The biostratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic interpretations of five thick New Zealand late Neogene marine sequences are reconciled using a substantially improved regional biostratigraphy primarily based on planktonic foraminiferal and, to a lesser extent, calcareous nannofossil and benthonic foraminiferal bioevents. This reconcilliation also takes into account the latest available lithostratigraphic, radiometric and, especially, stable isotopic information on these and other New Zealand sequences. The main key to this revision was provided by the wealth of data available from the intensively studied late Neogene pelagic sequence recovered at Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Site 284 on the nearby Challenger Plateau. ...A conspicuous oxygen isotope shift of about 0.5 per mil occurred about 2.4m.y. ago in the late Pliocene of upper bathyal DSDP Site 284. It appears to have resulted from a substantial modification in the characteristics of Antarctic Intermediate Water and probably coincides with (1) the intrusion into central New Zealand of macrofossils now restricted to subantarctic water masses, (2) a marked (widespread) marine regression in Hawke's Bay and less certainly, (3) the Porika Glaciation, the second oldest known in the New Zealand region. Additionally six minor late Miocene stable isotope oscillations of probable glacio-eustatic origin are noted together with their apparent periodicity of about 0.18 m.y.