Where is the New Zealand accent derived from?

Answer 1

The NZ accent is derived from English, like the Australian accent, and despite each country's colonists deriving from differing parts of Britain (there were more Irish in Australia and more Scots in NZ) the accents were remarkably similar until about 50 years ago. The accent started diverging after WWII, with the increased importance of the Maori language being a possible reason for the shift in accent. Another is a conscious effort by Kiwis to sound different to Australians. Note that as with the Australian accent there are Broad, General and Cultured NZ forms, with the latter sounding more like the British Received Pronunciation (as with Educated Australian) while the Broad forms are very nearly mutually unintelligible even to Australians and New Zealanders. There is also a form of New Zealand accent which has a heavy Scots influence (with rolled "r") found around the southern part of the South Island, called, strangely enough, Southland (just to confuse matters further there is a part called North Southland and by inference, presumably, a South Southland). It's also found in the southeast around Dunedin. The capital of Southland, Invercargill, as well as Dunedin, capital of Otago province, are named for Scottish places.