Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Pig Island n.

(Aus./N.Z.) New Zealand.

1917		Chronicle NZEF 22 Aug. 15: We wish them [i.e. Canterbury troops] a safe return and every happiness and prosperity in our dear old ‘Pig Island’ [DNZE].
1931		Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW) 2 Feb. 4/5: The Victorian is the greatest boxing sensation Pig Island has had in a decade.
1945		J. Henderson Gunner Inglorious (1974) 129: It’s a story to tell for the rest of a man’s life, back home in old Pig Island.
1956		D. Davin Sullen Bell 167: It all helps to put good old Pig Island on the map.
1963		J.K. Baxter in Coll. Poems (1979) 266: [poem title] An Ode to the Reigning Monarch on the Occasion of Her Majesty’s Visit to Pig Island.
1967		F. Sargeson Hangover 83: Did Alan know how it all tied in with the Pig Island story?
1970		Listener 21 Dec. 8: Another guy got black-mailed into taking a Sheila half-way around Pig Island [DNZE].
1983		W.H. Oliver James K. Baxter 43: The colloquial name for New Zealand ‘Pig Island’ gains an added significance [in Baxter’s poems] by association with the Celtic goddess of death with a pig’s face.

In derivatives

Pig Islander (n.)

(Aus./N.Z.) a New Zealander.

1909		Truth (Wellington) 18 Sept. 6: The lady didn’t call Arthur blanky pig-islander, and she didn’t tell him to go to warm place [DNZE].
1917		25 Apr. in E. Miller Camps, Tramps and Trenches (1939) 65: We Pig Islanders are not nearly so hot-blooded in our manner of speaking [as Aussies] [DNZE].
1919		Quick March 10 Oct. 33: But, Tom, do yer think — that a whole million Pig-Islanders is a goin’ to Iet the Chows snavel Noo Zealand? [DNZE].
1930		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 25 Feb. 5/5: So much so that the Pig Islanders regarded Nightmarch as a lucky animal that he was well away from the local convincing grounds.
1938		R. Hyde Nor the Years Condemn 164: A lot of people called the New Zealanders Pig Islanders, and the Australians the Aussies.
1941		F. Sargeson ‘That Summer’ in Coll. Stories (1965) 183: He was a big matelot, though not a Pom, it was easy to tell he was a Pig Islander.
1959		G. Slatter Gun in My Hand 223: My guardian was a Pommie too. Always running down New Zealand. Pig Islanders.
1960		S. Ashton-Warner Incense to Idols 23: I’m not one of these tight little Pig-Islanders you know. I’ve moved about.
1981		J. Henderson Exiles of Asbestos Cottage 60: The old name of Pig Islanders for New Zealanders at times seems singularly apt.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 83/2: Pig Islander New Zealander, by association with pigs Captain Cook introduced.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].