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While New Zealand, like Australia, prides itself as being more egalitarian than Britain, there is a degree of inverse snobbery known as the 'Tall Poppy Syndrome', in which people who are seen as (over)ambitious and having ideas above their station are cut down to size. This is also known as the 'Great Kiwi Clobbering Machine', and has prompted many of the country's best and brightest to emigrate.

New Zealand has a unicameral Parliament, the 120-seat House of Representatives. Since 1996, New Zealand has used the mixed member proportional (MMP) system, under which each MP is either elected by voters in a single-member (First Past the Post electoral system) constituency or appointed from party lists. Several seats are currently reserved for members elected on a separate Maori roll. However, Maori may choose to vote in and to run for the non-reserved seats, and several have entered Parliament in this way. Parliaments have a maximum term of three years, although an elections can be called earlier.

Partly because of its geographical isolation from neighbouring countries, and partly because of the number and location of numerous uninhabited islands belonging to it, New Zealand's Exclusive economic zone of marine resources was the world's fifth largest, at 4.2 million square kilometres in the year 2000 (according to New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research).

The first Europeans known to reach New Zealand were the crew of Dutch explorer Abel Tasman's ships Heemskerck and Zeehaen, which anchored at the northern end of the South Island in December 1642 but sailed northward to Tonga following a clash with local Maori. Tasman sketched sections of the two main islands' west coasts. Tasman called them "Nova Zeelanda." The name Nieuw Zeeland appeared on charts of the area shortly afterward, having earlier been applied to an island near New Guinea. Lieutenant James Cook of His Majesty's Barque Endeavour made a fuller reconnaissance, surveying the shores of both islands in 1769 - 1770. Cook returned to New Zealand in both his subsequent Pacific voyages.

The Cabinet, which is responsible to Parliament, exercises executive authority. (The Cabinet forms the practical expression of a formal body known as the Executive Council.) The Prime Minister, as the leader of the political party or coalition of parties holding the majority of seats in the House of Representatives, leads the Cabinet. All Cabinet Ministers must be Members of Parliament (MPs) and are collectively responsible to it.

New Zealand's head of state is the Queen of New Zealand, currently Elizabeth II. The New Zealand monarchy has been distinct from the British monarchy since the New Zealand Royal Titles Act of 1953, and all Elizabeth II's official business in New Zealand is conducted in the name of the Queen of New Zealand, not the Queen of the United Kingdom. In practice, the functions of the monarchy are conducted by a Governor-General, appointed on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.

New Zealand has a strong party system in place. The first political party was founded in 1891, and its main rival was founded in 1909 — from that point until a change of electoral system in 1996, New Zealand had a two-party system in place. Today, New Zealand has a genuinely multi-party system, with eight parties currently represented in Parliament. Neither of the two largest parties has been able to govern without support from other groups since 1996, meaning that coalition government is common.

Britain was motivated by the desire to forestall other European powers (France established a very small settlement on Banks Peninsula in the South Island at Akaroa also in 1840) and to end the lawlessness of European (predominantly British) whalers and traders. Maori chiefs were motivated by the promises of protection of their existing possessions (which was only partially carried out) and by the promise of protection against other Maori using muskets obtained from European whalers and traders (the Musket Wars of 1820-1835).

New Zealand was featured as the setting for "Middle Earth" in the renowned early 21st century trilogy of films based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books. It has brought an additional interest in tourism to the nation.

The usual climate throughout the country is mild, mostly cool temperate to warm temperate, with temperatures rarely falling below 0°C or rising above 30°C. Conditions vary from wet and cold in Southland and the West Coast of the South Island, where most of the country's rain falls, to subtropical in Northland. In Wellington the average minimum temperature in winter is 5.9°C and the average maximum temperature in summer is 20.3°C.

In October 1990, the National Party again formed the government, for the first of three, three-year terms. In 1996 New Zealand elected its first MMP Parliament. The system was designed to increase representation of smaller parties in Parliament and appears to have done so. Since 1996, neither the National nor the Labour Party has had an absolute majority in Parliament, and for all but one of those years, the government has been a minority one. The current Labour government followed its November 1999 election success by outpolling National 41 per cent to 21 per cent in the July 2002 general election. Labour formed a coalition, minority government with Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition, a left-wing party (subsequently named "Progressive Party") which holds two seats in Parliament.

New Zealand has no native land mammals apart from some rare bats. Later Maori largely subsisted by cultivating the kumara, a type of sweet potato, which they had brought with them from Polynesia.

Christianity is the predominant religion in New Zealand, although over a quarter of the population has no religious affiliation. The main Christian denominations are Anglicanism, Presbyterianism, Roman Catholicism and Methodism. There are also significant numbers who identify themselves with Pentecostal and Baptist churches and with the Mormon church. The New Zealand-based Ratana church has many adherents among Maori. According to census figures, other significant minority religions include Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam.

God's Own Country, or Godzone, is generally accepted, by New Zealanders if nowhere else, as the alternative name for New Zealand. God's Own Country was the title of a poem about New Zealand written by Thomas Bracken about 1890. (He also wrote God Defend New Zealand, which became the country's second national anthem). It was a favourite saying of Richard John Seddon, Premier of New Zealand for 13 years (1893-1906).