Just a guess here, but the foliage looks like one of the thujas, if so the cut foliage has a lovely scent to it.

That's a good suggestion but I'm sure its not thuja, or at least Occidentalis or Plicata which I'm familiar with. I associate thuja with having even flatter sprays and, as you say, that distinctive odour which smells like antiseptic to me. These didn't have that smell

Google Chamaecyparis thyoides cones. It might be that.

It would be a Thuja too, if I was guessing. I would say that Thuja tends to look flatter as it is mostly grown as a clipped hedge rather than a tree.

This is a useful site:

http://www.nzplants.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/seed-plants-non-flowering/reproduction/native-cones.html

Maybe it is Libocedrus plumosa?

Rhysw this link shows the mature bark of the libocedrus-plumosa. That might help with the ID. http://www.arkive.org/kawaka/libocedrus-plumosa/image-G104247.html

Thanks for the comments. I am familiar (or thought I was !) with kawaka but the bark on this one was not the rich red and very flakey bark I expect on kawaka so it didnt occur to me as an option. Looking at the links you have sent the cones do look right. I have submitted the photos to a NZ conservation network to have a look and will report back but it does sound like it will be kawaka. I should have got that, thanks for the advice.
Rhys

I went and found a libocedrus-plumosa specimen elsewhere to compare but it does look different. The sprays are not flat and the leaves are more pointed. Perhaps this is a Chamaecyparis ?

BTW is it possible to add more photos to a question than the original three as I would like to add some of the one that I know is a libocedrus-plumosa for comparison ?

Turns out it is a Chinese Arborvitae (thanks @nutcracker). Well done everyone picking it as a thuja, (I believe T. Orientalis has now been declassified as a thuja) and is hard to spot as I didnt see any distinctive closed blue, spikey cones and the sprays are less upright than I have seen before (not that I have seen many).

Thank you for giving us the answer. It is hard to keep up with the name changes. Platycladus is a distinct genus of evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae, containing only one species, Platycladus orientalis, also known as Chinese thuja, Oriental arborvitae, Chinese arborvitae, biota or oriental thuja.