KUROW, NORTH OTAGO TEST RUN FOR THE MODERN WELFARE STATE, 1938
The view of the broad, fertile valley narrows to tall peaks and rushing water where the Waitaki River flows past Te Kohurau hill. Waitaha people, later tribes and then European colonists settled in this bracing, beautiful, bigsky spot that has become known as Kurow, an anglicized version of the name of the hill in whose shadow it stands. And here, ideas were developed that would turn New Zealand into a leading light for government care of citizens.
Two blocks back from Bledisloe St, Kurow’s main drag, is St Stephen’s Presbyterian Church. Here, in the mid1920s, the newly ordained Rev Arnold Nordmeyer was appointed as minister. Just around the corner was the home and surgery of the local physician, Dr Gervan McMillan. It was in this house, during the Great Depression, that Nordmeyer, McMillan and the school headmaster Andrew Davidson met for heated discussion. They thrashed out ideas for applying Christian ethics to the bad working conditions of the many hundreds of Waitaki Dam builders and the appalling living conditions of the further hundreds of unemployed hopefuls the construction attracted from throughout the country.
Their scheme was based on ideas used by the Forester
Lodge, a mutual benevolent society that also tried to help nonmembers in need.
By 1935, Nordmeyer had become an MP in the first Labour government. He worked with McMillan and Walter Nash to develop those Kurow ideas into what would become the government’s social security policies.
In 1938, the Social Security Act became law, giving New Zealanders free hospital, maternity and GP care, a meanstested pension and universal superannuation, all funded by a 5% direct tax. The modern welfare state was born.