Talk:Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand

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[edit] 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)