This law allowed for the confiscation (Raupatu) of Maori land as punishment of those North Island tribes who were deemed to have been in rebellion against the British Crown in the early 1860s. New settlers would be introduced onto confiscated lands.
The 40-hectare (100-acre) man-made Island Harbour, eight years in the making, is the centrepiece of the modern port facilities at Bluff, the southern-most commercial deepwater port in New Zealand.
The state monopoly on commercial radio broadcasting was challenged by the pirate station Radio Hauraki's first scheduled transmission from the vessel Tiri in the Colville Channel.
From the 1890 election no New Zealander could vote in more than one district, ending the longstanding practice of 'plural voting' by those who owned property in more than one electorate.