New Zealand in Australia

I don't know much about Australia or New Zealand, but if the Treaty with the Maoris is the issue, even if New Zealand joined Australia, isn't Australia a federation? Couldn't the government of New Zealand continue to enforce it, just at the state level rather than the national level?
 
The locals got flogged in the frontier wars, the fighting itself was very one sided and the colonists were fighting European style, meaning you follow up a victory in battle with a massacre like sacking a city or slaughtering the camp back in Europe. But to call it genocide I think detracts from the fact that the locals did put up the best fight they could; they killed colonists when they were aggrieved and on some occasions went on the offensives against colonists camps not to mention conducting economic warfare by killing livestock in huge numbers.

By that definition practically the only things that could be considered genocides are the Holocaust, Holodomor, and Armenian genocide. The Native Americans and Africans did an extent of what your saying too, but that doesn't make the intentional destruction of their people not a genocide. The definition has nothing to do with the actions of the victim, it's entirely to do with the onew who enacts the killing.
 
It likely wouldn't be as simple as that. This kind of treaty, sitting as it does, alongside customary/native title, isn't particularly well liked today in NZ by many people and certainly wasn't by the Settler majority when the case was decided.

Prendergast did reflect the views of many in the establishment and whilst his legal reasoning or racial beliefs might have been incorrect or a bit awful, the general point that the treaty wasn't relevant to property rights was very popular. The case likely would have had a similar outcome either way even though details might have differed in a way that would have helped Maori generally.

The point being that the NZ government of say 1899 would have not wanted to worry about the Treaty, nor likely be willing to say much in its defence and these were the Liberals. Almost none of the settlers, or the Settler government had any participation in the Treaty process, as it predated the mass British settlement of NZ. Most were not fans, despite many having some sympathy for Maori.

It is important to note Prendergast, despite his other views, did support Maori representation in parliament (so far as I remember) at some point, even if his racial views later hardened. The Land Wars turned a lot of early settlers firmly against Maori rights and privileges, as wars often do.
 

Devvy

Donor
While I don't have knowledge to be able to contribute to this discussion about Aus & NZ, it is interesting reading for me. So can people avoid descending this into a debate about what is and isn't genocide pretty please? :)
 
While I don't have knowledge to be able to contribute to this discussion about Aus & NZ, it is interesting reading for me. So can people avoid descending this into a debate about what is and isn't genocide pretty please? :)

Was the Beeching Cuts a war crime???
 
By that definition practically the only things that could be considered genocides are the Holocaust, Holodomor, and Armenian genocide. The Native Americans and Africans did an extent of what your saying too, but that doesn't make the intentional destruction of their people not a genocide. The definition has nothing to do with the actions of the victim, it's entirely to do with the onew who enacts the killing.

Genocide is a word that gets thrown around too much in this day and age and as a result loses its potency. The big killer of Aborigines, like the Pre Columbian Americans, was the Virgin Field Epidemic diseases which was not deliberate nor was it helped along with infected blankets and other tactics in Australia.

Nor was the first order business in Australian colonisation to wipe out the locals, massacres were usually the end result of prolonged tit for tat violence. Once a massacre did occur the perpetrators usually then didn't hunt up the next clan group and slaughter them and the next and the next, Rwanda style.

Not that the end result wasn't similar, but aside from the epidemics the massacres that happened in Queensland were not related to those in Victoria, they were not part of some plan.
 
Hitler, a complete bogan.

Yes, complete with 'frullet' and dodgy mo.

He'd probably be driving a VN Commodore.

16413d1145960434-vn-burnout-car-scan0011.jpg
 
Despite our historic failings to fully uphold our side of the Treaty, Maori had the franchise pre-1900 (as did women) and virtually no-one denied that they had arrived in New Zealand first, though some certainly tried. Australia's Aborigines, however, didn't get much in the way of legal rights until approximately 1970 and it took another 20 years before the Mabo ruling overturned the Australian governments doctrine of Terra Nullius and restored the right to own their ancestral land to Aborigines.
Combine that difference with New South Wales's insistence that all trade conducted by New Zealand as part of the Commonwealth had to pass through Sydney first (in either direction) and a 2,000km wide sea between us, and our refusal to join becomes more understandable.
By 1900 we had become too distinct from the Aussies for federation to succeed, it would need to occur at least thirty years earlier and I just don't see it happening that early because the New Zealand Wars would still be too fresh in the public consciousness. The Aussies wouldn't want to get dragged into a fight that wasn't theirs. Hell, the South Island was seriously considering secession from the North Island because of them.
 
I think the cultural rationale is being overstated here. Let's be honest, even today New Zealand and Australia are about as similar as two different countries can be. Beyond those aspects of NZ's culture that are defined as 'not-Australia', there really is not much between us. The Maori certainly are a difference, though I doubt that other than for the Maori themselves that its much more than a symbolic one. How many Pakeha actually adopt Maori ways of thinking? I doubt very many. I can imagine its enormously annoying for some Kiwis to be patronised by Australians as the 'seventh state', but lets not overstate the differences. They of course were even smaller in the 1890's.

IMO it was the economic and security factors that were far more important to NZ's decision not to join the Commonwealth. In the 1890's Australia was a basket case, other than WA, while New Zealand was doing very well for itself. It made perfect sense for New Zealand to stay out of the federation in order to protect its economic interests at this time. Reverse this, and there are plenty of ways to have federation occur while the Australian colonies are prosperous and New Zealand struggling, and there'll be a much stronger argument for joining.

New Zealand also did not have to worry about its security at the time either. Australia itself was somewhat worried, as we know a united defence force for the continent was one of the main arguments, but there were no serious threats on the horizon. Britain was still very strong as well. If this were not the case, again plenty of ways to make it so, there would be a very good argument to include New Zealand in the federation. New Zealand would greatly enhance the defence force of the time, and in turn it would have access to much greater support than if it had to go it alone.

A century of two independent countries suggests that there are some fundamental differences between Australia and New Zealand that are unbridgeable, but this is an illusion IMO. We are more alike than Canada and the US, and if we'd been united from the start I seriously doubt there'd be a stronger New Zealand identity than there is Western Australian, or Queenslander. Sure, distance from the South-Eastern core is troublesome, but clearly not insurmountable.
 
If NZ did join Australia back in the day how would sport be organised, particularly before air travel become commonplace? Would Shield Cricket teams head to NZ and play a bunch of games over there and the NZ teams would do the same over here? How was this organised in Australia with WA and Tassie before WW2?
 
I wonder if New Zealand joins that Fiji might not wind up as part of Australia too at some point.

That was proposed during Federation talks and was going to happen, but Fiji pulled out because of racism.

Say NZ joined at the Federation in 1901, it would be interesting to see how the Maori are effected. In OTL this was one of the reasons why NZ never joined, as the Australian colonies weren't exactly treating their native people quite the same (no treaty, no rights etc). Also I don't think distance was too much of a big deal to be honest. I mean the differences between the distances between Perth and Melbourne vs Wellington and Melbourne vs Cairns and Melbourne is not a lot, although travelling over sea vs rail would have been a big deterrent. Does anyone know when the separate NZ identity formed? Was it after WWI or much later?

I think today, NZ would not be as developed and populated. NZ would be similar to the Northern Territory I'd imagine (as per development) apart from the small regions around cities like Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, and Dunedin where they would be pretty similar to how they are in OTL. But this all really depends on whether or not the Australian government respects the Treaty of Waitangi.

Due to the nature of the federation, the State of New Zealand could do what it wished in terms of the Maori, that's not really a major issue. However, Maori representation at a federal level would not have entered into effect (I believe) until the 1967 referendum that gave Aboriginal Australians the right to vote and included them on the census. Women in Victoria couldn't vote at a state level until 1908 but could vote on a federal level in 1901.

Surely it would be a case of the West Island joining New Zealand? ;)

The Continent Island, I'll have you know. You would never be able to control us. We are going to have to bail you out when the Great Sheep Revolution begins.
 
The Great Sheep Revolution is far more likely to occur on the west side of the Tasman Sea (refer to songs about dancing with sheep called Matilda and 'tying kangaroos down') and since the Australia LOST the Great Emu War of 1932.... :D:p
 
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