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On Disk Video Library: History Menu

The ON DISK titles detailed below are source material compilations from New Zealand film and television that support topic coverage in the New Zealand Secondary School Curriculum.

Background materials for each disk title are attached below the title description including:

Teacher’s disk booklet for a perusal of content
new online units aligned to many disk titles
online order form for On Disk loans

New Title Release August 2008

Officially released on August 25, 2008 The Treaty: Te Tiriti o Waitangi is an extensive triple-disk production with a detailed online unit applying selected material from the DVDs. The production is a clear response to the presence of the Treaty in Level Five Social Studies achievement objectives in the revised New Zealand Curriculum (2007), however much of the material in this production is aimed at learning experiences and further research at senior levels.

The Treaty, while already extensively taught by many at Levels Six and Seven History, will have increased importance under the new history Curriculum. It is required that content at these levels be of significance to New Zealanders; this topic fulfills and more importantly, is in the spirit of such intentions.

The Treaty: Te Tiriti o Waitangi (3 disks)

One Hundred Crowded Years (NFU, 1940)

Part One: Celebration & Protest, History, Different Voices:
Waitangi: Celebration & Protest - the legendary reenactment from 1940 Centennial Film; Waitangi Day - celebration, change and protest 1934 - 2008; Royal visitors 1953-1963
Protest - Syd Jackson & Ngā Tama Toa. Hītori and process - Hobson and Hone Heke, an historical pan from Justice Eddie Durie, the legislation of the 1970s and 80s, and the Waitangi Tribunal.
Different Voices: changing views of the Treaty over time.

Part Two: The Three Articles:
Article I: Sovereignty: Representation - Māori Leaders, the Māori Seats; Waitangi 2007 - rangitahi, the flag; The Case of Tūhoe - Rua Kēnana, at the Tribunal, the 2007 Raids.
Article II: Land, Resources & Taonga: Land - Raupatu, the foreshore, changing institutions; Resources - ancestral practice, kaitiaki, customary rights. kaimoana; Taonga - culture, language, the airwaves, ownership issues.
Article III: Citizenship: War & Citizenship; Education; Housing; Orewa 2004.

Part Three: Claims, Tribunal Rulings and Settlements, Issues:
Claims, Rulings and Settlements - Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Ruanui, Te Ura Hau, Tauranga Moana, Te Arawa, Gisborne, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Whatua.
Perceptions of the Treaty Process - The Waitangi Tribunal, 2020 Final Settlement, Eddie Durie on settlements.
Issues - Constitutional Reform & the Treaty, the Legal System, The Foreshore Debate in Depth, The Urban/rural settlement debate, The Treaty & Te Papa.

New Zealand in the 19th Century (3 disks)

Hongi Hika, NZ’s Top 100 History Makers (Visionary Film & Television, 2005)

New title 2007/08

Part One: Maori/Pakeha Relations: The official version of history in 1940 - an extract from the New Zealand Government’s ‘centennial’ film, One Hundred Crowded Years; contact: the whalers, Pakeha Maori, Christianity; conflict: the realities of land loss, Parihaka; people: Te Pahi, Hongi Hika, Hone Heke, Samuel Marsden, Te Rauparaha, William Hobson, George Grey, Te Kooti, Te Whiti.

Part Two: Economic and Political Change: Political and economic development, the Kingitanga, MacKenzie, Ballance, Chew Chong, the gold rush, the Chinese miners, Kauri, the pastoralists, transport, refridgeration, Wakefield, Vogel, Seddon, Brydone and Davidson.

Part Three: Society and Attitudes: Statistics on immigration, food, population and work type; John Kinder’s New Zealand; aspects of urban life; Kate Edger and Kate Sheppard.

Duration: 353 minutes

New Zealand's Search for Security,
1945-1985 (2 disks)

Prime Minister Peter Fraser addressing the UN Conference on International Organisation in 1945. Weekly Review 197 (NFU, 1945)

Significantly expanded programme with newly transferred footage and contemporary inserts.

Part One: Prelude – New Zealand’s WWII backdrop under Britain’s strategy, the U.S. entry into the South Pacific region, the Canberra Pact; Foreign policy after WWII - New Zealand's involvement in the United Nations, the Commonwealth, SEATO and ANZUS; Involvement in the Pacific and Asia - interaction in the Pacific sphere from the postwar period to Helen Clark’s official apology to the Samoan people in 2002, military involvement in Korea, Malaya, and Vietnam, the subtle and less subtle overtones of cold war and the beginnings of public awareness and protest regarding official policy.

Part Two: New Zealand’s role on the international stage: foreign aid and assistance with Niue as an example, contentious political advertising in the 1975 election campaign; Rugby and international relations; Post Vietnam strategic defence and ANZUS exercises – the changing official position (Kirk, Muldoon, Lange) and the protest movement, the movement towards a nuclear free political stance; Reassessment of treaty obligations – the weakening of ANZUS, the Oxford Union Debate, the Rainbow Warrior, the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone.

Total Duration: 145 minutes

Race Relations (4 disks)

The Flagstaff at Orakei in Bastion Point Day 507 (1980). Image with permission from the Hawke whanau.

Extensively reedited and restructured package: official and unofficial footage, early silent, NZ and overseas newsreels and documentary, television current affairs and advertising, music videos and arts and culture programming.

Part One: Race Relations before 1945: The Land - the official version in 1940, modern interpretation of land loss; Relationships - culture, language, social attitudes; Sport and War – the haka, George Nepia, and the Pioneer Battalion; The Leaders - Apirana Ngata, Te Rangi Hiroa, Rua Kenana, Te Puea, Ratana.

Part Two: WWII and Post-war Society: The Impact of War - the Maori Battalion, women in wartime, the lost generation; Government and Community Responses – rehabilitation, education, housing and health; The Impact of the Urban – the post-war urban drift, pakeha attitudes to maori culture, assimilation in a ‘modern world’.

Part Three: Race Relations in the 1960s and 1970s: The Official Line; Rugby and Race – the 1960 No Maoris No Tour protest, Ben Couch, the Maori side of 1981; Employment and Education; The Gangs; The Land – the Land March, Bastion Point; Self Determination – John Rangihau, Syd Jackson and Nga Tamatoa, young Maori activists, Matiu Rata and Mana Motuhake, Eva Rickard, Pat Hohepa, Api Mahuika and Derek Fox.

Part Four: Postscript: The Treaty and the Waitangi Tribunal – the 150th celebrations, TV advertising, the Waitangi Tribunal and the SOE Act, land claims (Gisborne settlement 2004), resource claims (the Fisheries deal), taonga claims (Kohanga Reo), the distribution of settlement payments (Michael King, Tipene O’Regan, Margaret Wilson and John Tamihere); Politics, Self-Determination, Backlash 2004-2005 – Waitangi Day 2004 after Orewa, backlash post-Orewa, Maori in the Labour Party, Michael Bassett, the Maori Party, Tariana Turia; Culture & Change – women, television and advertising, music, the arts.

Total Duration: 321 minutes

Women's impact on New Zealand Society: Health 1915–1985
(2 disks)

Sisters of Compassion Hospital, Island Bay, Whom My Heart Has Chosen (Pacific Films/Seven Films 1967)

Enlarged and updated.

Part One: life expectancy, Maori health statistics; incidence of disease (influenza, tuberculosis, polio, meningoccocal B); family size; Maori perspectives on health; infant mortality; changing perceptions of marriage, sex, family, contraception; technology; mental health; maternity care; motherhood.

Part Two: changing responsibilities for provision; the Maori Women’s Welfare League; Dental Nurses; the Karitane and Plunket systems; charitable Orders; the work of Susanne Aubert, Te Puea and Ettie Rout; career paths, nurses and health workers in the 80s and 90s.

Total Duration: 161 minutes

Women and Work

Journalist Marcia Russell, founder of Thursday Magazine, in Sheilas: 28 Years On (Occassional Productions, 2004)

Reedited and updated. The changing attitudes, legal status and occupational opportunities for New Zealand women from the nineteenth century to the present day. Early and later pioneers: Kate Edger, Mother Aubert, Te Puea, Aunt Daisy, Marie Clay, Marcia Russell, Helen Clark and Sylvia Cartwright; specific role designations in pre-WWII industry; acceptable occupations for the daughters of the middle classes; farming wives during the Depression; WWII and ‘man-powering’; herd testers and male backlash; images of eternal motherhood 1945-1970, nursing and relativity to male wages, the housewife in the 60s kitchen, underlying social implications in television advertising (1961-99), the feminist revolution, Germaine Greer, the decades of redefinition and change (1980s on), ‘women's professions’ in the 1990s.

Total Duration: 98 minutes

New Zealand Identity: Twentieth Century Images (2 disks)

Lemon and Paeroa TVC, L&P World Famous in New Zealand, (199-)

Images historical and contemporary from film, television and advertising that project perceptions of a distinct New Zealand identity. Enlarged and updated.

Part One: Place and Environment (the beach, the quarter–acre paradise, the Scenic Wonderland, the Maori Land March 1975); Culture and Identity - Tangata Whenua (early Tourist & Publicity shots, the Maori Batallion, Kohanga Reo 1983, Whale Rider 2002), Bi-culturalism (Treaty celebration ads 1990), Many Cultures (Pacific immigration, refugees); Society - Continuity and Change (the small town, the Big Smoke and fabulous Identity Advertising).

Part Two: The Pioneers, Sport and War (comparative shots 1940 - 2000); People and Events (Kate Sheppard and Women’s Suffrage, Jack Lovelock in Berlin 1936, Sir Edmund Hillary and Everest, the Wahine, the Nuclear stance); Economic Identity (the traditional - Fred Dagg, No. 8 wire, pampered sheep, jetboats and the modern - Weta Digital, computers and modern telecommunications); Memory and Reality (TV commercials pull out all the Identity stops).

Total Duration: 130 minutes

Anzac: New Zealanders at War, 1900–1973 (3 disks)

Heroes of Crete (NFU, 1941)

Completely reedited and updated.

Part One: 1899-1918 Images from the Boer War - NZ’s earliest surviving film fragment; and World War I - actuality footage and documentary treatment.

Part Two: 1939-1945 WWII - the Seafarers, the Airmen, the Soldiers, Women at War, life on the Home Front - New Zealand, Australian and British newsreels 1940-1945, documentary treatment and on screen text.

Part Three: 1948-2006 Korea, Malaya and Vietnam, Timor, Afghanistan and the Solomons, and finally the memory expressed each Anzac Day, and extracts from the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior.

Total Duration: 180 minutes

Vietnam

In the Shadow of Vietnam (Top Shelf Productions, 1995)

New Zealand's Vietnam experience with extracts from the 1982 Television New Zealand series Vietnam - The New Zealand Story (footage courtesy of New Zealand Television Archive) and the intimate recollections of New Zealand's Vietnam vets from the excellent Top Shelf production, In the Shadow of Vietnam. Engineers, gunners, the escalation, withdrawal. Told from the veteran’s perspective and as historical analysis.

Total Duration: 72 minutes

The Bomb: New Zealand and the Nuclear Debate, 1945–1985

A Nuclear Free Pacific (Pacific Stories Partnership, 1988)

Expanded. New Zealand and the Pacific, moving towards the Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, 1985. Covers the post-war climate, from Hiroshima to cold war strategy, United States and British testing in the South Pacific and Australia, Pacific Rim dispersal, the earliest nuclear ship visits, early Labour initiatives and the Muldoon backlash, the protest movement, Mururoa, the South Pacific Forum, the USS Truxton, Lange at the U.N. and Oxford Union Debate, the nuclear vessel ban... The programme is completed with a case study on the French in the Pacific using extracts from Pita Turei's Hotu Painu and McDougall Craig's Child of the Rainbow Warrior.

Total Duration: 74 minutes

Patu! New Zealand Society and the 1981 Tour

Springbok Tour street protests in Patu! (1983), directed by Merata Mita.

Pre-match Springbok fervour in Christchurch (1956), Australian coverage of the ‘No Maoris No Tour’ protest in 1960, and the stunning documentary, Patu! filmed during the lead up to, and the ensuing turmoil of the '81 Tour. A unique moment in New Zealand's history where social justice and human rights internationally, became centred on that strangely shaped ball. Finally a look at current affairs coverage of the 1985 cancellation of a tour to South Africa with the varied reaction and the changing mood of New Zealand society in the post ’81 period.

Total Duration: 102 minutes

New Zealand Society: The Fifties
(2 disks)

Maraetai 1950 Regatta (1950) Camera: AH Pilliner.

Updated and expanded. Double dvd compilation:

Part One Significant Events: the Empire Games; Korea and compulsory military training; the 1951 Waterfront Lockout; the Royal Visit; Hillary & Everest; Tangiwai; Malaya; the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Cold War: ANZUS and SEATO. Growth & Development: industry, agriculture and technology.

Part Two Society: Town & Country; Maori; Health; Education & Youth. Sport, Culture & Leisure: Godfrey Bowen, Bob Charles, the 1956 Springboks, A&P shows, music film, the beach, Opo the Dolphin and... “It’s in the Bag!”

Total Duration: 165 minutes

New Zealand Society: The Sixties
(2 disks)

Young Miss and Young Mister New Zealander (Reynolds TV, 1963)

Updated and expanded. Double dvd compilation with edited highlights of a decade at the crossroads of change:

Part One The People: education; sport & recreation; Maori; gender & fashion. Significant Events: Britain & the EEC; Royal Visits and the Beatles (1963,1964); the television revolution; the Wahine and Man on the Moon.
Controversial Issues: the No Maoris No Tour protests, the all white All Blacks in South Africa; Vietnam.

Part Two Growth & development: industry, roading and telecommunications. Pop Culture: CHTV3 launch (1962), the Chicks and Ray Columbus, not to mention Mr Lee Grant and Peter Sinclair. TV advertising: my how times have changed.

Total Duration: 111 minutes

New Zealand Society: The Seventies
(2 disks)

Craig Scott exhorts New Zealanders to spend time in their own country: New Zealand Is Yours, Go There Now (1972).

Enlarged programme.

Part One: People, Politics & the Mass Media: New Zealanders at leisure, the hippie generation, redefining the male; the economy, Britain and the EEC, new fuels and Think Big; politics, Norman Kirk, Robert Muldoon, election advertising; the mass media, 70s television, advertising and popular music.

Part Two: Issues & Events: the Vietnam War and the protest movement; Manapouri, the environment and endangered species; Nga Tama Toa, the Land March and Bastion Point; the feminist revolution; Erebus.