Talk:Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand

Legal effect of the Declaration

THere is no citation that the legal effect of the Declaration is disputed, so I'm going to remove it. --Lholden (talk) 02:16, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Official Independence of New Zealand from Britain: Dominion Day?

I was comparing the present revision to that of 8 February 2006 and I can see that the whole paragraph on the other possible dates on the Independence of New Zealand is now removed. I appreciate that this paragraph may seem irrelevant to the "Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand" signed by James Busby in 1835, a very specific document. However, lots of people who check the Wikipedia are not New Zealanders and don't have the background understanding that you as a Newzealander may have on the History of your own country. The concept of a national "Independence Day" is indeed foreign to the New Zealand psyche but it is an important date for many countries around the world, it's not only an Americanistic quirk as you suggested. For example, I'm from Brazil and we celebrate very lively our independence from Portugal every year, we have an Independence Day as well. Malaysians, Ukrainians, and many other countries do too. According to International Standards (e.g. the CIA World Factbook), New Zealand became independant from the UK the 26 September 1907. But we know that the NZ Parliament adopted the Statute of Westminster Act only in 1947 and it was only from this year on that New Zealanders were issued a New Zealand passaport. Before that all New Zealand nationals were British Citizens. Therefore, I suggest that the paragraph on other possible dates of the Independence of New Zealand be reinserted or reformulated for the sake of all those visitors to Wikipedia who aren't New Zealanders and wonder why their information on the date of Independence of New Zealand doesn't match with the information of your article. Hope this makes sense. Thank you.

Thanks for your comment. I removed that paragraph, because I felt it was not relevant for the above article. IMHO, anyone reading the New Zealand article can figure out that New Zealand's date of independence isn't clear.

As an aside, I would add that, legally speaking, New Zealand isn't totally independent of Britain. While the Queen of the United Kingdom may also be Queen of New Zealand, the law governing the succession to the New Zealand Crown remains a British statute that New Zealand is unable to change without consulting the other 15 Commonwealth Realms. Thus, we are not *totally* independent. --Lholden 08:56, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

fair enough, i didn't realise there's a separate article on the Independence of New Zealand and that you're involved in it as well. Independence and sovereignity can indeed be very complex concepts. I have one question though: can you confirm that the "NZ Parliament adopted the Statute of Westminster Act only in 1947 and it was only from this year on that New Zealanders were issued a New Zealand passaport"? Is it correct? Is it from this date that newzealanders started being called "New Zealand Citizens" officially? It appears to me that before this date, officially, all New Zealanders were British Citizens. Can this piece of information be inserted in the body of the article "New Zealand Independence" for reference? Cheers.

I'll have to look that up, but I think you may be correct; that would makes sense since the effect of the Act was to give New Zealand control over our own citizenship law - there was a case in the early 80s when a Samoan woman, born before 1947, sought New Zealand citizenship because she was born a "British citizen", and thus became a New Zealand citizen in 1947, only to become a Samoan citizen on independence in 1964. I think she was successful because the High Court held that citizenship could not be retrospetively changed, although Parliament pretty quickly enacted an amendment to the Citizenship law to cover this loop hole. --Lholden 02:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the article title can be quite misleading though; after all it was not modern New Zealand independence that was asserted - only that of a handful of northern Iwi, and then the matter was essentially forgotten apart from some constitutional manouevering. Perhaps the title would more accurately be "Declaration of Independence of the 'United Tribes' of New Zealand". For those not familar with NZ history, this article makes the declaration seem far more important than it is - self ranking it as highly important doesn't help. While NZ histiography can be expected to have a strong liberal bias, we can probably do better in reducing this. Leaving aside the contentious issue of whether it should ever have had any legal status, what was the historical significance of this declaration? The declaration today is politically useful to a small percentage of the population who are promoting the political element of modern Maori cultural separation from mainstream NZ culture; it is also of some interest to those following the 40 odd year long process of the United Kingdom establishing effetive political control over the North Island. But it had not the slightest impact on the reality of who had control in 1835, 1840, 1853 (when it never crossed anyone's mind) or 1865; nor did any of the ephermera of state follow after the declaration was signed and fflag chosen. the title was farcical - the tribes remained ununited - and while modern thinking may have assumed Maori had independence, that not have been as New Zealand, but as individual iwi. In summary for those not already familar with the subject, the article may make the declaration far more significant than it really is. I think the best way of reducing this imbalance would be an honest assessment of the unimportance of the declaration, and correcting the title would be a good start. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.96.151 (talk) 06:04, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Signatories

Who signed this? Is there any record of the signatories? Is it the same as the United Tribes of NZ? And what iwi belonged to this? Aidan (talk) 23:06, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Misleading title

The 1835 "Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand" was of no legal effect, was irrelevant then and even more so now. It is not justified to have an article under this misleading title.Royalcourtier (talk) 02:43, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Rubbish. Read the article.Moriori (talk) 03:08, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

The article is full of false and contentious claims. New Zealand did not exist as a legal entity in 1835. The declaration was made by a handful of chiefs who had no legal authority to speak for their tribes, much less all of New Zealand. The declaration was of no effect whatsoever. The same applies to the Treaty of Waitangi - the handful of chiefs who signed it had no power or authority to bind their tribes, and many tribes did not sign. British sovereignty over New Zealand was established by proclamation, not the treaty.Royalcourtier (talk) 19:02, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Continuing sovereignty

It is not correct that "independent sovereignty which continued after 1840 to the extent that the flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand was flown at the Pukawa hui when the Maori King was appointed in 1857." Firstly it is doubtful that the declaration gave the "United Tribes" [which did not actually exist] sovereignty. Secondly, flying a flag does not establish sovereignty. Someone could place a British flag on the White House - that would not mean that the USA had automatically become a British colony.Royalcourtier (talk) 18:59, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

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