Andrew Little calls for commemoration of NZ land wars

Labour leader Andrew Little has added his voice to those calling for a national day to commemorate the New Zealand land wars. Photo / Mark Mitchel

Labour leader Andrew Little has added his voice to those calling for a national day to commemorate the New Zealand land wars. Several of his colleagues have suggested ditching Queen's Birthday to make way for it.

A petition from Waikato school children will today be presented to Parliament calling for a national holiday to commemorate the wars, between Maori and British settlers, especially in the 1840s and 1860s.

Mr Little said there did need to be a proper commemoration "and if we can find space to have a public holiday, I wouldn't disagree with that either".

Prime Minister John Key has said that would require replacing another public holiday with a day for the land wars.

Mr Little stopped short of calling for Queen's Birthday to go, saying he had made that mistake before. However, Hauraki-Waikato MP Nanaia Mahuta and Te Tai Tokerau MP Kelvin Davis suggested Queen's Birthday as an option, or the anniversary days marked at different times of the year for different provinces.

Mr Little said the first step was to ensure the land wars were recognised and then look at a possible public holiday. The petition showed New Zealand was ready to recognise its history, warts and all.

"Younger New Zealanders do feel this stuff and really want to come to terms with New Zealand's history - all of New Zealand's history - the good and bad. And this is a critical part of our history that perhaps we've ignored for far too long."