About

Kahurangi Press is an independent New Zealand publisher located in the hills above beautiful Tauranga and Mount Maunganui in the Bay of Plenty.

Kahurangi Press is owned and operated by Therese McLachlan and publishes the works of Peter Balin and Michael Owen. Peter, a New Zealander, was an artist and writer who lived in the USA. Michael is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Tauranga.

New Zealand was first settled by Maori, the indigenous people of Aotearoa (The Land of the Long White Cloud), who arrived about 800 years ago. They journeyed here in the seven great wakas or ocean-going canoes.

New Zealand is the only country in the world whose governance is based on a treaty of equal partnership (Te Tiriti o Waitangi, The Treaty of Waitangi, 1840) between its indigenous people and European settlers.

In 1893 New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the vote. In 1984 New Zealand land, water and airspace became a nuclear-free zone. In 1999 New Zealand elected the first transgender woman to Parliament in the world. In the early 2000s women concurrently held the positions of Governor-General, Prime Minister, Chief Justice, Leader of the Opposition, and Attorney-General. The Prime Minister from 2017-2023 was Jacinda Ardern.

The House of Parliament in Wellington is round not square or rectangular nor does it have imposing statues or Ionic columns. If that fact is meaningless to you, don’t bother with it. It is fondly dubbed The Beehive—riff on that one for a moment.

And finally, New Zealand is the home of the All Blacks, the national rugby team. Over the last 100 years they have a winning record unequalled, world-wide, by any team in any professional sporting code.