Upgrades to Avalon’s Blog done :)
Filed under: The Book and Website, The Family Sponsorship Saga
Hubby has reminded me just how much he loathes coding – and was only calmed down my copious amounts of Tea, Chocolate and Top Gear yesterday while he battled to do the things I wanted him to do to the blog.
Mostly it was a case of de-cluttering and tidying things up. It’s amazing how this thing has evolved, and as it does so, widgets get added, things move, I join more blog directories, and before you know it – theres no room for me to write anything anymore!
The main changes are:
- The Family Sponsorship Saga posts have all moved up to the top menu, so they aren’t taking up room on the side.
- I’ve created one picture of the Book with both Book and E-Book prices on to create more room and we have a smaller Buy Now button.
- Ive moved the Really Useful Immigration Links into the Links page, rather than having them sitting with the BlogRolls.
- Ive tidied up and shorted the list of Categories, to make it easier to find posts.
But the main alteration is that the Amazon Store is now up and running, and can be found on the top Menu. This is something I always wanted to do, because I spend so much of my own time devouring books, and this is a great way to have a list of all the books that helped me on my journey – both to emigrate and to become a budgeting freak. Ill be adding books from time to time, but theres a pretty good starting list there: both books about New Zealand and books about personal finance. And yes, I will get paid if you click through from the Amazon Store page and you buy anything during that session. It takes you through to Amazon, and you will be buying through Amazon, not through me.
I get about 5% on any purchases you make, so please feel free to make use of the store and help me cover the cost of running this website.
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Don’t become an NZ Citizen in Waitakere City!
Becoming a Citizen of New Zealand is something many of strive for – especially if – like the British – you can get Dual Citizenship and don’t have to give up your birthright to do it. To qualify, you now have to have residency for 5 years, so you really have to prove you are here to stay, and make a huge commitment to New Zealand. It’s a wonderful opportunity, and something I personally felt honoured to be able to achieve. Our Citizenship ceremony – though small (being in a small rural town) was lovely and friendly.
Apparently its not if you happen to have your citizenship conferred by one Waitakere City councillor Ross Dallow, who takes this opportunity to lecture you – not on the responsibilities of your new place as an NZ citizen, but on the horrors that Immigrants bring to NZ: Kidnappings amongst the Asian population, the “browning” of NZ (cos like there isn’t a home grown Brown population anyway!) and in increase in Illegal Drug Manufacture (which services a huge swathe of the Kiwi Population – I guess we are supposed to ignore that.)
Apparently he was trying (as an Ex-Policeman) to show these poor immigrants that they could trust the police here:
“I’ve said there have been instances of kidnappings in the Asian community and that is now behind us, but I do point out that in recent times there have been a number of Asian people involved in the manufacture and distribution of drugs. That’s all factual.
“I encouraged them [that] if they know anything about crime, to trust our New Zealand policemen – in some overseas countries [the police] are corrupt – and I would trust them to do the appropriate thing.
“Go to the police, don’t be frightened, as they are very safe police here.
Right – cos Kiwis are never involved in crime? Blimey – illegal drug manufacture here is so rife its almost like a weekend hobby – and it sure as hell ain’t Asians who making the bulk of it! And if this is the attitude being shown of the NZ Police Force – it really hasn’t done them any favours. Besides – the NZ Police Force not corrupt? Um – theres a lot of stuff in the news here that would tend to contradict that view rather a lot.
Now don’t get me wrong – Mr Dallow is entitled to his opinion. I may think it’s stupid – but I think he has the right to hold it and to spout forth as often as he likes as a councilor and as a private person – but he is bloody well NOT entitled to spoil this day for the new citizens of New Zealand – and he should bloody well NOT speak like that when representing the Queen and this country in such a ceremony. I hope that he is banned from EVER holding a citizenship ceremony again.
Why on earth is this twit allowed to ruin such a day in the first place??? Apparently his lectures at these ceremonies are well known, and complained about by other council staff. Which does beg the question -why hasn’t he been removed from carrying out this function. Carterton’s Mayor did ours – so why cant the Mayor of Waitakere City – Bob Harvey – take over and provide a ceremony that is civil, polite and a beautiful welcome to all new Citizens, no matter where they came from or the colour of their skin.
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Why you really ought to take out shipping insurance :)
From the amazing Very De-motivational website.
see more Very Demotivational
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Immigration agents still claiming that INZ gives them an advantage.
A press release from Access Immigration popped up on Google News today, and in it was this wonderful little gem:
Mr Milnes adds that Access Immigration’s experience and high standards are increasingly respected by Immigration New Zealand, which accordingly provides the company and its clients with an outstanding quality of service.
Now, call me stuffy – but you aren’t actually supposed to say that, and you sure as hell shouldn’t be speaking for INZ. It is totally unethical in my view to “claim” that INZ respects your company – its up to INZ to say that if they in fact do respect your company. Because if you are getting an advantage from INZ, then that means INZ are not treating all cases fairly on their merits – and that’s corrupt – and not at all what INZ wants us – the immigrants - to believe. INZ have said time and again that they do not treat applications from agents any differently to applications from individuals. It isn’t INZ’s place to “respect” an agency either above another agency, or an individual applicant. Their job is to judge the merits of an application.
This kind of dodgy advertising should be stamped on immediately by the IAA unless there is a written statement from Immigration itself to back it up.
I mentioned a while back that the IAA was being used by its members to try and get INZ to give them an advantage – a complete abuse of the purpose of the IAA.
Some Good news from the IAA!
According to the latest newsletter, it seems the IAA are going to publish details of court cases where agents who have been refused licenses have contested that decision in court. Its a small positive – but it is indeed something they have done that I can actually agree with!
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What’s happening with NZ interest rates?
Filed under: Banks, Cost of living, Economics, General Budgeting, Interest Rates, Credit Cards & Mortgages in NZ
Well, the short version is: they are going up!
The longer version is that it looks like we are the only sodding country whose central bank seems to want to increase base interest rates!
If you pop onto the HiFX website, they keep a running sidebar of Base interest rate announcements around the world. Not only do we still seem to have nearly the highest rates (other than Australia lol) but ours is going up when the others are holding.
Incidentally, thats also the page that tells you how bad the exchange rate is right now. Sorry.
There is some sort of good news in the papers today, it seems that Bollard – the governor of the Reserve Bank, may actually be stopping with these silly rises, because – guess what – the economy isn’t actually picking up as well as it needs to (well Helloooo! My Mortgage is getting more expensive – where the hell do you think Ive got any money to go out and buy stuff with!). And apparently – the employment figures here were supposed to improve , and they actually worsened. Now, Mr Bollard hasn’t actually said himself that he wont be raising interest rates – the “economists” have said that they think the chance is now 25% instead of 75% that he will raise them. But that’s the way it works – economists blather on for weeks before an announcement is due, telling us what the Governor is going to say, which always makes me wonder why the governor bothers with the announcements in the first place.
Theres a wonderfully obtuse piece of prose in the article which I just had to share:
“If the economy pushes along at near-potential rates of growth, the cash rate must head back towards neutral. Neutral is not 3 per cent,” said BNZ head of research Stephen Topliss.
I have absolutely no idea what the hell that means lol. What on earth is a “near-potential rate of growth”?
So what’s the bottom line?
Well, mortgages are more expensive. Floating rates are around the 6.15% – 6.75% range, up from about 5.5%. 2 years rates are around 6.75% and 5 year rates are around 7.75% for standard mortgages. The 5 year rates seem to be fairly steady at the moment, but the floating and 2 year rates have increased with the 2 rate rises.
Even if Mr Bollard doesn’t increase the OCR on the 16th September – I would be looking at factoring in some more rises if you are looking at needing to buy a home in New Zealand in the near future. He still seems intent of costing us a small fortune in interest and refusing to let us get ahead financially.
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Changes to AvalonsGuide on the way.
As its still absolutely chucking it down in Wellington, meaning we aren’t going for a nice long walk around the bay, or heading to one of the beaches for a nice coffee, we have decided to get our butts in gear and make some changes to the website.
Ive been trying to get this done for a while now, and even have a proper Amazon.co.uk aStore ready to go – but it does require the tech wizarding skills of Hubby to get a load of this done. Apparently the aStore requires changes to the CSS file – and I don’t even know what a CSS file is – let alone how to change it! Blogging is great as long as all you need to do is sput forth with your opinions – but as soon as you need to do something – Argghhh!
So anyway – feel free to comment and let me know if theres things that you particularly don’t like about any of the changes we make – cos I’m happy to bear them in mind as the website evolves.
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The Gluten free and allergy show in Wellington.
We aren’t in the Wairarapa this weekend! So – trying to make the most of a weekend in the city – we went to the above show. (It’s raining). Now, as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t need to eat a gluten free diet – I eat Lo-Carb, which is a lot harder to do in New Zealand than it really should be. Gluten Free is really quite easy here, with a huge range of products available in the supermarkets, and a showcase of products you can wander round!
The good stuff.
I’m afraid I couldn’t do many taste-tests, because basically Gluten Free still contains a lot of carbs, and more importantly sugar, however – doesn’t stop me looking!
LoveCake: Boy did I want to try the cake samples. They looked so scrummy, rich an moist. The website unfortunately doesn’t actually show the ingredients list, so do make sure you check before buying.
L’affaire au Chocolate. makes and sells dairy,wheat and gluten free chocolates – and brilliant for me, even sells a 100% chocolate bar from France (Pralus brand). At $15 for 100g it works out about the same price as a bar of SchocBlack, so I look forward to trying it out.
SweetSmart: Oh Yes! Sugar Free! And some of their range is sugar free and gluten free. They sell sweets, chocolate spreads (sweetened with Fructose so no good for low carbers), and biscuits. Best thing is they sell DeBron brand sweets which is something that you can buy in the UK but not here – and they promise me that they will be ordering some Sugar Free Marshmallows, which I haven’t seen since ordering the DeBron ones when I was back in the UK. While I rarely eat sweets to be honest, to have the option is nice, and I think this new company may be the nearest we get to the UK’s LowCarb Megastore.
A lot of their products are sweetened with a product called Tagatose, which a quick search on LowCarbFriends suggests is highly laxative – so be warned.
The Protein Bakery: Oh boy – these guys are the Gods of LowCarb Cookies, and they are a Wellington company, born and bred. Unlike a lot of LowCarb (or Gluten free) biscuits or cookies – these are soft. And they really do taste as close to the real thing as i think you are gonna get without flour and sugar. They have been available for years now, and new flavours are being developed all the time. In fact at the show, they have 4 new flavors to try and vote on, including an Almond Cookie, which as far as I’m concerned was heavenly. The cookies with chocolate chips in do have a small amount of sugar, so you need to aware of that, but the flavors without are 100% sugar free, and all are gluten free.
gftreats: Ok, so here I broke the rules a little and did a taste test of something that was Gluten Free but not lowcarb. This company sells Battered Fish, Chicken Strips, Mini Hot Dogs and Donuts, all GF. I made a sacrifice and tried everything but the mini hot dogs (cos I refuse to eat horrid battered sausage with a stick up its back end and call it a hot dog!) I have to say they were really tasty, and the company thoughtfully had a sheet available to check the ingredients, and it seemed to be to fit the bill for GF food nicely.
Now the not-so-good.
To be honest – I skipped most of the main Gluten Free stands, because basically if its bakery stuff, I know it’s no good for me, and those were the stands that were obviously most crowded. And I really dont have a huge amount of patience at shows like this where you have to fight to get to the stand itself.
So in reality, there were only 3 stands that I had a problem with:
AriaFarm sell a brand called “Make A Meal Of It” which is basically “formed” meat, frozen into strips that you can just pour out of a bag and cook. I just kinda have a problem with a show that is basically about healthy eating showcaseing a product that takes perfectly good (gluten, sugar,dairy,wheat,soy,legume,you-name-it free) natural food, processing it and selling it as something healthy cos they managed to do it without adding gluten to it! Now the Meat strips are indeed 96% meat – but – um – call me crazy – why buy “Formed” 96% meat when most supermarkets sell 100% fresh meat in ready cut strips that you can bung in the freezer.
There was also a company there selling, amongst other things, Pork Scratchings and pork Rinds. Now I forgot to make a note of the name, but a process of eliminations means it looks like it was SweetsDirect. The website is unavailable I’m afraid. So what was wrong? Well basically Pork Rinds are about as LowCarb and gluten free as you can get. They are pretty much just fat and protein naturally. And the company had signs up saying they were Gluten Free and LowCarb. Except when I read the Ingredients list, they contains Wheat Flour and Sugar, so were neither Gluten free nor LowCarb. And yet on sale at a Gluten Free show. If nothing else this says that you really must read the labels and not take the companies word!
Kitchen Queens were selling non-stick cooking products, like Magic Baking Sheets – but at stupidly high prices. They were selling a 150cm roll for $50, and 100cm for $35. Lakeland sell 100cm for £9, so if you are in the UK – grab one, or if you are in NZ shop around. Even Kirkaldie & Staines sell it cheaper. It’s brilliant stuff, and I use it all the time, but I’m not going to pay that much when I can get it cheaper.
All in all it was a very good show, and even we managed to buy some goodies, so well worth the $10 fee to get in. It’s open again tomorrow, at the TSB Arena. Only problem – no coffee stand!
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There’s another new immigration Visa on the way
It turns out that Jonathan Coleman, the immigration minister has come up with a new “Interim Visa” to cover the time between someones work visa runs out and INZ supplying a new one. Except its not available till next March.
”The new interim visa is a bonus for businesses. In most circumstances it provides continuity in the workplace as employers have the security of knowing their staff member can continue working legally while Immigration New Zealand processes their application,” Dr Coleman says. ”For some time temporary migrants have been falling through the gaps because in the period between applying for a new permit and receiving that permit, their legal immigration status has lapsed. Knowing they can maintain lawful status while applying for a new visa will provide peace of mind for migrants.”
Umm – but don’t some people get a short term work visa anyway to cover this? And I don’t want to seem picky(honestly – I really don’t), but why should we need a new Visa to be created? Why can’t it be as simple as INZ staff having the ability to extend the work visa already granted to cover this period? But anyway – while I feel another level of bureaucracy is never the best way to solve a problem – at least the problem is being dealt with. Again – something that can only make life easier for people who have emigrated to New Zealand.
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Investigation into Staff at INZ continue :)
It seems that more and more Immigration New Zealand staff are being investigated for misconduct.
I blogged a while back about 7 staff being sacked, but it seems that by the 16th August this year, 32 allegations against immigration staff were being investigated, and that number now stands at 34. 18 of them are about staff in New Zealand itself, and 16 are about staff abroad (though no indications about where abroad – but it’s worth remembering that of the 7 sacked earlier this year, 6 of them were in New Zealand and 1 in Delhi. It also turns out that 5 of the seven sacked were long term employees of INZ, so this cant be blamed on new people not knowing the roles of conduct.
Labour’s immigration spokesman, Pete Hodgson, said it was “concerning” that the department had such a high number of staff facing investigations.
To be slightly fair here – there was never a published complaints procedure until recently, so perhaps people didn’t know they could complain while the immigration minister was a Labour MP. Or perhaps the sheer volume of work visas being declined arbitrarily becuase of the recession has something to do with it? The article doesn’t say, and without more information on what the complaints are about – theres no way of knowing.
“The question is how long have they been crooked, and how many of the visas have already been inappropriately granted or declined?” Mr Hodgson asked.
Well, as long as they could get away with it I would have thought. Which is exactly what I have said time and again during our attempt to make a complaint. If my parent’s case officer got away once with lying to our MP, without so much as a sniffle from the Department of Labour – hes sure as hell going to do it again!
In the past 12 months, immigration officials faced 60 allegations of fraud, corruption and dishonesty, of which 10 were substantiated, 27 unsubstantiated and 23 were being investigated, Mr Bickle said.
The substantiated allegations related to systems misuse, misconduct and corruption and have resulted in the seven dismissals, four written warnings, one final written warning, one resignation and one suspension.
I would be interested to know how many allegation were made in the 12 months before that.
Mr Bickle said the department investigated all allegations that were made.
Actually – you don’t. Some of them you choose to ignore. And to be honest you can hardly expect your staff to be squeakily clean in the honesty stakes if you are going to fudge an issue like that. Of course you could actually investigate the 5 allegations we made that you ignored. I’d be OK with that as a method of fixing that little oversight!
A colleague of a staff member under investigation for system misuse said the agency was “acting on every tiny complaint” in recent months, and this was affecting morale. “People make allegations when decisions don’t go their way, and it’s really a waste of time and resources when every one is being investigated,” said the officer.
“There seems to be more of a ‘big brother’ culture now at Immigration and some of us just feel like we’re being watched a lot more.”
My heart bleeds. Really it does!
Jeeze – get a grip. Of course every little complaint should be investigated. You are charged with protecting the very borders of this great country – an excuse used time and again by INZ officials when they are being belligerent, unhelpful and downright obnoxious to applicants. You ask the same questions over and over again, and refuse to believe the evidence – so quite frankly – welcome to our world. You are more than happy to waste our time and resources! I hope you like what it feels like – and I hope you remember this when an applicant is begging you for some common sense and help becuase they are tearing their hair out trying to deal with obstinate and rude case officers.
He did not want to be identified because he said speaking to the media without authority could result in criminal charges, formal warning or immediate dismissal.
Absolute rubbish! Ok – you can get the sack for speaking out – same as most government employees – but criminal charges??? Gimme a break! Not unless you are divulging state secrets. To be frank – I’m risking more criminal charges writing a blog about immigration issues – so shut the hell up and get a bloody grip!
I’m sure this won’t go on forever – but I’m also equally sure that there really needed to be a substantial clear out of the Immigration Department. There were just too many people there doing a crap job and not behaving honestly or with integrity. Those people need to be got rid of, and if this hasn’t happened before, it just a case of clearing out the deadwood.
And that can only be good news for future immigrants. 
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No matter where you go – there you are.
It’s a small world. Never more do yo get that than when you shift yourself half round the world and keep bumping into people from next door.
2 years ago, I became friends with someone it turns out had lived right near Hereford (where I grew up) till they were 8 years old, when their family shifted from the UK to NZ. Which means for about 3 years of my life, we actually lived about 6 miles away from each other. Its one of lifes mysteries to me that we know know each other becuase we live in New Zealand.
Then while hiding away from the world during my “Evony Addiction”, one of my Alliance who lived up in Auckland had done his OE at the PGL Outdoor center Just outside Ross-on-Wye and about 5 minutes drive from where I was living just before we moved here.
Then just last week, the Physio at the gym asked me where I cam from. (It’s the accent – gives me away ever time!)
Now this is not an infrequent query, but fraught with the high possibility that I then have to explain where in the blazes Hereford actually is. I tend to go for “Near Wales”, because even here, with such large links back to the OK, most people are hazy on where anything is other than London.
So I said Herefordshire – and lo and behold he knew where I meant. Turns out he comes from Moreton-on-Lugg, a place I know pretty well, becuase thats where my first Boyfriend lived. Embarrassingly he looks to be about the same age as us, so he may even have known said boyfriend – but I didn’t dare ask!
I’ve yet to bump into anyone from the village I grew up in (Preston-on-Wye) – I’m pretty sure thats a really good thing though.
And it’s not just us ourselves – 2 lots of friends we made, quite independent of each other, turn out to have lived in the same village as each other back in the UK but at different times.
It’s a funny world.
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