Lands of contrast: Latter-day saint societies in New Zealand/Aotearoa and Australia

Abstract

The region of Australasia in southwestern Oceania incorporates two independent nation-states: the Federal Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa (the last term used hereafter with reference to Indigenous New Zealand in particular). Both of these parliamentary nations are former colonies of the (then) United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (Britain hereafter) and belong today to the Commonwealth of Nations. Descendants of Anglo settlers constitute the greater part of each nation's population, albeit joined increasingly since the later twentieth century, especially in Australia, by new migrants from Britain, non-Anglo European countries, the Pacific Islands, and Asia. Indigenous populations in both nations also represent diverse and contrasting peoples and settlement traditions. The Aboriginal peoples who first settled the Australian island-continent from the Asia-Pacific region over 40,000 years ago remain substantially marginalized across much of Australia today. In contrast, Māori who settled Aotearoa about 800 years ago from tropical eastern Polynesia have emerged as a growing political and cultural force in the modern nation, in spite of ongoing social problems and challenges.