AH Challenge: Make New Zealand a failed state.

Have John Key win the 2008 election.

So a moderate politician from what would—in most countries—be a centrist political party taking office in a system where he probably has to rely on another party for support will destroy New Zealand how?


I mean I suppose a die-hard Labour supporter who believes in conspiracy theories (and forgot about Labour of the 1980s, which was well to the right of the current National Party) might state your above position, but otherwise that just seems silly.

But hey, I'm in Canada where all sorts of people thought/think the same thing about Prime Minister Harper before and after his election…*oddly Canada is doing ok. Could be better, but certainly ok.
 
AH Challenge: Make New Zealand a failed state.
So… with a POD after 1945 (or in the 1930s, if you must) try to make New Zealand the worst place that you can. Preferably with rampant ethnic/class/criminal violence, a failing or failed political system/s, widespread poverty and even foreign peace-keepers/police/observers or aid for the country if your really keen. The country doesn't have to be at it's worst in the present day, just a generally nasty place sometime past the POD.
Hmm... kill a large percentage of the sheep population. The newzealanders, now seriously short of "companionship", proceed to start killing each other over the remaining sheep.
:p:D;)

For the yanks etc. just a logical development from the standard sterotype of kiwis.
 
Hmm... kill a large percentage of the sheep population. The newzealanders, now seriously short of "companionship", proceed to start killing each other over the remaining sheep.
:p:D;)

For the yanks etc. just a logical development from the standard sterotype of kiwis.

Interestling enough the sheep population in New Zealand has decreased from 50 million to 40 million in recent years.... :eek:
 
Hmmm...how to turn New Zealand into a failed state.

19th Century: Epidemic diseases kill fewer Maori, and they
politically consolidate into a monarchy. Result: Abortive
colonisation. Australia doesn't like the situation. Chilly
transtasman relations as a result, particularly given
gunrunning to Queensland and Torres Strait indigenous
populations.

1920s-1930s: Prime Ministers William F Massey and Coates
go too far in crushing labour union dissent, leading to a
much larger communist movement and a socialist revolution
c1935/6. Australia promptly invades. Australasian War follows.

1950s: Same as above, only National PM Sid Holland fails to
crush the Waterfront Strike in 1951, or does so with great
difficulty. Class polarisation occurs.

1981: Muldoon launches a coup d'etat as a result of political
polarisation after a far more bloody version of the 1981 Springbok
Rugby Tour of NZ. It doesn't go down well in Wellington or Christchurch.
Civil war occurs. Ends with the "Great Pork Fry."

1993: It looks as if Labour is going to win the election in a landslide,
and Treasury hates the idea, given how flaky Mike Moore was. They have a word to the military and martial law is declared. Class polarisation and civil war occurs.

Craig
 
Well the country hasn't had a totally smooth history, even in the late 20th century; the Muldoon era almost bankrupted the currency. The following Labour government in the 1980s had to sell off most of the state assests to save that from happening. It's only now things like the railways are being bought back and new state-owned banks being created.

New Zealand's relations with it's former allies and trading partners suffered as well. The French bombed the rainbow warrior, killing one person in Auckland Harbour.
The Americans booted us out of ANZUS because we refused to let their ships into the country.
And we lost our largest trading partner; the UK, when they joined the EEC. That really hurt the economy, and because of it New Zealand slipped from near the top of the list in almost every catagory of development to the middle of the developed world.

There were also the Maori protests over land rights, and the infamous Springbok Tour of 1981, which resulted in violent nation wide protests.

I think the trouble with pulling this off is more that even if there's domestic turmoil in New Zealand, you'd probably see a UN/Commonwealth intervention, with mainly Australian forces to settle things down. New Zealand doesn't really have the population or military clout to prevent intervention.
 
Here is my timeline of events that would lead to a greatly failed state of New Zealand. It is based off the premise that the Treaty of Waitangi failed to promote peace between Britain and the Maoris.

1840 - 45.. Maori delegation walks out of peace talks between themselves and the British emissaries, resulting in the formation of the independent colony of New Zealand being delayed, and administration from Sydney in New South Wales continuing for the next few years.

1845 - 60.. New Zealand white colonists gain seperation from New South Wales and form the independent colony of New Zealand, with the capital based at Auckland, several Maori tribes on the North Island begin the First Maori War against the growing British presence on the island, culminating in the sack and burn of the small but important township of Okiato, along with the murder of over 500 British settlers.

1860 - 75.. the growing unrest in South Island begins the 'Capital Convention of 1863' with a growing movement to re-establish the New Zealand capital on the Cook Strait, which seperates the North from the South.. This is met with failure as the crown will not pay the inherent costs of moving the colonial capital and the fact that Maori tribes are still quite active in the area and in arms against the settler militas. The capital stays at Auckland.

Over the course of the next decade the movement for independence of the south continues to grow unabatted.

1875- 1890.. The Second Maori War begins with the unification of several tribes into a 'grand coaltion' to drive the hated white man from their lands. Over the next ten years over 125,000 casualties will be caused, including the capture of the British govenor whilst he is on transit between Auckland and Wellington. The 1888 treaty of Ortago ends the war with the first realistic 'defeat' of a white imperialist nation at the hands of native peoples. Maori tribes gain exclusive rights over 40% of the arable land on the islands and gain other priviliges that severley weaken the British backed colonial governmment.

The South Island in the election of 1889, which was held some five months after the end of the Second Maori War, holds and informal plebescite that shows a 75% support base for seperation of the South Island from the north. The Auckland government ignores it.

1890 - 1905.. Like elsewhere in the world there is a economic depression, that is heightend by the fact that agriculture has been severely limited with what many were calling simply 'the surrender' This leads to the world's first 'labour' or quasi-socialist government being formed after the election of 1897, further causing tensions between the more radical and urbanised north and the more conservative south.

The New Zealander and Fijian delegations to the Australian Connsitiutional Convention elects not to join the Commonwealth of Australia when it forms in 1901.

1905 - 1920... With the continued threat of Maori aggression in the interior and the growing threat of the German Reich in the Pacific in the first years of the 20th century, the South Island declares independence from New Zealand and indeed the British Empire in 1909, and opened a dialogue between themselves and the Maoris. This results in the Crisis of the Tasman, when the new South Island government declares itself a protectorate of Germany in 1910, to prevent the planned British offensive. War is narrowly averted between Germany and the British Empire through the mediations of US President Taft and the death of King Edward VII.

The new government for the south Island is short lived however as in 1914 (same as OTL) World War One started. German ships based in the South island steamed to attack both North Island (still called New Zealand) and Australian ports.. On April 25th 1915 an ANZAC force lands on South Island and fights to a bloody stalemate. The huge casualties (something in the order of 100,000) causes the ANZAC withdrawal in early 1916. However the government of the South collapses and the new Maori led regime signs a peace treaty in 1917, with the recognition of the new Maori Republic, as the south island became known.

1920 - 1935. After the eventual German defeat in World War One, both the Maori Republic and New Zealand (the North Island rump state) join the ill fated League of Nations. In 1923 a referendum is held in New Zealand to join the Commonwealth of Australia, with the support of both the New Zealand labour party and the New Zealand Nationalist Party (both had strong ties with their Australian equivalents at this point) the North Island becomes the seventh state of Australia.

The Maori Republic establishes its capital after several years of wrangling at the newly built city of Wana'tangi, and begins pulling itself out of the economic troubles it had experienced since the defeat of the south island in world war one.

When the Great Depression hits, it hits hard like everywhere else in the world, along with rise of militarism in the region, especially from Japan, the Maori Republic becomes more militaristic and fascist in its approach, and begins talk of 'reclaiming' all Maori lands.

1935 - 1950.. Japan invades China proper in 1937 (as per OTL) and in 1940 the Maori Republic signs the Japanese-Maori Frienship Pact. the bombing of Pearl Habour occurs in 1941, along with the invasions of Singapore, Philipines, Indochina and Indonesia, resulting in a massive Allied defeat in the first few months of open warfare. Maori shipping restricts US supplies and troops bound for mainland Australia, and begin forming for a cross-strait invasion of the Australian state of New Zealand. The invasion occurs in May 1942, at the same time of the Battle of the Coral Sea, and at first meets some success. However as American and Australian numbers are felt, and the apparent defeat of Japan at the Coral Sea, Maori fortunes turn against them.

By late 1943, Maori shipping has all but disappeared from the Cook strait and the south island is put under a joint blockade by Australia and the United States. On December 29th, Maori forces on the North Island led by General Ta'mu surrender. This leads to a crisis in the Maori government, and the leadership is replaced by more militant leaders, in an effort by the Maori President to stiffen resitance against the hated Australians..

Despite pleas for help, the Japanese Imperial Navy sails north in a vain attempt to hold back the growing allied tide, and the Republic of Maori surrenders on May 9th 1944, just over two years after their invasion of Australian territory.

Immediatley after the war the Maori Republic is abolished and occupation of the South Island begins by Australian troops. This leads to several outrages including the 'Massacre of Wellington', when several thousand Maori citizens including many whites were killed in the aftermath of rioting that burns 95% of the city to the ground.

1950 - 1965.. In 1950 with the start of the Korean War, the move towards normalisation began, with the culimination of the 1951 signing of the new constitution of the renamed Maori Union, which is modeled on the Westminster system, with the President of the Union in reality a figurehead, and all try power resting with the Maori Prime Minister. In 1952, fresh elections in the Maori Union with the Maori Social Democratic Party establishing the first post-war civilian government.. After the renunciation of violence by the government in Wana'tangi is signed, the Australian occupation ends on December 31, 1953.

Meanwhile in Australian New Zealand, the Third and last Maori 'War' begins in 1954, with the majority of Maoris demanding unification with the Maori Union. The Australian government responds by disenfranchising all citizens of Maori blood and bans majority of the nanscensent Maori political parties under the Maori Exclusion Act. This unconstituonal law was only overturned in 1962 by the landmark Nu'ku'lofa case, that also caused the downfall of Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies. It was only later revealed that approximatley 5,000 Maoris were killed as a result of interment camps in the interior of the North Island, and some 300,000 fled the North island for the south, causing the collapse of the New Zealand state economy and a severe drain on Australian resources, by 1965 the state was well on its way to recovery, becoming a chief 'breadbasket' of Australia, as well as a major tourist area (as Australians feel its safer now there are fewer Maoris)

1965 - 1980

With the Australian involvement in the Vietnam War ramping up, many Australian conscription dodgers make their way to the Maori Union, who still does not have a extradition treaty with Australia. Due to the influx of people (some 25,000 Australians are expected of emigrating to the MU during the Vietnam War) and the 300,000+ Maoris the decade before, the Maori Union economy begins to flourish. Along with expanded modernisation of their industry, the MU quickly becomes a rich state, with a high degree of exellence, particuraly their expanding infant electronics industry.

Meanwhile the Australian people begin protesting the continued loss of life in Vietnam, eventually forcing the Australian army to withdraw in 1972. This is not before several riots, most important the Sydney riots in May 1971 that lead to the wrecking of several streets of the downtown, causing some $190 million US Dollars damage (some $2.3 billion today's money) along with 123 dead and 496 injured.

In 1975 the territories of Papua and New Guinea, both Australian overseas possessions errupt into violence when their petition for independence is declined by Canberra. This leads to the Papuan War of Independence against Australia. The Maori Union lends some material aid to the rebels, and its enough coupled with the sheer deternination of the native peoples to gain independence in 1979. However the Papuan war causes much damage to the already torn fabric of Australian society, causing 35,000 Australian deaths and a further 70,000 casualties along with a recession that causes the Australian economy to plummet.

1980 - 1990

At the start of the 1980s the Australian government was in dire straits. In 1982, the state of New Zealand, improvrished and with what is perceived as a lack of interest in the state by the other 'Australian' states, attempt secession from the Commonwealth. This was met with much protest over several weeks, further destablising the state of affairs on the North Island. The Maori Union in April 1982 sent a memorandum looking for the protection of what they term their 'brother peoples'.

In June 1982 New Zealand milita units fire upon an Australian warship anchored in the Cook Strait, percipitating the collapse of the Australian government of Malcolm Fraser. The ascension of Bill Hayden and the Australian Labor Party, with his hard-nosed defense minister, Bob Hawke caused the end of the quasi-civil war, with the threat of invasion, and President Reagan's open support of the Australian response. This lead to the occupation of New Zealand by Australian troops and the expulsion of all remaining Maoris (who are deemed a destablising force by the government in Canberra) to the Maori Union. Civilian government in New Zealand is returned in 1987, and by 1992 it had reached pre-1982 economic levels, signifying its continued strong growth.

Meanwhile the Maori Union enters into an alliance of Polynesian nations, with the Treaty of Port Morseby in 1983. Other important nations that join are Papua New Guinea and Fiji along with a host of other polynesian peoples. This Polynesian Economic Community functions well for about five years before the widely differing, yet competitive economies of the region begin working against each other. By 1989, several nations had left the community including Fiji (after the coup in 1988) and the Solomon Islands.

1990 - present

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, worldwide the cold war had come to an end. The Maori Union continued to suffer with the collapse of the Polynesian Economic Community and with the dissolution of the community in 1995. By 1997 the government was in danger of becoming bankrupt and rampant inflation had occured. Many even think that the Asian Economic Crisis of 1998 was caused by the apparent collapse of the Maori economic situation.

Meanwhile the North Island, under the control of Australia has once again begun to flourish. However many 'New Zealanders' resent the influx of Australian settlers to the state over the course of the decade (mainly to take up the room left by the expulsion of the Maoris) This resentment hyas boiled over several times with armed gangs of 'nationalists' hiding in the interior mountains of the island and making raids against military and civilian targets. However its only a matter of time before these 'terrorists' are rooted out and destroyed.

With the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington in 2001, the growing threat of Islamic militatism has begun to defrost the often icy relations between the Maori Union and the Commonwealth of Australia. While the Cook Strait remains heavily fortified, several steps have been taken to forming closer economic ties, however its several decades behind what has been seen in the European Union. The 2002 nightclub attacks in Bali by Jemmiah Islamiya caused 212 deaths, including 95 Australians and 17 Maori citizens. This lead to the historic 2003 peace accord between Australia and the MU and the joint remembrance service in Bali which both the Maori President and the Australian Govenor-General attended.

However diffrences still exist. The MU is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and Maori press often denigrates Australian policies of support for the US. Meanwhile the Australian presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is viewed by many in Australia as a waste of resources, resources better yet used to the betterment of all Australian peoples.

Needless to say that the idea of a united 'New Zealand' even as a state in the Commonwealth of Australia is decades off, if it can happen at all.
 
I think your history overlooks one important fact: the vast majority of the Maori population prior to European colonization, and I believe even continuing into the modern day, resided on the North Island. A Maori Union forming in the South Island, with its greater proportion of Pakeha, is decidedly unlikely.
 
Great history, especially for a first go. However, the original idea was to end up with a failed state. This one seems to be doing fairly well, if a bit patchy. :)
 
Mission impossible

The history of New Zealand suggests that it is unlikely somehow the country has been well governed and a bit like a Scandinavian country. The first country to give women the vote, a welfare state before Britain.

Maybe if the French colonised South Island which they nearly did and there was civil war drawing in Australia on the side of the North however the war wouldn't last long but South Island may be an Australasian Quebeck

Or
Harry Holland doesn't die in 1933 and Savage dies in 1933 and the Forbes coalition is relected but is weak and fails to address unemployment resulting in civil disorder

Or slightly more plausible. The National Party wins in 1957 and has to tackle its disatrous economic legacy further bankrupting the country on Nash doesn't appoint Nordemeyer as chancellor and there is no black budget but the economy worsens. The country is bankrupt and harsh economic measures are required. Bitter protracted strikes occur resulting in civil war
 

boredatwork

Banned
(yes, wildly improbable - so what?)

Summer of love reaches Wellington, and goes supercritical.

Nice reasonable moderate governments give way bit by bit. The Amsterdam coffee shop experiment is admired, copied. Leaders figure, reasonably enough 'it's NZ, we're in the middle of the bloody south pacific, what's the worst they can do - tie-dye the sheep?"

NZ climate and soil turn out to be mysteriously perfect for ganga, opium, coca, 'shrooms, and every other narcotic or hallucinogenic source known to mankind. Ever so often the random flock of sheep ends up wandering across some 'gardens' and coming out stoned silly. It occassionally makes the evening news, and is the source of good humored mockery.

Sure, some of the more conservative types are a bit annoyed, but even they are thinking "any moment now, those silly kids are going to grow up and go to the disco like they have everywhere else".

Never happens. In fact, NZ attracts communes, hippies, draft dodgers, and artist types from around the world - trickles of folks from the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe become streams. In the other direction, folks of a more martial, conservative, religious bent gradually filter outward, taking jobs in the rest of the Commonwealth, and even the USA.

Like many social processes, once the ball gets rolling, it reinforces itself. One example is when Wellington declares itself an asylum city for refugees from "prohibitionism, sexism, militarism, draftism, racism, capitalism, industrialism, pollutionism, fascism, nazism, anti-gayism, imperialism, phallocentrism, christianism, classicism, and carnivorism." Communes start popping up on isolated pastures, confrontations arise, farmers eventually get sick of insufficient govt support and move elsewhere. More communes show up near by, the local town becomes the domain of lazier hipsters.

Tax revenues fall, symbolic, and not so symbolic regulations are passed. Many businesses pack up and leave, other's go bankrupt. New businesses, focused on trade, entertainment, and pharmacopeia spring up.

It's now the 1980's, Reagan, Thatcher, Kohl, and all the rest are in power, disgusted leftists, anarchists, and more radical independents move to the more hospitable, civilized, and reasonable environs of NZ.

The remaining farmers are blood and soil types, not going to leave the land that their forefathers forefathers tilled and all that.

By this point NZ is one of, if not the world's premiere hubs of narcotic and hallucinogenic drug production. Prohibitionist ("uptight") countries begin placing greater restrictions on trade and travel from "New Easyland". What little legitimate trade was left starts drying up. Desperate farmers, businessmen, and townies become increasingly confrontational with the 'hippies'.

What they don't realize, is that for some time now, the 'hippies' have been following a very successful 'long march through the institutions' strategy, intentionally, or (more likely) otherwise.

So now the stage is set, a hard core minority of traditionalist, resentful, farmers angry at the theiving hippies who stole their land and destroyed their livelihoods, another hardcore minority of radicals, paranoid that the flesh-eating, gun-toting, stick-in-the-mud, theocratic, capitalist pigs are going to crush their one remaining safe haven in a world of evil and despair. The remainder of the populace, bewildered, confused, and not a little distraught, just wants things settled so they can go back to living their lives. The government, now in the pocket of lobbyists acting on behalf of drug cartels, just wants to keeps business going and shipments moving. Outside nations, noting the lack of NZ armed forces, and the prominent role of NZ based gangs in local drug trade, are looking for excuses to act.

All it will take is one spark.

The fall of the berlin wall, welcomed as a sign of hope and freedom in the rest of the world, is greated by large portions of NZ as a sign of the end times.

No longer is there an Eastern Bloc to 'guarantee' NZ neutrality, no longer will the more radical splinter groups have a handy source of intellectual and material support. Suddenly the traditionalist minority sees signs that history is turning in it's favor. Radicals on both sides stir up a population fed for nearly two generations on a steady diet of extremism, pettiness, crime, and contempt for the other side.

Someone, a 'real' kiwi, a 'new' kiwi, a drug merchant, or some prohibitionist agent, (apocryphal evidence points to a 'Thande' from the 'Spaced Bats Faction') stumbles into the wrong warehouse in Wellington. Gunshots are heard, explosive materials (never determined if actual bomb making materials, fertilizer, or drug lab) detonate. Every faction, every kiwi, old and new, is convinced that "those idiots, those evil buggers, they've gone too far this time - that's it!"

Bombings, assassinations, protests, blockades, arson, the whole slew erupts. Drug gangs and cartels take the advantage of the chaos to settle scores and expand territory, political factions assault their enemies and weed out the 'disloyal', farmers bulldoze communes, communes burn farms and cut fences, things are getting rapidly out of hand.

At some point, on the North island, one commune releases it's doomsday weapon against the ranchers - a highly contagious, highly lethal, sheep borne virus, deadly to the animals themselves, that can also be spread by prolonged or intense contact (such as a rancher, shearer, or slaughterhouse).

Pretty soon local embassies are reporting back that various foreign nationals (many of whom were actually involved in the drug trade) have been kidnapped, shot, or otherwise assaulted.

France, Australia, America, Canada, England and other nations send detachements to protect and or evacuate their nationals. Not so publicly, they also send in teams to wind up senior management of various shady enterprises who had taken advantage of NZ's ask no questions approach to pretty much everything. Amidst the confusion, it was perhaps predictable that at least a few of them would end up in firefights with each other.

Suitably chastened, and with most of their known nationals out of the country, most forces pull out. Australian, US, and UK forces retain small sectors in the north and south islands (a few docs, medical facilities, an airstrip and a barracks each) to support humanitarian interventions and eventual peacekeepers.

2008 dawns. NZ's sheep population is down to less than a million, wellington resembles Beruit with brighter graffiti, tracts of formerly productive land are returning to ther primeaval state, small towns dot the countryside - burnt, empty except for decaying corpses of sheep-plague victims.

Armed reclamation and reconstruction forces from the Australia, Canada, the UK, and the USA are working with international relief organizations to start rebuilding the shattered nation.

Here and there, heavily protected investigative teams track down rumors of the ultimate source of the troubles. Mysterious graffiti "Thande was here" and odd gang logos featuring a NZ flag with a giant, psychedelic bat rampant across the southern cross lead to various theories.

In a final, sad denouement, bat hunting becomes a right of passage for expatriate Kiwis, part of their celebrations and rememberance of the islands that were their home.
 
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My God, I do believe boredatwork has been infiltrating Thande's secret files.

A most tragic accident is surely imminent.



My proposal would involve New Zealand concluding that attractive women stripping in response to a series of wolf whistles was illegal. Events would tragically proceed. Wait. What's this in another thread?:eek:
 

Japhy

Banned
Have Joh Bjelke-Petersen's parents stay in New Zealand, and have him enter politics and in the mid 1960's become Prime Minister. The interal corruption, slow stripping of civil liberties, and the ever so slow, massing of power under his direct control cripple New Zealand Democracy. A massive system of partonage, para/military force, and a cult of personality cause New Zealand to be firmly under his sole control, until 20+ years later he falls or dies or somesuch and the entire nation falls into chaos.
 
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