This paper examines data from three communities in New Zealand’s largest and most ethnically diverse city, Auckland, to determine whether previous results from communities where there has been considerable migration generalise to other urban areas where there is no ethnic majority.

We examine the realisation of the prevocalically (N= 747): Standard English prescribes [ði], but [ðə] is generalised for many speakers and this generalization typifies many contact varieties of English. Our research confirms that this variant is a diagnostic of highly mixed communities; it occurs principally in the speech of L1 speakers of English exposed to large numbers of L2 English speakers in the two preceding generations. However, we do not find young men leading the change as they do in London. Our results suggests that in the early stages of change, linguistic constraints are significant, but as an innovation diffuses through the community more general linguistic principles are important.