<P> The earliest recorded use of the phrase as applied to New Zealand was as the title of a poem about New Zealand written by Thomas Bracken . It was published in a book of his poems in 1890, and again in 1893 in a book entitled Lays and Lyrics: God's Own Country and Other Poems . God's Own Country as a phrase was often used and popularised by New Zealand's longest serving prime minister, Richard John Seddon . He last quoted it on 10 June 1906 when he sent a telegram to the Victorian premier, Thomas Bent, the day before leaving Sydney to return home to New Zealand . "Just leaving for God's own country," he wrote . He never made it, dying the next day on the ship Oswestry Grange . Bracken's God's Own Country is less well known internationally than God Defend New Zealand which he published in 1876 . The latter poem, set to music by John Joseph Woods, was declared the country's national hymn in 1940, and made the second national anthem of New Zealand along with God Save the Queen in 1977 . </P> <P> In Australia, the phrase "God's own country" was often used to describe the country in the early 1900s, but it appears to have gradually fallen out of favour . The phrase "God's Country" is often used to describe Queensland and the Sutherland Shire in southern Sydney </P> <P> Kerala is a state in south - west India; the phrase was adopted as a slogan by the tourism department of the state's government in the 1980s . </P> <P> The phrase "God's own country" was heard during the 1970s in Rhodesia (formerly: Southern Rhodesia, now: Zimbabwe), where most people perceived the land as beautiful despite the ongoing Bush War of the time . Evidence of the phrase being used earlier in reference to Rhodesia is found in Chartered Millions: Rhodesia and the Challenge to the British Commonwealth by John Hobbis Harris, published 1920 by Swarthmore Press (refer to page 27). The phrase "Godzone" is distinctly different and was not used in Rhodesia . </P>

Who told kerala is god's own country