adwil said:

'Aotearoa'

If I have pronounced it correctly, it's actually very pretty.

Ay-oh-tee-uh-roh-uh?

Yes, I agree. Whatever the original meaning might have been, it's better than the current name.

 ao ("cloud, dawn, daytime or world"),

tea ("white, clear or bright") and

roa ("long").

It can also be broken up as Aotea = the name of one of the migratory canoes that travelled to New Zealand, and roa = long.

One literal translation is ‘long white cloud’,[2] commonly lengthened to ‘the land of the long white cloud’.[5] Alternative translations are ‘long bright world’ or ‘land of abiding day’ referring to the length and quality of the New Zealand daylight (when compared to the shorter days found further north in Polynesia).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aotearoa

I hope if we ever change the names down here we get something nice.

We're still using the names "New South Wales", "Queensland" and "Victoria".

However, there are WAY too many indigenous dialects to be able to settle on one, and no evidence that there even is a word for the entire country.

Also, we would then be the only continent that does not begin and end with the same vowel.

I'm pretty sure that's a rule.

"Australia" is OK as a name. What else would you call a southern continent?

As for your 'colonialist' state names, they're your history and the status quo. I really don't see the point of changing them. 

Jenifer (Zarknorph) said:

"New Zealand security agencies were "almost exclusively" focused on the perceived threat of Islamist terrorism before a white supremacist gunman killed 51 Muslim worshippers last year, a report into the country's worst massacre found."

They're not the first country to focus on Islamist terrorism and be caught out by home-grown supremacist nutters. I suppose security agencies everywhere focus on the main threat vector.

Jenifer (Zarknorph) said:

New Zealand police say four people have been injured, three critically, in a stabbing attack in a Dunedin supermarket, but the "selfless" actions of shoppers may have prevented more people from being attacked.

Par for the course nowadays I'm afraid. You have to be so careful. 

Glad they got rid of the assault rifles.

No deaths, suspect apprehended.

Another madman?