8th - Kaipara Konnection - Dargaville.BIZ

“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion
now accepted was once eccentric.” -- Bertrand Russell
Some New Zealand History For The Week History 9 - 15 December
11 December 1931 Statute of Westminster passed
The British Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster, granting complete autonomy to its six Dominions. Australia
and New Zealand held back from adopting this status, but in 1947 New Zealand became the last of the Dominions to do
so.
Although this country had moved from being a colony to a Dominion in 1907, few New Zealanders then wanted greater
independence from Britain. Racial affinity, language, culture, defence and trade links bound most New Zealanders to the
wider ‘Britannic world’, which was then at the height of its prestige.
Those feelings persisted through the first half of the 20th century, even though dominion status evolved as a label for the
constitutional position of the former self-governing colonies (and the Irish Free State). In 1926, after pressure from the
Irish, South Africans and Canadians, the Balfour Declaration stated that Britain and the Dominions:
are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any
aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the
Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Gordon Coates, called this a ‘poisonous document’. Although
the British Parliament subsequently passed the Statute of Westminster, which formally
removed London’s right to legislate for the dominions unless they asked it to do so, New
Zealand refused to ratify it until 25 November 1947. The Constitution Act 1986 finally
removed the last faint provision for the British Parliament to make laws for New Zealand.
12 December 769 De Surville first sights NZ near Hokianga
As James Cook rounded the northern tip of the North Island from east to west, the French
explorer Jean François Marie de Surville was in the same waters, sailing in the opposite
direction. A storm prevented any chance of an historic meeting.
Image: satellite view of the northern tip of New Zealand.
13 December 1642 First recorded European sighting of New Zealand
Towards noon the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted ‘a large land, uplifted high’. As his vessel was off Punakaiki, this
may have been the peaks of the Paparoa Range.
Tasman sailed from Batavia (today’s Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) in August 1642. His expedition had
two aims: to establish whether there was a southern sea route to Chile which could be used to prey on Spanish ships;
and to exploit the resources of the ‘great southern continent’ which many firmly believed existed between Australia and
Cape Horn. The Dutch had already charted Australia’s northern and western coasts, and part of its southern coast. But
how far this land extended to the east was still unknown.
Tasman commanded 110 men on two ships, the Heemskerck and the Zeehaen. He discovered Tasmania (as it would
later be called) on 24 November, naming it Van Diemen’s Land after the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. He
then continued east across the sea which now bears his name.
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