The Legal Position of the Anglican Church in New Zealand - quasi-establishment and the consensual compact

The legal position of the Anglican Church in Australia and New Zealand followed parallelbut distinct routes, from the foundation of the church in the countries in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries. In Australia it began as an established church – essentially through themilitary chaplaincies of the early colonial government. In New Zealand is commencedthrough the unregulated (by Government) missionary activities of the Church of England. Bythe twentieth century the church in Australia was dis-established, but the situation remainedmore complex that this in both countries. In New Zealand the reliance of the Church uponsecular legal systems and processes meant that its legal status was more akin the quasi-established than non-established, even though the basis of the church’s own rules was thevoluntary consensual compact of its members.