(Based on “I am Australian” – Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton)

Listen here

I came from the Pacific, crossing vast and open sea,
I am the silver fern and the mighty Kauri tree,
Pohutakawa on the rocky shore, watched the canoes come near,
For many hundred years they’d been the first New Zealanders

I came upon the company ship to the land that I had won
I cleared the trees, endured the rain and waited for the sun.
We are sailors who foundered on shallow harbour bars
We swam to land and made a life, and became New Zealanders.

I’m the daughter of a digger who sought the Queenstown lode
The girl became a woman on the long and dusty road
I’m a child of the depression and the war tide soon came near, I’m a Kiwi, I’m a battler, I am a New Zealander.

We are one but we are many
and from every land and place afar
we share a dream,
And sing with one voice,
I am, you are, we are New Zealanders.

I’m a singer of songs, our stories I write,
I am Colin McCahon and I paint New Zealand light. I am Ernest splitting atoms, I’m a rugged mountaineer
I’m the one who first climbed Everest, I am a New Zealander.

I’m the hot wind on the West Coast, I’m the Canterbury plains
I’m the mountains and the valleys, I’m the drought and flooding rains
I am the rock, I am the sky, the rivers flowing near
The land of long white cloud, I am a New Zealander.

We are one but we are many
and from every land and place afar
we share a dream,
And sing with one voice,
I am, you are, we are New Zealanders.

Part-copyright: Rod de Lisle