This paper argues that examining the interweaving of ethnic and civic elements best explains current tensions in ethnic politics in New Zealand in elite state and nation-building and how these shape patterns of inclusion or exclusion of aboriginal and immigrant minorities. Theories of ethnic and civic nationalism are discussed briefly and the distinctiveness of settler societies is explored. Recent trends promoting biculturalism and multiculturalism are examined. A discussion of legal citizenship since 1840 reveals the linkages and persistence of three historical trajectories – the decolonising of aboriginal people (Maori), the de-colonial movement among Pakeha (‘white Europeans’), and the partial de-alienising of immigration. These trajectories, I conclude, reflect in-built tensions between different historical and current ethnic and civic representations of the New Zealand nation-state.