I see the great continuities in New Zealand history as being decency and common sense and up until now when we've confronted these things we've been able to talk them through, and I'm sure we will with this issue as well.

Those who look back on pre European life as a dreamtime of aroha(affection) and harmony ignore that fact that in realty it was brutish and short. King also pointed out that Maori cruelty to other Maori during the Muskets Wars and the invasion of the Chatham Islands was far harMichael Kingr and less humane than the results of British colonisation. He was raised in a largely Irish Catholic community in the seaside area of Paremata Wellington.

Michael King OBE (15 December 1945 – 30 March 2004) was a New Zealand popular historian author and biographer.