NCEA Level 2 · Year 12 · History · 3 minutes
The Great Depression in New Zealand
An export economy hit hard, a decade of relief work and riots, and the welfare state that followed.
Key terms
- Great Depression
- A severe worldwide economic slump, usually dated from the Wall Street crash of October 1929, when trade shrank and many people lost work.
- Exports
- Goods sold to other countries, such as the wool, meat, butter and cheese New Zealand sent to Britain.
- Relief work
- Low-paid government work, such as building roads or planting forests, given to unemployed people because there was no unemployment benefit.
- Public Safety Conservation Act
- A 1932 law that gave the government sweeping emergency powers after the riots.
- Welfare state
- A system where the government provides health care, pensions and benefits to look after people's wellbeing, as begun by the Social Security Act 1938.
Transcript
In April nineteen thirty two, thousands of unemployed people gathered outside Auckland's Town Hall. That night, Queen Street's shop windows were smashed, and hundreds of people were hurt. So how did a stock market crash on the other side of the world end in a riot here?
The Great Depression is usually dated from October nineteen twenty nine, when Wall Street crashed. World trade shrank. And New Zealand lived on exports to Britain: wool, meat, butter and cheese.
Between nineteen twenty nine and nineteen thirty two, prices for our exports fell by about forty percent. Wool fell about sixty. Farmers earned less and spent less, and the slump spread to the towns, where many workers had their wages cut by up to twenty percent.
At the worst, perhaps more than seventy thousand people were out of work. Nobody knows exactly, because women weren't even allowed to register as unemployed.
There was no unemployment benefit yet. The main help was relief work, for low pay: building roads, shifting earth, planting forests. Māori were often paid less than Pākehā, on the claim that they could live off their land. From late nineteen thirty one, single men could be sent to rural work camps.
In nineteen thirty two, anger boiled over. In Dunedin, Auckland and Wellington, protests by the unemployed turned into riots. Accounts still differ on exactly how the Queen Street riot began. The government passed the Public Safety Conservation Act, giving itself sweeping emergency powers.
After years of hardship, voters turned to Labour. In nineteen thirty five, led by Michael Joseph Savage, it won a landslide. Savage became New Zealand's first Labour Prime Minister, and his government began building state houses.
Then came the Social Security Act nineteen thirty eight: a public health system, pensions, and benefits for the sick, widows and the unemployed, including women. It promised care from the cradle to the grave, and it's often seen as the birth of our welfare state.
So, three things. The Depression hit New Zealand hard because it depended on exports. With no safety net, unemployment meant relief work, camps and riots. And by nineteen thirty eight, the answer was a welfare state.
Sources
Every fact in the video, and where it comes from.
- 1teara.govt.nz/en/1966/riots/page-6
- In April 1932 thousands of unemployed people gathered at Auckland's Town Hall on Queen Street; refused entry, fighting broke out with police; hundreds were injured and looters smashed shop windows along Queen Street. Accounts differ on how it began (leader Jim Edwards was struck by a police baton).
- 1932 riots: Dunedin (9 January), Auckland Queen Street (14 April), Wellington (10 May, after about 4,000 marched to Parliament). The government passed the Public Safety Conservation Act 1932.
- The Public Safety Conservation Act 1932 allowed the government to assume virtually unlimited powers during a proclaimed state of emergency.
- 2digitalnz.org/stories/627345c0a17ffb0024f0f3d7
- In April 1932 thousands of unemployed people gathered at Auckland's Town Hall on Queen Street; refused entry, fighting broke out with police; hundreds were injured and looters smashed shop windows along Queen Street. Accounts differ on how it began (leader Jim Edwards was struck by a police baton).
- By the end of 1930 urban businesses and manufacturers were feeling the flow-on effects as demand and prices fell; workers who kept jobs often had wages cut by as much as 20 percent.
- The Unemployment Board's main relief was work schemes (Scheme 5) run through local bodies, rationed by days per week; relief workers built roads, did earthworks and planted forests.
- 1932 riots: Dunedin (9 January), Auckland Queen Street (14 April), Wellington (10 May, after about 4,000 marched to Parliament). The government passed the Public Safety Conservation Act 1932.
- 3nzhistory.govt.nz/queen-st-riot-auckland
- In April 1932 thousands of unemployed people gathered at Auckland's Town Hall on Queen Street; refused entry, fighting broke out with police; hundreds were injured and looters smashed shop windows along Queen Street. Accounts differ on how it began (leader Jim Edwards was struck by a police baton).
- 4britannica.com/event/Great-Depression
- The Great Depression is usually dated from the Wall Street crash of October 1929.
- 5encyclopedia.com/economics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-a…
- New Zealand depended on exports of primary produce (wool, meat, dairy) mainly to Britain; export prices fell about 40 percent from 1929 to 1932 (Te Ara 1966: exports fell 45 percent in two years).
- 6teara.govt.nz/en/1966/history-economic/page-7
- New Zealand depended on exports of primary produce (wool, meat, dairy) mainly to Britain; export prices fell about 40 percent from 1929 to 1932 (Te Ara 1966: exports fell 45 percent in two years).
- Wool prices fell about 60 percent from 1929 to 1932; dairy prices kept falling until 1934.
- At the worst point the number of unemployed may have exceeded 70,000 (Te Ara, noting definitions make precision difficult); registered unemployment peaked in 1933.
- 7keithrankin.co.nz/NZunem1933
- At the worst point the number of unemployed may have exceeded 70,000 (Te Ara, noting definitions make precision difficult); registered unemployment peaked in 1933.
- 8nzhistory.govt.nz/women-together/womens-unemployment-committees
- The Unemployment Act 1930 made no provision for women to register as unemployed, though from 1931 women paid the unemployment levy; women gained an unemployment benefit only with the Social Security Act 1938.
- 9paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19310901.2.40
- The Unemployment Board's main relief was work schemes (Scheme 5) run through local bodies, rationed by days per week; relief workers built roads, did earthworks and planted forests.
- 10paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19320411.2.27
- From late 1931 the Board sent groups of single men to work camps in rural districts; refusing a camp place could bar a single man from further relief.
- 11paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AG19330913.2.9
- From late 1931 the Board sent groups of single men to work camps in rural districts; refusing a camp place could bar a single man from further relief.
- 12nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/first-labour-government
- Labour won a landslide in the November 1935 election; Michael Joseph Savage became the first Labour Prime Minister, taking office on 6 December 1935.
- The Social Security Act 1938 created a free health system and a range of benefits (age benefit at 60, universal superannuation at 65, sickness, widows, invalids, unemployment); it was described as caring for New Zealanders from the 'cradle to the grave' and is seen as the foundation of the welfare state.
- 13en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_New_Zealand_general_election
- Labour won a landslide in the November 1935 election; Michael Joseph Savage became the first Labour Prime Minister, taking office on 6 December 1935.
- 14nzhistory.govt.nz/the-first-state-house-in-miramar-wellington-is…
- The first state house, at 12 Fife Lane, Miramar, was opened on 18 September 1937; Savage helped carry in the tenants' furniture.
- 15en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Act_1938
- The Social Security Act 1938 created a free health system and a range of benefits (age benefit at 60, universal superannuation at 65, sickness, widows, invalids, unemployment); it was described as caring for New Zealanders from the 'cradle to the grave' and is seen as the foundation of the welfare state.
- 16teara.govt.nz/en/diagram/919/discrimination-against-maori-ci…
- Relief payments to Māori during the 1930s depression were smaller than those paid to Pākehā; the justification given was that Māori could provide for themselves from their subsistence land holdings.
Image and sound credits
- Queen Street riot photographs (1932); relief camps and relief work (1931); Wellington and Dunedin riots (1932); unemployed women, Auckland (1932); Christchurch wool sale (1931); dairy yield (1932); soup kitchen (1933); native land development scheme (1935); Miramar state house opening and state housing (1937); wool loading (1937); social security supporters (1938); 'The Export Meat Trade': Auckland Weekly News, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, no known copyright restrictions
- Relief workers on West Coast Road (1931); Michael Joseph Savage portrait: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, no known copyright restrictions
- Crowds outside the New York Stock Exchange, October 1929: Associated Press, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- Map data: Natural Earth (public domain)
- Paper textures: ambientCG (CC0) · Torn paper edges generated with AI
- Sound effects: Freesound contributors (CC0)
- Music: generated with ACE-Step · Voice: Gemini TTS
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