Why Isn't New Zealand a Part of Australia¿ (Short Animated Documentary)

New Zealand, alongside being the current reigning champion of places that people forget to put on maps, it's also an independent country. This independence did not occur through one single event like that of the United States, but through a century-long process of reform. And across this century, many were fairly sure that New Zealand would become a part of the new Commonwealth of Australia, in the same way that Quebec was obviously going to be a part of Canada, or how Bombay was obviously going to be a part of India. Yet, as you'll know, this never happened. But why? Why isn't New Zealand a part of Australia? To begin, we have to go back to those ancient days of pre-Australia, sometimes called the mid-19th century. At this point, Australia wasn't one colony, but instead six, and they were, as far as the British were concerned, a part of an eight-colony collective, the other two being Fiji, and of course New Zealand. All of these colonies had different economies, different foreign interests, and different cultures, which is why at first many were opposed to federalisation. Things changed when Germany started eyeing up the region, which made those in the eight colonies pretty nervous. And when the colony of New South Wales changed its mind about federalisation, the other colonies now feared being left out, and thus, it was time to build an Australia. For New Zealand, this being cut off was less of a problem. Whilst New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and the other one may have traded primarily with each other, New Zealand traded mostly with Britain. There were other reasons for New Zealand rejecting federation too. The first was the massive distance between itself and Australia, which for reference is the same distance between Britain and Morocco. Another was that the drafting of the documents for Australian federation were done by those who lived in Australia, which might sound incredibly obvious, but New Zealand and Fiji weren't given an opportunity to contribute much to the discussions, and thus they were largely seen as places that would be added to Australia as opposed to a foundational part of it, which upset many New Zealanders who wanted to be seen as equals. And this lack of consideration for New Zealand's distinction is what mostly scuppered any chance of it being a part of Australia. You see, New Zealand had a long and storied history between the island's indigenous people, the Maori, and the European settlers, the Pakeha, and there were concerns that integration into Australia, a place not highly rated on the kindness to the people already living there-o-meter, would mean that the Maori would again be reduced to second class citizens and importantly violate the Treaty of Waitangi, which as a result would lead to another war. There were fair reasons to believe this, since the draft constitution explicitly stated that the indigenous people were to be ruled over by the whites there, and New Zealand thus demanded that this not apply to them and that they would refuse to join unless Australia amended its constitution, which it agreed to. So why wasn't this enough? Well, it was mostly a concern by New Zealanders about the number of Chinese and Asian workers in Australia, and particularly the potential that those workers would head to New Zealand, which the leaders there really didn't want. And when Australia federated in 1901, it was these combined reasons that saw New Zealand sit it out. Although there is still a clause in the Australian constitution that allows New Zealand to join whenever it wants, so the door is still open. I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching, with a special thanks to my patrons James Bizonette, Kelly Moneymaker, Anthony Beckett, The Pastry Section, Danny Maloney, Rob Waterhouse, Moe, Aaron the White, James Castaneda, Jordan Longley, Jerry Lambdin, Marcus Arsner, Gustav Swann, John Bailey, Cooling Castleman, Rashid Ali, Spinning Three Plates, Filda Oink Oink, Izzy, David Silverman, Maggie Pakskowski, Winston Cawood, Spencer Lightfoot, Robert Wetzel, Fortunate Calf, Lexi Schwinn, Skye Chappell and Marvin Casal.