Vincent O'Malley

The great war for New Zealand, Waikato 1800-2000, published in 2016, is described on the publisher's website as "a monumental new account of the defining conflict in New Zealand history...that shaped the nation in all kinds of ways: setting back Māori and Pākehā relations by several generations and allowing the government to begin to assert the kind of real control over the country that had eluded it since 1840".

O'Malley's work on the Waikato War is seen as contributing "alternative scripts to the official government version of the history of the New Zealand Wars" by exploring factors such how an increased number of Europeans resulted in loss of Māori land and contributed to a breakdown in what had previously been friendly relations between the British and Waikato Māori.

O'Malley is said by this reviewer to place most of the responsibility for the war directly on to Governor George Grey, saying that he provoked and exaggerated a fear there was to be a Kingitanga attack on Auckland to justify increasing troops for an invasion of Waikato, effectively choosing war.

He told Dale Husband that the first of the O'Malleys came from Ireland as assisted immigrants to Christchurch in the early 1860s, and acknowledged that his family's background may have shaped his views on the treatment of Māori.

He has reflected before on parallels between the Māori experience and the Irish experience, saying Ireland was "the original blueprint for British imperialism" and many dispossessed Irish Catholic men found themselves fighting on the side of the empire in New Zealand.

Vincent Michael O’Malley MRSNZ FRHistS (born 1967) is a New Zealand historian whose work focuses on the history of how relationships between Māori, European settlers (Pākehā) and colonial governments shapes the development of New Zealand as a nation.

In his publications, and as a presenter and media commentator, O'Malley takes public positions on the teaching of history in New Zealand schools, the importance of understanding the impact of the New Zealand Wars, interractions between Māori agency and Crown responses during the colonisation of the country and the role of the Waitangi Tribunal.

O'Malley has received multiple research grants, won several literary awards and is involved in a wide range of professional associations.

His father and brothers worked in the Addington Railway Workshops, but instead of following them in this line of work, he has noted:"I became the first member of my family to go to university and that opened up new possibilities for me. But I didn’t have a plan to become a historian. It was just something that fell into place. I got offered a three-month contract researching Treaty claims for iwi in 1993, moved from Christchurch to Wellington to do that, and a quarter century later I’m still here doing the same thing."

The family lived in Riccarton and O'Malley attended Ilam Primary School, Kirkwood Intermediate, and high school at St Thomas of Canterbury College.

From October 2000 to July 2004, O'Malley was Research Manager at the Crown Forestry Rental Trust, set up under the Crown Forest Assets Act 1989 to protect Māori interests by ensuring that before the selling of land for forestry by the Crown, the Waitangi Tribunal would confirm who has ownership of the land.

He is Research Director at HistoryWorks, a company he co-founded in 2004.

O'Malley is the youngest of nine children in a working class Irish Catholic family from Christchurch, New Zealand.

He holds a BA (Hons), 1st Class, in History from the University of Canterbury and completed his PhD in New Zealand Studies through the Stout Research Centre at Victoria University of Wellington in 2004.

O'Malley said that at university, he learned a lot "about the complexities of the relationships between Māori and the Pākehā migrants" from Tipene O’Regan, an academic with an Irish-Māori whakapapa.

In July 2004 O'Malley co-founded HistoryWorks Limited, and as of 2022, is in the role of Research Director.

Research by O'Malley in 2013 that examines the events leading up to the invasion of Waikato by British Imperial Troops authorised by the governor George Grey, finds there is no valid justification for this pre-emptive action, noting in particular the lack of definitive evidence that there was to be an attack on Auckland.

O'Malley concludes that "the government did have a choice between peace and war...[and]...it opted for the latter while denying Waikato Māori a similar opportunity to choose".

Before the announcement of the new curriculum, there had been the campaign started in 2014 by a group of students from a New Zealand high school to raise awareness of the New Zealand Wars following visits to some of the battle sites.

O'Malley acknowledged that the students' petition to the New Zealand Government in 2015 resulted, not only in a national day of commemoration for the victims of the New Zealand Wars, but also a public focus on the importance of teaching the history about this in the country's schools.

An earlier article co-authored by O'Malley and Joanna Kidman holds that this action by the students was a "turning point in Pākehā remembrance" about how influential the New Zealand Wars had been in shaping the country's histories, reflecting "a greater willingness to face up to the bitter and bloody realities of these conflicts...[and]... to introduce local histories and studies of these conflicts into the school curriculum".

O'Malley participated in later research, described in the media as a "journey to understand why there is so much denial in the way we look at and talk about Aotearoa's past".

The data from the research had shown a significant number of complaints against the students' petition, which according to O'Malley indicated many held a view of the country's history that was "steeped in political nostalgia and idealism...[a]... mythical version where James Cook is a hero and New Zealand had the greatest race relations in the world ", and it was challenging for them when confronted with an alternate reality.

When asked about the raupatu (land confiscations) that happened because of the New Zealand Wars, O'Malley made the point that while many Pākehā choose to forget or ignore this difficult history, it is important to recognise and acknowledge the stories of the country's history that have been carried by iwi on their own.

O'Malley describes the New Zealand Wars as a "series of conflicts that profoundly shaped the course and direction of [the] nation's history" and stresses the importance of understanding and acknowledging the consequences of them.

In 2016 he took on the position as an editor for H-ANZAU (H-Net Humanities and Social Sciences Online, History and Culture of Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia) and continues in that role as of 2023.

O'Malley was a Judge for Copyright Licensing New Zealand/New Zealand Society of Authors Writers' Awards in 2021 and 2022.

The introduction to a research-based book co-authored by O'Malley in 2022 states:"What a nation chooses to remember or forget speaks to its contemporary priorities and sense of identity...understanding how this process works enables us to better imagine a future with a different, or wider set of priorities" The authors claim that the narrative about how the modern nation of New Zealand is shaped by history remains contested and the ways in which the New Zealand Wars, which took place between 1843 and 1872, are remembered or forgotten, reflect "how memory and silence about this difficult past permeates people's lives in the present".

With this as a focus, O'Malley takes public positions on "intergenerational problems" that have resulted from not recognising the influence of the New Zealand Wars on New Zealand society.

He was a joint principal investigator of a Marsden Fund (Royal Society of New Zealand) project on Remembering and forgetting difficult histories in New Zealand, focusing specifically on the New Zealand Wars, and has twice been awarded The New Zealand History Research Trust Fund Award in History, in 2019 for The New Zealand Wars and in 2010 for Cultural encounter on the New Zealand frontier: the meeting of Māori and Pakeha, 1769-1840.

O'Malley became a Professional Member (MRSNZ), Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi in 2021 and in the same period, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) Since 2020 O'Malley has been a Member of The New Zealand Society of Authors and a mentor for the Mentor Programme run by the Society.

When the New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern announced in September 2019 that New Zealand history would be taught in all schools from 2022, O'Malley noted the importance of an education system in developing a "more robust and truthful understanding of history", commenting that the "momentous decision to develop the new curriculum, could address the issue of most students leaving school with little knowledge or understanding of their own country".

It has been said in a review that the main theme of the book The New Zealand Wars: Nga Pakanga o Aotearoa written by O'Malley in 2019, is that the wars had a "nasty, brutal and devastating" effect on some Māori communities and were a consequence of the drive for settlers to acquire land and "the government’s determination to impose its sovereignty in the face of Māori resolve to maintain rangatiratanga".

The reviewer holds that O'Malley's position of it as "no longer being acceptable to justify the wars on the basis of a colonial predestination, native savagery, or chivalrous contest", highlights the importance of New Zealanders knowing the true history of these wars.

Another review, in the New Zealand Listener, notes that "O’Malley urges knowledge and understanding as a way forward... his book is a landmark study of the New Zealand Wars and an important contribution to change".

From 2020 until 2021, O'Malley had input into the development of the draft history curriculum as a member of Ohu Matua Advisory Group on Aotearoa New Zealand Histories Curriculum established by the New Zealand Ministry of Education.

The purpose of the advisory group was to collate a broad range of perspectives from students, families and communities and provide advice on the design and implementation of the curriculum.

He was also a member of a group of experts who worked on reviewing the draft document for the government.

While the review report did identify some gaps in the curriculum that needed to be addressed, it concluded:"The drama and constantly changing nature of the circumstances in which people in Aotearoa New Zealand lived their lives is at the heart of an exciting history curriculum. How people navigated the constraints and opportunities of their times, and the meaning we make in the present about those who are both linked to us yet distanced by time, should lie at the heart of a powerful curriculum."

Writing in the Guardian, O'Malley said that New Zealand coming to terms with internal conflicts [is a]..."positive [step] on the path towards a more historically aware, engaged and mature Aotearoa".