The first collection war memorial Museum began to form on the day of its Foundation and replenished until now. At the very beginning of its existence, the Museum was designed to preserve and showcase the features of the local flora and fauna, objects of art and relics of the local population and culture arrived on the land of New Zealand settlers. During the second half of the 19th century there was a sizeable increase of exhibits. Were collected impressive archaeological and ethnographic collections of Maori. Among them fully assembled three shelters Maori 1830-ies, as well as military canoes of the same time.

The Museum has amassed a collection from throughout Polynesia and the Pacific, European and Asian countries. There are items of applied art, marine and terrestrial vertebrates and invertebrates, more than 1,200 photographs, paintings, musical instruments and significant scientific work.

The collection "History of mankind" takes care of almost 200 thousands of exhibits depicting 150 years of history in New Zealand. Meeting "the Science" contains almost 1, 5 million items from the areas of botany, entomology, Zoology inhabitants of New Zealand and the Pacific. "Art collection" is a collection of photographs, drawings, paintings, slides and negatives with the information of global significance.

Anyone can visit the Library of the Museum, spend time in the reading room to view the contents of directories, make use of the information centre.