Talk:History of New Zealand

Mention Captain Cook in the lead in parapgraph
I'd like to balance the mention of Tasman's discovery with the more informative circumnavigation of New Zealand by Captain Cook (pretty accurately given the tools of the day) versus the Bonaparte Tasman map sketched by hand.

Following the second sentence, first paragraph where Tasman is mentioned I'd like to add the following sentence.
 * "Capt. James Cook RN reached New Zealand on 19th April 1770 and was the first European explorer to circumnavigate and map New Zealand on the first of three voyages (1768-71, 1772-75 & 1776-79)"

I understand Cook's voyages are mentioned further down the entry and covered fully on their own wiki page however Tasman and Cook roles had significant impact on in New Zealand history to qualify for inclusion in the lead-in paragraph (or may not but I want your opinion).

I'd like to make this change by the end of January 2012 if there is either consuses or no contrary feedback (assuming 2 weeks is long enough and reasonable).

-- Karl Stephens (Auckland, NZ) 18:22, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) What is your opinion?
 * 2) Is the Bonaparte Tasman Map required further down the page in the "Explorers and other visitors" section?


 * In the absence of contrary opinion I've made this change.
 * Karl Stephens (talk) 11:42, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Terrible article
I'm not trying to offend anyone on here but this article is terrible. This is supposed to be the history of New Zealand and it mentions things like Lord of the Rings production(wtf)?!? I know it was set there but come on, that's not history. Especially with the very last section with the earthquake. I know it is part of New Zealand history but its not big enough of an event to add to the mainstream history. Australia has had disasters MUCH bigger than that yet they haven't felt the need to add it to their mainstream history article. In fact, go look at the History of Australia article and notice the vast difference in quality. Another bit mentions the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. To be honest our role was so insignificant compared to other countries, there are only something like 100 men over there and only about 16-20 of them are actual soldiers to which they have done little. Other parts of the article look nice but are not enough "inviting", they need more pictures, maps, captions, etc. Anything to brighten up the page and cut out all unwanted information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.189.192.240 (talk) 11:43, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree this article is pretty bad.--Collingwood26 (talk) 10:28, 17 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I have made a few tweaks to address the recentism. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 20:50, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * the problem is tnot what is included, it is what's missing. Making the article into a stub is not a useful solution. Rjensen (talk) 20:59, 17 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Why did you do a wholesale revert of my edit? Not only have you reintroduced the skew towards contemporary events but you also removed a range of other changes that I did to improve the article. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:15, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Because erasing good information is a bad idea. The recent period is in fact too short. The problem is a severe shortage of information on the earlier period which I have been working on today to remedy. Rjensen (talk) 21:50, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree with Rjensen on this. I don't think too much information is really a problem. Especially stuff on post 2008 is missing I think... there is very little on the current National Government Ballofstring (talk) 04:09, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I added a barebones summary of events in recent years (taken from other articles in Wiki) with some new cites. More is needed. Rjensen (talk) 07:22, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Italicisation of Maori words
Hello everyone: The style guide for wikipedia says: "Loanwords and borrowed phrases that have common usage in English—Gestapo, samurai, vice versa—do not require italics. A rule of thumb is not to italicize words that appear unitalicized in major English-language dictionaries."

What I'm wondering about, and would like other peoples views on this, is whether Maori words in common usage in NZ English (they would be in a NZ dictionary) should be italicised eg iwi/hapu/pakeha. My view is that they should not be, as they aren't in basically all NZ publications, and also in a lot of article on wikipedia about New Zealand. I guess it depends on who the audience is perceived to be. Any thoughts? Ballofstring (talk) 04:05, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't see a need to italicise Māori words, but we do need to make the meaning clear to readers not familiar with NZ English. Linking the words is good but not sufficient, as having to click through breaks the reader's concentration. Sometimes the meaning is clear from context, but often it is appropriate to add an explanation in brackets on first use, eg iwi (tribe). Coming up with a simple explanation acceptable to everyone might be tricky sometimes. Iwi might be better glossed as (confederation of tribes).- gadfium 20:49, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that we should italicize words which are not in major English-language dictionaries. Bear in mind that articles with strong ties to New Zealand should be written in New Zealand English and with reference to the major English-language dictionaries, as per MOS:TIES. This helps pretty much everywhere but Māori in Australia, which is still problematic... Stuartyeates (talk) 07:13, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

My trim
My recent trim got reverted. Here's why I thought it was justified:

"A political scientist reports:"
 * unnecessary and anonymous intro

"This involved removing many of the favours and barriers that had long insulated the economy from world trends"
 * favours? barriers? - just give the examples...

"was allowed to float and seek its natural level on the world market"
 * said better, and simpler, earlier

"The shares exchange entered a bubble, which then burst, and there was little economic short-run gain for anyone."
 * without refs for this "bubble", this sentence adds very little. It's also POV - and there certainly was a good deal of short-run gain for *some*....

Snori (talk) 09:47, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Belich has a lot of details on the favours and barriers. for example currency controls to help NZ businesses keep out foreign competition. subsidies for farmers p 410. The stock market bubble & crash is noted by many historians (Belich p 406 says the market plunged from $50 billion worth in 1987 to only $15 billion in 1991 -- that's quite a crash -- "worst in world" says Belich p 407). it should read There was "little short run gain for the economy as a whole." [based on Belich p 423]  Rjensen (talk) 13:15, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

First Permanent Settlement
The first PERMANENT European settlement in New Zealand was extablished in 1840, yes Europeans may have visited and built things before 1840 but that doesn't mean SETTLEMENT!!! Australia had Europeans building forts, etc in it since 1629!!! And they don't claim it as the first "Settlement".--Collingwood26 (talk) 23:29, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Bluff, 1824. Riverton, 1837. Karitane, 1837 (the original Waikouaiti). Kerikeri, 1822, with a building from the 1830s still surviving. You need to find a good reference for your claim that there were no European settlements before 1840 if you want it to be included. Daveosaurus (talk) 01:14, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Those weren't PERMANENT settlements though, they were either Church missions, or whaling/sealing camps.--124.189.200.75 (talk) 05:55, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * They were permanent - read the articles, and the Paihia article while you're at it. Daveosaurus (talk) 06:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * What was the first permanent settlement that was established in 1840? It looks like you've just started from the date the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. Even on that basis you've got it wrong. If you look at the debate that took place prior to the signing of the Treaty, it's clear the chiefs refer to existing European settlements. --LJ Holden 20:56, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

First explorers
The first European explorers were from Spain and not from Holland — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.235.83.89 (talk) 02:28, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
 * We do mention that there are claims of European explorers before Abel Tasman, but this is only speculation and there is no evidence.- gadfium 05:16, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

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 * I've removed the offending link. Ballofstring (talk) 21:25, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

shipwreck section
This was recently added to the article by an unknown IP address: "In 1982 Leon Searle, a mussel fisherman, found an old ship wreck in Kaipara Harbour. In 1983 Noel Hilliam dived on the wreck and retrieved timber. The wood has been identified as teak and another tropical hardwood Lagerstroemia. The ship was copper clad. In December 2013 the results of tree ring analysis and radio carbon dating showed the ship's timbers having a date of 1705 plus or minus 9 years. The ship was about 25-27m long by 6.5-7.5m wide. The author of the study, Dr.Jonathon Palmer, says this is possibly a Dutch ship. The wreck lies above water at Midge Bay under 11m of sand at the north end of the harbour. The study has been accepted by international Journal of Archaeological Science for publication. Cook's journals document Maori accounts of earlier contact with European ship wrecks and the survivors being killed and eaten. Hilliam believes the ship is older than the suggested date and is Portuguese." User:SimonLyall then removed it, on the basis that "rv crypto-history . Noel Hilliam has a history of being "out there" (Google him) and the "International Journal of Archaeological Science" doesn't appear to exist." However, I think the information should remain. First of all, the news article references the international (small i) Journal of Archaeological Science, which SimonLyall says doesn't exist, but without a capital it does. Secondly, the principal author is not the "out there" Noel Hilliam, but rather an expert Dr Jonathan Palmer. Also I think it's fair to say the SSTs would have fact checked the article reasonably well. So I suggest that the text should be put back in (although it perhaps needs to be tidied up to read better!). Ballofstring (talk) 21:09, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Let's wait until the article is actually published or more sources can be found. The SST article is rather speculative.- gadfium 00:14, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay! Waiting is probably a good idea. Ballofstring (talk) 02:36, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Noel Hilliam has lots of theories about the first arrivals to NZ, including Greeks, Vikings, etc etc. Maui was a Greek, he believes, and Vikings scratched runes onto rocks near Dargaville to boot. And it also seems from the SST article that what has been carbon dated is wood that Hilliam says came from a shipwreck, so it's meaningless until someone reputable carbon dates a piece that can be verified as coming from the wreck.  Waiting is good, support SimonLyall's decision.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.154.129.205 (talk) 04:56, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree that we wait.

The paper that was submitted to the International Journal of Archaeological Science was titled "The discovery of New Zealand's oldest shipwreck - possible evidence of further Dutch exploration of the South Pacific" Authors were Jonathan Palmer, Chris Turney, Alan Hogg, Noel Hilliam, Erik van Sebille, Winston Cowie and Fiona Petchy However it's more likely the wreck of the schooner Midge which was wrecked on 14 December 1871 in that approximate location (hence the name Midge Bay) her remains were washed up onto the shore by the tide.

Zoohistorian (talk) 20:44, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Noel Hilliam
While this man appears to have an interesting past on what constitutes history and proof thereof,it seems that his present effort to research the (Dutch?) ship wreck in Midge Bay is of a different calibre. If editors can find references about this particular research to the contrary-please feel free to modify — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.62.226.243 (talk) 20:46, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Self-published source
I am about to remove a challenged section cited to a work by T Simpson published by Blythswood Press. From its home page "Blythswood Press is the newly minted personal publishing house of New Zealand historian Tony Simpson" which makes its productions unsuitable for contentious statements in Wikipedia - see SELFPUBLISH for more info. Cheers. Daveosaurus (talk) 04:09, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree, but it's important to note that this is not an indictment of the author, since he appears to have reliable publications: http://www.randomhouse.co.nz/authors/tony-simpson.aspx http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/Writers/Profiles/Simpson,%20Tony http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10865799 HE may be notable, even, but I'm a little busy right now. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:08, 18 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Simpson seems to have credentials that make him worthy of inclusion here -- see this. "Claudia" originally inserted the comments about exaggerated complaints with inadequate citation; she has since marginally improved on that and I think the book could count as a RS despite being self-published. But Simpson's claim that the complaints were exaggerated seems to be a new one not, to my knowledge, previously raised by other historians. That being the case, I'd have no objection to the line being reinstated with the qualification that "the complaints were, according to historian Tony Simpson, exaggerated" ... or that the complaints were "possibly exaggerated". BlackCab  ( TALK ) 09:40, 18 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I'd have been a bit less wary if this content had been added by a good faith editor. However it was added by Claudia, who has a bit of a history of bad editing (misinterpretation and, at times, outright falsification of sources) and an extreme anti-Māori POV - just see her latest edit at Talk:Waitara, New Zealand for an example. I'm very short of time so have been letting BlackCab take lead in fixing the messes Claudia makes, but sometimes I notice content that is so bad and biased it needs to be excised sooner rather than later. In shore: I have no faith that the source actually says what Claudia says it says, and am disappointed to see her reverting to the behaviour that earned her a one-year block that she has only recently finished serving. Daveosaurus (talk) 04:34, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

If you actually read the book you would see that this is one of several themes used by Simpson to show a more accurate picture of what happened rather than what is often referred to by other historians who have not gone back to investigate properly.The thrust of his argument, which seems sound -is that the missionaries pushed this "violent NZ " as it suited their purpose -ie to make NZ a godly christian nation and that in reality although violent it was no more violent than many places in the British world. They had great contacts in London and were very influencial with the Aboriginal protection society which is turn was well connected to the govt. LMS missionaries had a very distinct POV. In Normanby's instructions to Hobson he refers specifically to the society as being a major influence. But Simpson makes clear that the real reasons were a growing commercial interest in nz. One point he highlights is that there were a consistent group of backers for organised migration to NZ -with or without the British govt backing. Wakefield was the visionary but he was backed by very wealthy London business men and politicians who had more money than they knew what to do with ie they needed a new product -and the product was NZ land. This is why Karl Marx took a very close interest in the affairs of the NZ company -he saw it was all about capital -and from his perspective the exploitation of workers. Of course French interest in NZ was another thing. Its often forgotten (or not known) that the French migrants (to Akoroa) were backed by a migration company which included the FRENCH KING.

My understanding is the "self published" books are NOT automatically banned -someone made this point to Dave several years ago but he seems to have forgotten. Sometimes views of what makes a reliable source get out of wack. What is a reliable source in Russia is worlds apart from NZ because if the role the state plays in censorship. I was impressed by Simpsons book-ok he has a union ,lefty, background but that doesnt intrude too much, although clearly he is very interested in the plight of the down trodden-all be it, 150 years ago. Governments have their own agendas and ours in NZ is no different. Sometimes the agenda is concealed.This is what Tony's new book is about.

Recently I had a few words with him and he came across as refreshingly honest and open guy with a very interesting background in both British and NZ govt ie an insider who knows how thing actually run. He is in the midst of writing another book which will challenge a few attitudes -hopefully.115.188.178.77 (talk) 09:15, 20 February 2016 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, Peter Adams in his 1977 book Fatal Necessity: British Intervention in New Zealand, 1830-1847 says the Church Missionary Society did believe that irregular colonisation had increased crime and anarchy in New Zealand, but also suspected the New Zealand Association (later to morph into the New Zealand Company) had "exaggerated the picture to serve its own purposes" (chapter 4). It's therefore conceivable that Simpson draws a similar conclusion about the reports being made by both the New Zealand Association and the missionary groups themselves to the Colonial Office in their quest for British intervention. As stated above, a mention of the possible exaggeration would be appropriate if it's noted that it's Simpson's view. BlackCab  ( TALK ) 06:00, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I have had a look at some of Simpson's work. It is certainly better than some other sources used here but I personally would not use it because he is a self-publishing amateur. If you read his work the lack of peer rewiew or a better structured editing stands out. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 21:15, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Citations and Plagiarism
The European migration section stated;

Many Europeans bought land from Māori, but misunderstanding and different concepts of land ownership led to conflict and bitterness. In 1839, the New Zealand Company announced plans to buy large tracts of land and establish colonies in New Zealand. This alarmed the missionaries, who called for British control of European settlers in New Zealand.

This paragraph is very closely paraphrased. It is almost an exact copy of the main source; consider rewording. Also the link to the article "Estimating a population devastated by epidemics" cannot be found. Is this a credible source? Lansings (talk) 19:59, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I've updated the link for "Estimating a population...". The author, Peter Entwisle, is a reputable historian.- gadfium 21:57, 20 January 2017 (UTC)


 * The wording above regarding European settlement cites no source, so it's unclear what it is supposedly plagiarising. The only result of a google search of the phrase is other websites that have lifted the Wikipedia article wording. BlackCab  ( TALK ) 23:00, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

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British v British Government
I have added the word "Government" after "British" in the Treaty of Waitangi section of this article, because it refers to the British Government, but this is unclear with the previous wording. --HuttValley (talk) 07:04, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Wakefield's vision, New Zealand Wars
"Wakefield's vision" should not be given as much prominence as it currently is in this article. There should be a section on the New Zealand Company and Wakefield's part in it. At the moment the section reads mainly as a defence of Wakefield's plans.

The New Zealand Wars deserve much greater prominence in this article also. Given the chronological timeframe they occurred in, it would make more sense to break down the period like this:
 * Treaty of Waitangi and colonial era (i.e. 1840 - 1890)
 * Treaty of Waitangi
 * New Zealand Wars
 * Self-government etc

At the moment the two sections are actually overlapping, which is confusing. --LJ Holden 05:02, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Christchurch attacks
At present the "21st Century" section has a full paragraph on the Christchurch mosque shootings, including six references and a picture. There are so many links in the paragraph that it's hard to find the main article. By contrast, the Christchurch earthquakes get a single sentence in the middle of a paragraph on the government of the time, with one reference and two links. The Kaikoura earthquake isn't mentioned at all.

We don't need to give much detail on individual events because we link to the relevant articles. I suggest we trim the paragraph on the mosque shootings to something along the lines of, with a single ref for each sentence.- gadfium 23:49, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Snori's subsequent edits are certainly an improvement on what was there before.- gadfium 01:12, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

South Island section
I have renamed this section as its name was Eurocentric. The South Island was not "predominant" in any sense during the New Zealand Wars, economically the Gold Rush (which oddly wasn't mentioned in the section title despite being a large part of the section's content) was far more important, but was just that, a rush. I've also removed an uncited sentence and a link to South Island nationalism, which appears to be there to push a particular POV --LJ Holden 21:21, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Sources and data in the 1840s section
@user:E James Bowman I should have come here first rather than make my point in the edit tag. I know we don't have much more to go on that te ara, which is usually fine, but it is not ideal either. I don't think we should rely on what an article says just because it is written by an academic. See The claim that a higher proportion of NZ maori than in Britain attended church in the mid 19th century is an educated guess and is borderline anyway based on the figures for moari given - 64,000 out of 110,000 is around 60%, same as in Britain. I think if the sentence is to remain in this article it should be re-worded. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 03:44, 25 October 2023 (UTC)


 * History of Christianity in Britain under 'Census of 1851' says: The effect of individuals attending multiple services (morning/afternoon/evening) could not be fully accounted for, but the estimated number of individuals attending a service at some point in the day was 7,261,032 people. [...] The total population at the time was 17.9 million. That's about 40% of the population (of England and Wales). E James Bowman (talk) 04:48, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Finish the sentence please. Add 4-5m to that for non-denominational and Catholic. 7.2m is C of E. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 05:44, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Here's the full para: As part of the regular census in 1851, the Government conducted a census in England and Wales of attendance at religious services on 30 March 1851. Reports were collected from local ministers who reported attendance at their services on 30 March 1851. The effect of individuals attending multiple services (morning/afternoon/evening) could not be fully accounted for, but the estimated number of individuals attending a service at some point in the day was 7,261,032 people. The number of individuals attending morning services was 4,647,482, and the total number of attendees (including duplicates) was 10,896,066. The total population at the time was 17.9 million. 7.2m is an estimate of individuals (of all denominations) accounting for people attending multiple services. You can find the reliable sources cited in the article. E James Bowman (talk) 02:49, 26 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Update - The source I added most certainly is relevant as it gives figures for UK attendance in 1851 based on the census. I quote:

''Pressure for further change was encouraged when the 1851 census revealed that out of a population of nearly 18 million, only 5.2 million attended Church of England services, with 4.9 million attending other Christian places of worship. The rise of non-Anglican Protestant denominations – including Methodists, Baptists and Quakers – is particularly striking: between them they represented nearly half the worshipping nation.''


 * The actual census data is online too published by the British Acadamy, if you want to wade through that too. If you are taking your figure from the wiki page History of Christianity in Britain, it's, well, a wiki page?? So, are you saying a challenged statement backed by a primary source that is ambiguous anyway that refers to non-supplied UK data is better than another source supplying actual UK census data? I have frequently said here and elsewhere that census data has to be handled with care, but here it is better than nothing. And although a wiki article, 1851 United Kingdom census says "The Government also conducted a census in England and Wales of churches and chapels, endowments, sittings, attendance at religious services on Sunday 30 March 1851 and average numbers during the preceding twelve months. Reports were collected from local ministers. The attendance count was 10,896,066 (60.8%) out of a population of 17,927,609. There were 5,292,551 (48.6% of total attendants) attending Church of England services, 4,536,264 (41.6%) attending other Protestant churches, and 383,630 (3.5%) attending Catholic services.[5][6] This was a unique experiment, not repeated at any later census." And I don't think those figures include Ireland, so add a couple million more Catholics and Ulsters protestants. I suggest altering that statement to remove comparison with the UK. An estimate of around half the Maori population attending church is all that is needed to make the point that Christianity spread rapidly through the population which nobody is disputing.  (talk) 06:06, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * You added that source to this sentence: In 1845, 64,000 Māori were attending church services, over half of the estimated population of 110,000. As I said, it doesn't relate to this. Did you mean to add it to the next sentence? In the 1840s, there was probably a higher proportion of Māori attending Church in New Zealand than British people in the United Kingdom. It doesn't relate to that sufficiently either as those census figures don't account for duplicates (people attending multiple services), it's from a different decade, and for it's England and Wales only. You are interpreting the primary census figures incorrectly to try to show the original, reliable, secondary source is incorrect when it says: By the mid-1840s, probably a larger proportion of Māori than Britons in the United Kingdom regularly attended services. Four published, reliable, secondary interpretations suggest your interpretation is incorrect. E James Bowman (talk) 03:14, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Mmm, yes, I meant my source to follow the second sentence. Now, your source from the guy at Otago is primary. Te Ara is not peer-reviewed, it is like a govt backed blog (ie not fully independent). Admittedly its authors are generally reliable but what they write is primary. If they are established experts in the relevant field, with a track record of ongoing published RSSs, then we can regard their primary publications as if they were secondary. I don't know if this person meets that criterion. Whatever, he makes a casual remark that 'probably' proportionately there were more moari attending church than Brits in the UK. No reference supplied, no elaboration or note added beyond a 64-110 ratio, ie 60% or so. Now, I said the UK census data was not ideal, but it is better than nothing or a guess, which is what the article has supplied. Those UK stats are based on the 1851 census which is 11 years after 1840. Church attendance in the UK was in decline throughout the 19thC. so the 1851 numbers would have been fewer than those of 1841, if we had them, so being at different dates benefits your argument, not mine. Yes, if the UK figures only covered England and Wales, then what about the rest of the UK, Scotland and Ireland, which if included would simply increase the UK percentage. All I have done, when seeing that claim about the proportion being greater than in the UK, is to do a couple of basic checks to see that the claim is most likely to be wrong, or at best the distinction is so small as to not be worth making a point of, especially from a Te Ara source. I suggest a solution is to remove the part about 'greater than in the UK', remove my source that is not then needed, and leave the Te Ara source in place, despite it being primary. It won't change the meaning or intent of what is written in the article. Is that an acceptable compromise? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roger 8 Roger (talk • contribs)
 * Encyclopedias are tertiary sources. Some government-published encyclopedias are not always reliable sources e.g. Great Soviet Encyclopedia, but the NZ government is not quite so overbearing.- gadfium 08:32, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that post. The issue is this statement, not so much the references used. "In the 1840s, there was probably a higher proportion of Māori (60%) attending Church in New Zealand than British people in the United Kingdom". It is speculation by the author's own admission, hence 'probably' and 'in the 1840s'. There is no way of verifying it with anything approached a reasonable estimate because there wasn't anything approaching a census count back then, unlike the 1851 UK census. That means if the author is basing those figures on some other source, that other source can only be a pretty rough guess of 60%. A quick check of the UK census figures gives a percentage no less than 60%, which makes the Te Ara speculation questionable. Another way to look at this IMO is that even if the source is high quality, it isn't actually saying that more Maori than Brits proportionately attended church in the 1840s, so that statement should not be used, without further clarification, because it strongly implies they did. The whole point in this wiki article is that the Church had an huge impact on Maori culture in those early days of contact and I don't think a speculative and questionable remark comparing attendance with the UK adds anything to that. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:59, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * As explained above, reliable interpretation of the 1851 census indicates about 40% of people in England and Wales attended church that day. This is the encyclopaedia writer you claim has published "a speculative and questionable remark". E James Bowman (talk) 21:36, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I always assume good faith even when confronted with WP:JDL. The writer being Stenhouse is, of course, not the point. The issue is how the available sources are interpreted and used, a basic history skill any editor should have. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 01:05, 27 October 2023 (UTC)


 * No, the basic skill any editor should have in any subject is the ability to distill information from reliable sources without plagiarising or editorialising. "Interpreting" information from multiple sources in an attempt to prove a reliable source incorrect is original research which is frowned upon here. Either find a reliable source which says specifically that Stenhouse is wrong, or else write your own paper explaining how it's wrong, publish it in an academic journal and wait for someone else to cite it here. Daveosaurus (talk) 03:24, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I completely agree @Daveosaurus. Thank you. I'm again going to remove the English Heritage source that @Roger 8 Roger added, as it is original research that is not directly related to the topic of the article and does not directly support the material being presented. E James Bowman (talk) 20:26, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

History start date
I think it wrong to say the history of NZ dates back to 1300 - that is the start of human habitation. There is probably also a case for saying history started 1769, as being when written records started, a method used elsewhere. I think all that is needed is to change a few words though. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:23, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * While I agree this approach IS used elsewhere, I believe it to a stupid and insulting approach. I cannot support it. HiLo48 (talk) 20:32, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * What approach is stupid? I have amended the lead sentence. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:46, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I believe the proposal you made in your first post here is stupid. Surely that's obvious. The amendment you made does not achieve what you proposed, so I am confused as to what you are trying to achieve. HiLo48 (talk) 22:35, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * It wasn't a proposal. I just meant the start date for a country's beginning is random. The term 'pre-history' usually means before recorded time and using a script is sometimes used as a way of determining recorded time. In NZ's unique case that would not be appropriate I think because there is oral and archaeological history. However, the further back you go the less reliable those methods are. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 23:46, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Came across the Prehistory of Australia article. "The prehistory of Australia is the period between the first human habitation of the Australian continent and the colonisation of Australia in 1788, which marks the start of consistent written documentation of Australia." This does what I suggested - the period of history of NZ started in 1769. The period 1300-1769 is NZ's pre-history. Before 1300 there was no human history. People are often insulted if they are ignorant of the facts. Although I think some clarification should be made in a second sentence, regarding the unusually late start of NZ pre-history, the first sentence should really follow the Australian example, for uniformity if nothing else.