1855 ‘Responsible government’
Now that New Zealand had its own parliamentary system, the British Colonial Office directed Colonel Robert Wynyard, the Acting-Governor, to introduce "responsible government". The settler government would have responsibility for dealing with most aspects of governing New Zealand, apart from dealings with Māori, which was to stay under the Governor's control. In the main, the Governor's residual powers were handed over in a piecemeal manner during the 1850s and 1860s, in particular when the conduct of the New Zealand Wars - and paying for them - was transferred to the colonial government in 1864-65.
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