The basis for social security, social welfare and social policy in New Zealand through the mid-to-late 20th century was laid down in 1938 by the (then) Labour Government’s Social Security Act, which established a comprehensive modern welfare state funded by general taxation (Knutson 1998).
In 1972 a Royal Commission on Social Security reviewed the benefits-related aspects of social security, concentrating on the extent, adequacies and levels of various benefits available to those deemed to be in need. Its report was written in what later proved to be the quite exceptional circumstances of the long boom that followed the Second World War.