By WAYNE THOMPSON
The role of a small Auckland park in New Zealand's democracy was recalled yesterday at a ceremony to mark 150 years since the first sitting of Parliament.
The grassy reserve off Anzac Ave, in the shadow of the High Court, was the site of a plain wooden building where
Parliament met for a decade when a booming Auckland served as the capital for the colonial administration.
Mayor John Banks said that many of the 37 MPs at the first session had travelled from their electorates by steamer to Onehunga and had to wade ashore on the mudflats.
As the cannons of Fort Britomart had boomed out a salute for the opening of Parliament, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Wynyard told MPs that he hoped the General Assembly's efforts would save the country from becoming "a collection of insignificant, divided, powerless and petty states".
Mr Banks said that with the weight of development moving south, the capital shifted to Wellington in 1865.
A report of the time said the decision disgusted every Auckland citizen.
"Times have indeed changed but the significance of this site and of May 24, 1854, remains," Mr Banks said as he joined Speaker Jonathan Hunt in unveiling a plaque marking the entrance to the long-gone building.
Mr Hunt said it was appropriate to celebrate "the world's oldest democracy".
When New Zealand first established a Parliament, he said, it had a remarkably generous franchise for the time, with most people entitled to vote.
In 1893 it was the first country to give women the vote, and had given its indigenous people representation in Parliament 23 years earlier.
Auckland historian Professor Russell Stone said the first Parliament building was so spartan and draughty that MPs nicknamed it the "shediface".
The building also housed the Provincial Government until its abolition in 1876.
It later became the forerunner to the University of Auckland.
The decision to move the capital to Wellington was made in a climate of the south's growing influence and prosperity and the insecurity in Auckland created by the 1860s Waikato Land Wars.
