Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Dawn services and the National Commemorative Service have been held to mark Anzac Day.
Speaking to RNZ, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said Anzac Day has come to mean far more than a commemoration of the 1915 Gallipoli campaign.
Before the National Commemorative Service in Wellington, Hipkins said he thinks about his grandfathers, who were Second World War veterans, along with the sacrifices of other servicemen and women, including peacekeepers.
"Anzac Day, I guess, starts with Gallipoli and with World War I but it's actually come to mean a lot more that that.
"It's come to mean a day of acknowledgement of the sacrifice made by the Anzacs, the New Zealand and Australia troops, in conflicts all around the world."
A historian said Anzac Day has become Aotearoa's national day of unity, and he thinks it will remain so.
Rowan Light said a prediction that once the First World War veterans had all died, Anzac Day would die out too, has not come to pass.
The success of the commemorations was out of public interest in the stories of the Anzacs that continue to be told, he said.
A ceremony will be held on the Waitangi Treaty Grounds this evening to commemorate the members of the Māori Battalion.
The last surving member, Tā Robert Gillies, will present the Campaign and Battle Honours Memorial Flag at Te Rau Aroha Museum.
Follow RNZ's live updates:
