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Story: Ethnic inequalities

Dawn raids

This pamphlet was prepared by ACORD (the Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination) and published by Amnesty Aroha. It tells the story of a dawn raid on a family of Tongans for allegedly overstaying in New Zealand in 1976. The raids in part reflected a scapegoating of Pacific people as the New Zealand economy deteriorated in the mid-1970s.

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Alexander Turnbull Library, David Wickham Collection

Reference: 94-106-19/07-02 (left); 94-106-19/07-03 (right)

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

David Pearson, Ethnic inequalities – Ethnic diversity since 1945, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/zoomify/29588/dawn-raids (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by David Pearson, published 24 February 2011.