New Zealand Constitution Act 1846

The New Zealand Constitution Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c. 103) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom intended to grant self-government to the Colony of New Zealand, but it was never fully implemented. The Act's long title was An Act to make further Provision for the Government of the New Zealand Islands, and it received the royal assent on 28 August 1846.

The Act formally remained part of New Zealand's constitution until it was repealed by the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852.

Prior to the Act, the basic document setting out the governance of New Zealand since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi was the Charter of 1840, which specified:

The Executive and Legislative Councils met infrequently during the governorships of Hobson and his successors, Lieutenant Willoughby Shortland (as Administrator), Robert FitzRoy and Sir George Grey. Throughout the Crown colony period each Governor held, in the name of the Crown, complete control over the executive and legislative functions of government.

There was a growing agitation from the settlers for representative government. This was particularly the case in Wellington which, as a New Zealand Company settlement, briefly had its own independent governing council, until Governor Hobson sent his Colonial Secretary, Willoughby Shortland, and some soldiers to Port Nicholson to end any challenge to British sovereignty (the colonists had set up a "colonial council", which Hobson described as a "republic", in March 1840 headed by Wakefield and Smith, and primitive legal institutions).

The people of Auckland, then the capital, were less interested. Eventually, pressure led to the enactment in 1846 in London of an intricate constitution.

The Act provided for a three-tiered system of representative government:

The Act was intended to be implemented by a royal charter and royal instructions, issued on 23 December 1846.

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