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 thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape ... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear.”
—Marilyn French (b. 1929)
“Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone, which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“There are no little events in life, those we think of no consequence may be full of fate, and it is at our own risk if we neglect the acquaintances and opportunities that seem to be casually offered, and of small importance.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)