ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses shifts in two strands of national identity in Aotearoa New Zealand as particular configurations of these two international trends. It tracks the law and policy reform integral to the shifts in Aotearoa New Zealand's national identity from monoculturalism to biculturalism and from a caring to a competitive enterprise society. A Treaty partnership might therefore invoke the caring relationship of an intimate partnership reflective of New Zealand's disappearing national identity, while masking the historical sedimentation of the subordinate position of 'wife'. Stories of national identity promoted by the state, or official nationalisms, may arise in response to emerging stories of national identity that threaten the power of dominant groups. Law and policy reform are integral to the creation and maintenance of both national and individual identities. Between the 1930s and the 1970s an official national socio-economic identity of New Zealand was based on social democratic politics and welfare state economics.
