Abstract:
The post-World War II period in New Zealand has been characterised as one in which consensus about the value of the welfare state was at its height. Yet the 1959 Consultative Committee on Infant and Pre-School Health Services showed a marked public and political commitment to the maintenance of a voluntary welfare organisation, the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society. This article addresses this apparent contradiction. It will then discuss the subsequent collapse of that support-base, which coincided with the contraction of state welfare. It thus addresses the interface and relationship between state and voluntary welfare in modern times.