housing

State housing

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  New Zealand's first state house was formally opened on 18 September 1937. But the government has provided rental housing for New Zealanders for more than a century. Explore the history of this country's various state housing schemes and their contribution to the New Zealand way of life.

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• Page 2 – The first state house

  Prime Minister Savage helped out at the opening of the Labour government's first state house in 1937 at 12 Fife Lane, Miramar, Wellington

• Page 3 – The state steps in and out

  The National government introduced full market rents in 1991 to reduce the state role in housing provision. From the start, public debate over state housing policy in New

• Page 4 – Designing communities

  Community has many different meanings. People might live in a particular community, but have little contact with their neighbours, preferring instead to pursue their social

• Page 5 – Building families

  An essential aim of state housing was to provide suburban homes for families, a place where children could grow up in safe and spacious surroundings, away from the dangers of

• Page 6 – Making ends meet

  For low-paid workers and beneficiaries, making ends meet has always been a constant struggle.  Life can be even tougher for those without a home of their own.

• Page 7 – State house style

  The design of state houses has been fodder for armchair and professional critics since the beginning. Detractors slagged the first workers' dwellings for being 'too swell' and

• Page 8 – Outside the mainstream

  Many of us associate the beginning of state housing with the hipped-roof cottages built by the first Labour government of the 1930s and '40s. But the origin of state housing

• Page 9 – Timeline

  Key events in the development of state housing

Children and adolescents, 1930-1960

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  The need for the New Zealand government to promote national interests during the Depression and the Second World War created a renewed appreciation of the role of the family within society.

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• Page 4 – The post-war family

  As a consequence of the post-war economic boom there was increasing demand for consumer goods. The 1956 census revealed that more than half of New Zealand homes possessed

• Page 5 – Further information

  Further information for Children and adolescents, 1930-1960.

Housing the Prime Minister

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  Almost 150 years after the government purchased the first official premier's residence on Tinakori Road, Wellington, the address of Premier House remains the same. But in the intervening years the building has been extended, renamed, abandoned and refurbished.

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• Page 2 – The first premier house

  Our first premiers had to find their own digs. That changed in 1865, when the government bought the premier a simple 22-year-old wooden cottage in Thorndon’s Tinakori Road.

• Page 3 – Unofficial prime ministerial houses

  From 1935 to 1975 our prime ministers lived in a series of 'unofficial' houses

• Page 4 – Vogel House and Premier House

  Since 1975 the official prime minister's residence has been at Vogel House and, since 1990, Premier House

• Page 5 – Further information

  Further information about New Zealand's prime ministerial houses

Assisted immigration, 1947-75

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  New Zealand is a country of immigrants. Wave after wave of peoples have settled here: Polynesian, British, European, Asian.

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• Page 2 - Peopling New ZealandThe Labour Department was responsible for setting up and administering the assisted immigration

Life in the 20th century

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  Exploration of everyday life in New Zealand from 1900 to the mid-1980s

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• Page 5 - A home of one's ownNew Zealanders have called many structures home. Some have been solid and permanent: kauri villas set in lawns and gardens, row houses on cramped Dunedin sections, sprawling state

Container shipping

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  Forty-five years ago, on 19 June 1971, the first all-container ship to visit New Zealand arrived in Wellington. Columbus New Zealand was part of a worldwide revolution in shipping. These simple steel boxes would change our transport industry, our ports and how we work and shop.

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• Page 6 - Afterlife of shipping containersMost containers pass into the hands of a new industry that has arisen to modify them for other uses, or sell or lease them. The term ‘container architecture’ was coined to

Armistice Day

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  After four terrible years, the First World War finally came to a close with the signing of an armistice between Germany and the Allied Powers on 11 November 1918. New Zealanders celebrated enthusiastically, despite having recently celebrated the surrenders of the three other Central Powers and the premature news of an armistice with Germany.

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• Page 7 - New Zealand in 1918Some facts and stats about New Zealand in the year of the First World War