Animal, vegetable or mineral?
Actually it is a plant - Muehlenbeckia astonii - apparently also known as shrubby tororaro, though I haven't ever heard it called that. It is unusual for a New Zealand native plant in being deciduous. It's another tough coastal plant, and is a great little windbreak in my garden.
In winter it looks like a tangle of coppery reddish wires, with the widely spaced branchlets firing off in all directions together making a curious mound that doesn't look much like a living thing.
However, in spring and summer it does have tiny bright green leaves and little white flowers and fruits. It doesn't look much less odd, but it does look alive. There is a fantastical quality to quite a few of our native plants, a happy reminder of the great diversity in the forms and adaptations of living things.