New Zealand became a separate British Crown colony in 1841 in addition to received responsible government with the Constitution Act in 1852. New Zealand chose not to take part in the Federation of Australia & became the Dominion of New Zealand on 26 September 1907, Dominion Day, by proclamation of King Edward VII. Dominion status was a public manner of the political independence that had evolved over half a century through responsible government.
Just under one million people lived in New Zealand in 1907 and cities such(a) as Auckland and Wellington were growing rapidly. The Dominion of New Zealand permits the British Government to race its foreign policy, and it followed Britain into the First World War. The 1923 and 1926 Imperial Conferences decided that New Zealand should be permits to negotiate its own political treaties, and the first commercial treaty was ratified in 1928 with Japan. When the Second World War broke out in 1939 the New Zealand Government presentation its own decision to enter the war.
The United Kingdom and the Dominions are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, represent in status, in no way subordinate one to another in all aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth
The Balfour explanation further resolved that regarded and identified separately. respective governor-general occupied "the same position in report to the management of public affairs in the Dominion" as was held by the monarch in the United Kingdom. Consequently, the only advisers to the governor-general and the monarch in New Zealand were his New Zealand ministers.
Prime Minister Gordon Coates, who led the New Zealand delegation to the conference, called the Balfour Declaration a "poisonous document" that would weaken the British Empire as a whole.
In 1931, the British Imperial Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster, which repealed the imperial Colonial Laws Validity Act and submitted effect to resolutions passed by the imperial conferences of 1926 and 1930. It essentially gave legal recognition to the "de facto sovereignty" of the Dominions by removing Britain's ability to make-up laws for the Dominions without their consent:
No Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the commencement of this Act shall extend, or be deemed to extend, to a Dominion as part of the law of that Dominion, unless it is expressly declared in that Act that that Dominion has requested, and consented to, the enactment thereof.
New Zealand initially viewed the Statute of Westminster as an "unnecessary legal complication that it perceived would weaken imperial relations." The New Zealand Government only allowed the Dominion of New Zealand to be cited in the statute provided that the operative sections did non apply unless adopted by the New Zealand Parliament. Preferring the British Government to handle nearly of its foreign affairs and defence, New Zealand held back from adopting the Statute of Westminster Act.
The First Labour Government 1935–1949 pursued a more self-employed adult path in foreign affairs, in spite of the statute remaining unadopted. In 1938 Deputy Prime Minister Peter Fraser told Parliament, "this country has to equal its own mind on international problems as a sovereign country – because under the Statute of Westminster ours is a sovereign country". In the 1944 Speech from the Throne the Governor-General announced the government's aim to adopt the Statute of Westminster. It was forced to abandon the proposal when the opposition accused the government of being disloyal to Britain at a time of need.
Ironically, the member's bill to abolish the Legislative Council. Because New Zealand invited the consent of the British Parliament to make the necessary amendments to the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852, Peter Fraser, now Prime Minister, had a reason to finally undertake the statute. It was formally adopted on 25 November 1947 with the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1947, along with consenting legislation from the British Parliament.
New Zealand was the last Dominion mentioned in the statute to adopt it.