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That's probably because the maoris actually invented trench warfare while fighting off the british.

http://www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/media-releases/2008/early-maori-military-engineering-skills-to-be-honoured-by-new-zealand-professional-engineers/

New Zealand, which has no indigenous mammals

That really destroyed my motivation. Why give away your time for free when others that are less motivated and less qualified are getting paid?

Obviously it varies for different people, but just because someone's being paid doesn't mean they're any less motivated. Ideally, you'd want to pick out the most motivated people and give them a salary so they can completely devote themselves (instead of 50% of their time), but it doesn't mean that there's no benefit from still getting help from others. I can think of several examples, but to mention a couple:

• At our local astronomical observatory, some staff are paid whereas others are volunteers. It doesn't really put off people wanting to volunteer, though. There's a severe lack of funding for the facility, and everyone involved realises that while some paid staff are needed to keep the place going from day to day, it'll be better overall if volunteers also help out. It's also pretty obvious that when the observatory is hiring from time to time, the volunteers will the the first people they'll go to. It's much easier to hire from a people you know you can already work well with. I'm sure the management would love to pay all the volunteers, but if it did then there wouldn't be an observatory, and everyone knows that. The staff and management at the observatory put a lot of effort into returning the favours, though, among other things by working a lot with the local societies, offering use of facilities, and so on.
• In New Zealand (where I live), the national government's Department of Conservation maintains approximately 1,000 back-country huts, which are scattered around all sorts of places and are a real help for people who want to walk to and see some of the remotest areas. The department flies them into all sorts of remote places for use by hunters and trampers (that's NZ's word for hiking), which makes a lot of the back-country a lot more accessible for people who are fit and able enough to get there. There's a token fee for staying the night at huts which helps to pay for some of the maintenance (not heavily enforced, and people are exempt when there are safety issues), but there's no way this could ever be done if it wasn't for the cooperation of all the tramping clubs, hunters, and pretty much all people who use them. Tramping club volunteers act as good citizens and help out, some even adopt particular huts and shelters in the back-country, and send out voluntary work parties to help keep the tracks maintained. In return, they get to use the services, and DOC makes a lot of concessions to the clubs in return. (eg. Substantial discounts on actually using the huts.)

In both of these cases, there's a clear combination of money being paid, and volunteers, and it's working great.

The idea of building a major bridge in the middle of nowhere is not new, but the name may well be taken by a bridge built in New Zealand in 1936, an isolated monument to pork barrel politics.
http://www.doc.govt.nz/Conservation/Historic/020~B y-Region/007~Wanganui/pdf/bridge-to-nowhere-factsh eet.pdf

Are you sure you're not thinking of Kiwis??

This is a Maori.

This is a Kiwi.

I should point out that there are trips running out to White Island regularly. In particular, it's a popular dive spot, considered by many to be on par with the Poor Knights.

Despite the fact that our countries (Australia and NZ) are geographically close

Geographically close? The distance between Auckland and Sydney is considerably more than say London to Rome, or New York to Miami. And there is nothing between the two countries except water. It'd be a hell of a long swim.

Oh and in response to the earlier " They do have kangaroos in New Zealand, don't they?", no we don't, but Wallabies are a somewhat similar species (albeit smaller) that was introduced here a long time ago.

A variety of the New Zealand weta (a cool cricket for which the LotR FX studio is named), has developed special proteins that enable it to survive through harsh alpine winters in a sort of hibernation with up to 80% of its body water frozen.

(eg Tuatara, which is not a reptile; it only looks like one)