How come European New Zealanders embraced the native Maori tradition while Australians did not?
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There are a few things to cover.
Firstly, New Zealand was colonised much later than other countries, and Great Britain learnt a bit about how terribly they had done in colonising other nations. The colonisation was a bit “softer” than places like Australia, in that they actually acknowledge the native people lived there first to a degree.
They created a treaty with the native Māori, which was translated poorly and led to a difference in understanding of the agreement between the Crown and Māori. This led to the New Zealand wars over disagreements of colonisers coming and taking land that Māori understood they had sovereignty over.
Secondly, Māori culture has not been embraced until recently, when a resurgence of their culture started in roughly the 70s. This resurgence is why you see it being embraced today, but up until the 70s people were still caned (as in, hit with a cane) in school for just speaking Māori language. The language was completely suppressed to the point that entire families lost their knowledge of the language and all their ties to their past.
Thirdly, Māori had a larger proportional population in New Zealand than Aboriginals did in Australia, and were more united in their common language and culture. Aboriginal people are more distinct nations scattered all through the vast land of Australia.
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