Events
- 22 January: State funeral for Sir Edmund Hillary
- 5 April: A huge propane explosion at a coolstore in Tamahere kills firefighter senior station officer Derek Lovell, and seriously injures seven others.
- 5 June: A newly redesigned flag for the Governor General of New Zealand is flown for the first time at Government House, Auckland.
- 1 July: Rail transport network is renationalised as KiwiRail
- 11 July: Police Sergeant Derek Wootton (52) is struck and killed by a vehicle fleeing police, while laying road spikes at Titahi Bay.
- 1 August: Crown entities Land Transport New Zealand and Transit New Zealand merge to form the NZ Transport Agency
- 16 August: Dunedin Public Hospital is put in lockdown for a week after approximately 170 staff and patients fall ill to a norovirus outbreak, resulting in 2,300 appointments and procedures being delayed.
- 5 September: Fonterra advise Prime Minister Helen Clark of the 2008 baby milk scandal.
- 11 September: Undercover police Sergeant Don Wilkinson (47) is fatally shot in Mangere, after being discovered attempting to secretly fix a tracking device to a car.
- 8 November: John Key and the New Zealand National Party win the General Election. John Key is able to form a Government and in Helen Clark's speech she resigns as leader of the New Zealand Labour Party
- 9 November: Michael Cullen resigns as deputy leader of the Labour Party.
- 19 November: John Key is sworn in as Prime Minister
- 27 November: 2008 Air New Zealand A320 test flight crash. Air New Zealand A320 Airbus crashes into the Mediterranean during a test flight, killing five New Zealand and two German air crew.
Read more about this topic: 2008 In New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“One cannot be a good historian of the outward, visible world without giving some thought to the hidden, private life of ordinary people; and on the other hand one cannot be a good historian of this inner life without taking into account outward events where these are relevant. They are two orders of fact which reflect each other, which are always linked and which sometimes provoke each other.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“The system was breaking down. The one who had wandered alone past so many happenings and events began to feel, backing up along the primal vein that led to his center, the beginning of hiccup that would, if left to gather, explode the center to the extremities of life, the suburbs through which one makes one’s way to where the country is.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“All strange and terrible events are welcome,
But comforts we despise.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)