A Change of Name and a National Holiday

The call to make 6 February a nation-wide public holiday continued. A new Labour administration under Norman Kirk made the most of Waitangi Day 1973, with Kirk announcing that from 1974 it would be a national holiday known as New Zealand Day.

A few weeks later the New Zealand Day Bill was introduced by Henry May, the Minister of Internal Affairs, whose department would administer the legislation. A private member's bill on a New Zealand Day had been introduced by Matiu Rata in 1971 and, during debate on the new bill, Rata, now Minister of Maori Affairs, indicated the government's intentions: The day, he said, was to be neither 'a symbolic nor religious occasion' but a day for each New Zealander to enjoy as they saw fit, and the forerunner of an effort to achieve a 'full sense of nationhood'. It would always be observed on 6 February and would not be 'Mondayised'.

At the time Rata was working towards making legislative provision for the Waitangi Tribunal in the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, and saw that it would be advantageous to separate the struggle over treaty claims from the issue of a national day. The two acts were intended to be complementary. A New Zealand Day, still on 6 February and with a wide appeal, might in itself build public support for Maori treaty rights, especially if communities became more informed about the treaty's part in New Zealand history.

For Norman Kirk, the change of name implied a diminishing of neither the treaty's place nor the Maori role in the nation's history. The change was simply an acceptance that New Zealand was ready to move towards a broader concept of nationhood. For some years overseas diplomatic posts had marked the day, and it seemed timely in view of the country's increasing role on the international stage that the national day be known as New Zealand Day. Somehow, too, it seemed to him to make the country unique in that while other nations marked their national day on the anniversary of a violent event - a revolution, the end of a war, a successful coup - 6 February 1840 marked the beginning of a peaceful agreement between two peoples.

The bill was supported by the National opposition, in part because it was likely to shift the focus away from treaty problems. Although a paid holiday along with a name change was a popular move, there was no great groundswell for a day to mark national identity.