 800 hectares of forest; continuous landslides would occur and there would be an introduction of tree branches and tree trunks into the lake. It would also be a major hazard for boaties, fishermen and swimmers. All Manapouri’s beaches and 26 of its 35 islands would be destroyed, and this would be a consequence of a minimal two-metre raising! The ecology of the lake would be estimated destroyed and the unforgiving reduction in the flow of the Waiau River into Manapouri would enable silting of the riverbed and flooding of the adjacent farmland.

It was this public sentiment that helped launch the Save Manapouri Campaign in Invercargill in late 1969. It was not long before the movement had a head: Ron McLean – a well-known farming advocate and community leader – and he established nineteen branches (regional committees) nationally. Persons from all political and ideological backgrounds then became involved, which was unusual at face value, but on closer value it was less so, as New Zealanders of all persuasions wanted to involve themselves in how the country should utilise its natural resources. Important persons included “left-wingers”: Sir Jack Harris and Dr Ian Prior, “right-ringers”: McLean, Alan Mark, and members of the Forest and Bird Protection Society, the nation’s longest-established conservation group, Farmers and Chamber of Commerce hardliners, trade unionists and students.

Both the National Government and the Opposition were taken by surprise by the Manapouri Movement. The Minister of Works and Energy argued that any amendment to the project would require re-negotiation with Comalco, and this was not a guaranteed thing. There was also a campaign of public meetings, newspaper advertisements and features, messages to conferences of National and Labour, and a large petition, formally mentioned, to the government.

Save Manapouri went from a grassroots protest movement to a national party-political divide. It became a deciding feature of the direction the country would take into the new decade, and whether National would hold onto power in 1972, or if it would assist the new-wave Labour switch.

“The greatest benefit arising from the Save Manapouri Campaign, however, may have been that it started a national debate on environmental issues, involving national and local body politicians, scientists, professional planners and members of the public.” (See King, 2003).

The Manapouri protests of 1970 was of great benefit for New Zealand, in that it commenced a national debate on environmental issues, which involved both levels of government, as well as scientists, planners and the public. This spawned newspaper and magazine stories, professional papers and television reports. It also created legislation, such as:

·       Overhaul of water management in the Water and Soil Conservation Act

·       Attempted elimination of air pollution in the Clean Air Act

·       Protection of marine life in the Marine Reserves Act

These Acts of parliament were amongst the first in the world aimed at environmentalism/conservation of limited resources, and gave New Zealand a name before many other nations – both advanced and developing – as a clean, green nation. Decades later New Zealand would market itself to the world as “PureNZ”, for tourism, rooted in the Save Manapouri Campaign.

Although “founded” in the 1960s (and even back to the fifties), 1970 is widely acknowledged in NZ as the year when Women’s Lib ‘began’, but actually achieved more than just the vote. The “libbers” dated their cause to the 1880s (about a decade earlier than in Europe and America), but almost eighty years was to pass before they were taken seriously, and not just at token-status. The two decades of the 1950s and 1960s did not help; a new conservatism, partially assisted by the National Government, which held power during most of that period, cemented the role of women as housewives, caregivers to their children and generally assistants and servants to men. This was not only in New Zealand, but a global state-of-affairs. However, NZ was the first to grant universal suffrage as a direct result of the 1890s actions, and these seeds of change engineered so long before, ascended to the surface in 1970. It was not unanticipated that a culmination of sixties free values, women’s liberation, ethnic tolerance, a movement to the left and the new decade produced the ripest factors for real and permanent change for the women of New Zealand. The time had finally arrived and this time it was irreversible. Ground that had been made in World War II, had been steadily eroded in the 1950s and sixties, but there was still a vociferous group by the late sixties in New Zealand that was advancing the women’s cause. As it turned out, the neo-feminism, hippie/flower-power/drugs generation, left swing, Vietnam protest movement and general push for widespread socio-political change- in a word the counter-culture- nationally rendered the women’s lib far less powerful, but it assisted the movement. By 1970, New Zealand, as well as Britain, US, Australia and most western powers had a much more forceful half of the population; no peaceful revolution had before or after created such a massive newly-empowered social class. Women’s lib in NZ additionally evolved from the American civil rights and anti-war movements. In that nation women felt that their cause was slipping whilst the fight to free other peoples was advancing steadily. They were relegated to making ‘cuppas’, typing and providing sexual comfort to men. It was under these circumstances in the late sixties when a cognitive operation of ‘consciousness-raising’ commenced to heighten an awareness of oppression and an engenderment of a feeling of solidarity with other women. In New Zealand in the early seventies the ground for the grassroots-based women’s movement was fertile, as most women could see that they had second-class status in the following areas:

·       Rates of pay

·       Employment opportunities

·       Excessive and unreasonable domestic responsibilities

·       Education

Overseas literature was extremely important in assisting individual women to recognise and analyse the current problem and also in developing a belief that these oppressive circumstances could be altered permanently.

Kiwi women organised themselves into small, leaderless, “democratic” groups to help the conscious-raising process. It would give rise two years later, in 1972, to the group NOW- National Organisation for Women- a clever acronym and Wellington-based. As the women’s movement progressed, an increasing number of women insisted that they didn’t simply want more power in a male-dominated society, but rather a fundamental shift to a more feminist-society.  This would allow the overthrow of male dominance values.

“Like the counter-culture, the main achievement of the women’s movement was its role in changing the attitudes of mainstream New Zealand society, but in this case to sex roles, equality of opportunity and equal pay.” (See King, 2003).

The libbers in 1970 were also assisted by the Labour Party, where many women carried the labour movement’s values into party and parliamentary politics. The best example of this is the first women Prime Minister, Helen Clark (1999-2005), who had her rudimentary core beliefs and actions from this period in the labour and women’s liberation movements.

New Zealand (NZL) sent a team of 65 competitors and 19 officials to the 1970 British Commonwealth Games, which were held in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Commonwealth Games of 1970 will be remembered for several firsts: it was the first time that metric distances and electronic photo-finish technology were employed at the Games, and the first time that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II attended in her capacity as head of the Commonwealth. Scots will further remember the Games for the Stewarts who won gold medals. Forty-two nations sent 1744 athletes to Edinburgh.  Les Mills was the flag bearer at the opening ceremony, and Harry Kent at the closing ceremony. The medal tally was gold: 2, silver: 6, bronze: 6, making a total of fourteen medals. This was quite a good result for the nation in 1970, and was eleventh in the medal table. Both gold medals were won in cycling by Bruce Biddle and Kent; silver medals were won in athletics, lawn bowls and weightlifting. Les Mills won silver in the men’s discus throw. New Zealand would go on to win medals in future Commonwealth and Olympic Games in these sports of cycling and athletics. Bronze were won by New Zealand also in athletics, as well as cycling, swimming, weightlifting and wrestling.

The Feltex Television Awards began in New Zealand in the year 1970, and was sponsored by Feltex Carpets Corporation. Feltex Carpets is an Australasian carpet manufacturer, originally established in the 1920s. As of writing the company has production plants in Melbourne, Australia and many locations in New Zealand. It also has offices in New Zealand, Australia and the United States. It produces more than 25 per cent of all carpet in New Zealand and Australia. Feltex also exports to customers throughout Southeast Asia, Japan, the USA, the Middle East and other world markets. One of the big newcomers to television in 1970 was Bruno Lawrence, who won the award for Best Actor. He would go on to be a big acting success in the 1970s and eighties, in iconic Kiwi films such as Sleeping Dogs, Spotswood, Smash Palace, Utu, and the Quiet Earth.  The 1970 Awards were for shows made in 1969. In the category of Best Arts, producer was Bruce Thomson, and show was Green Gin Sunset. For the category of Best Light Entertainment, producer was Chris Thomson, show was The Alpha Plan. The category of Public Affairs was won by producer Des Monaghan, and piece was Gallery: Brian Edward’s interview with Dr Christian Barnard. The Best Specialty Programme was produced by Derek Morton and title was Kid Set. Best Documentary was produced by Bill Saunders for Three Score Years and Then. Finally the Professional (TVPDA award) award went to David Gardner.

The Feltex Television Awards has showcased much of New Zealand’s television film talent, and many talented producers and actors would not have been acknowledged without it.

In 1970 Radio Hauraki granted the very first commercial licence in New Zealand, breaking the government monopoly of the radio airwaves. Radio Hauraki specialises in album-oriented rock and classic rock, and is based in Auckland. The idea for the station was born in a Wellington pub in 1966, and in mid-March it was decided to broadcast on its particular frequency as it was well away from the NZBC and Australian stations. The idea to broadcast came to light as a result of the Auckland New Zealand Herald article on 9 April 1966. An on-air target date of 11am on 1 October 1966 was set.  Radio Southern Cross was a possible rival to Hauraki at this time, but the threat did not materialise. In September 1966 broadcasting vessel Tiri was detained at dock by the government and prevented from taking to the sea. In November it set sail undetected and later in the month commenced transmission at 1480AM. On 11 November it would start transmissions from a part of the Harbour that would be its base for the next three-and-a-half years. It was badly damaged, especially the transmitter, in the storm of April 1968, which sunk the Wahine.  It is now part of the Radio Network, which consists of six other radio stations. In order to break the government monopoly, Hauraki operated illegally from 1966-70. Although private commercial stations had operated from the beginnings of radio broadcasting, the national government had closed each one down, this state-of-affairs accelerating after World War II. To break the monopoly Hauraki was originally formed as a pirate station in the Hauraki Gulf. It was the only offshore station ever to broadcast in the southern hemisphere, in a famous and historic chronicle, that witnessed a loss of life. The Radio Hauraki crew had spent 1,111 days at sea and the final broadcast from the sea-based Hauraki “Pirates” was a documentary on the station’s history, until the point, concluding at 10 pm when Tiri II changed tack and headed for Auckland, continuously playing Born Free. During this final voyage back to shore, announcer Rick Grant was lost overboard. He would become the face of the fight for private radio broadcasting. In 1990 Radio Hauraki was granted one of the first FM transmission licences, and is still one of New Zealand’s premier stations in 2012. 

In 1970 Edward Middleton won the Robert Burns Fellowship. The Robert Burns Fellowship, established in 1958 as a bicentennial celebration, is claimed to be New Zealand's premier literary residency. Past fellows contain many of the country’s most notable writers. The list of past fellows includes many of New Zealand's most illustrious writers. The Fellowship was started by an anonymous group to be awarded annually to "writers of imaginative literature, including poetry, drama, fiction, autobiography, biography, essays or literary criticism." Position is based at the University of Otago, in Dunedin, and provides a year’s salary, in addition to accommodation and office for a writer in the University. The usual tenure is one year, although in exceptional cases that has been extended to two. Named after Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns, Dunedin has the highest proportion of persons of Scottish descent in New Zealand, and a founding father was Burns’ nephew, Thomas Burns. In commemoration of the half-century anniversary of the fellowship a novel, Nurse to the imagination: fifty years of the Robert Burns Fellowship was launched in late 2008, simultaneously with the 2008 Dunedin Arts Festival.

1968-70 was indeed the culmination of 130 years of nouveau culture, lifestyle, way-of-thinking, country and people...a nation that was European in origin, but embraced a new way of thinking, a new and modern way-of-life, embraced rugby, cricket, the bush, the sea, sports and recreation in general, and a positive, optimistic New World. In 1970 the old ways were brushed aside, but not completely removed, and a newer generation was to emerge – the “X” Generation. This generation, born of the baby-boomers, was to be more extravert, more entrepreneurial, more embracing of the natural features New Zealand could offer, and more inclined towards broad social, political and demographic change. The days of National Party superiority, two-and-a-half children-families, the two-acre house with the white picket fence, and religious, gender, racial and sexual orientation intolerance were approaching the end. In short, the birth of the new decade spelt never-before-seen moral, social and psychological alteration of the young nation. The Xers, as they were to known, would be less introverted, more inclined to take risks, more inclined to fundamental change, and would also be often less successful and financially secure than their parents and grandparents. However the wheels of change would be set in action.