Winter Views from the Wairarapa
We have had some truly stunning views here in the mornings. Ok, so any day where we live has stunning views as long as we dont get thick low clouds, but one of my favorite things to do (other than drink coffee with my friends) is to sit a nice toasty house and stare at the snow covered mountains in the distance.
I thought I would share this – as no matter how hard it can be sometimes to make the move to New Zealand and to settle into a new life – there is no doubt that this is a country that can blow your mind with it’s beauty.
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Only In New Zealand – Celebrating Winter Solstice at Stonehenge.
I was hoping to bring you some stunning photos of sunset from Stonehenge Aotearoa’s Solstice festival, but it turns out we should have booked way in advance. So one again we have completely failed to make the 2 minute journey to see this event.
Stonehenge Aotearoa is one of those things that for me typifies the occasional madcap nature of Kiwis. I mean; would any other nationality dare to even think of building a “replica” of the one and only Stonehenge? And then build it out of chicken wire and concrete render? Nope – it takes a bunch of weird Kiwi Astronomers with way too much time and a scary amount of imagination.
Bizarrely – I now live just a 2 minute drive down the road from there, and yet we didn’t even visit it for 2 years to have a look around. Stonehenge Aotearoa was actually completed just after we moved to New Zealand, and like many people we trekked out to the wilds of Carterton to go and see it. And it was closed. In fact it was almost always closed, and if you wanted to go and have a look – you needed to book in advance and go in via a guided tour.
When we finally did it – it was well worth the wait. You get a Audio Visual presentation, all about stone circles, how they were used by ancient people, and then a presentation about Maori Star Lore. It’s really fascinating. You then get taken to the henge itself, and your guide tells you tales and legends of the Maori ancestors and explains more about how the circle works, and why they built it. I think it worth the trip even if you don’t like Storytelling – but as we do – it was really up our street. Ok, so your guide isn’t dressed up in fancy costumes – but what the heck!
It is not actually meant to be a replica of the great Stonehenge. It was built by members of the Phoenix Astronomical Society, and it is designed to mark the movement of the stars, and to act as an educational center – teaching people about New Zealand’s ancestors. The gaps between the uprights (They aren’t stones) act as windows for the different movements of the stars over the year. One of those gaps shows the setting of the sun this evening. It’s a pity we didn’t see it. It was built here in the Waiarapa because we have particulary clear skies – which are fabulous for stargazing. Unfortunately today was completely clouded over, so we couldn’t see the setting sun, but usually we have amazing clarity – virtually no light polution and a stunning view of the heavens. The Astronomical Society also runs monthly stargazing meetings up at Stonehenge, and opens up the three big Telescopes they have up there.
Stonehenge Aotearoa often hold ancient festivals for local pagan groups, so you can if you book in advance celebrate the solstices and equinoxes with Druid Groups. It looks stunning – and I promise I will get to one some day!
Stonehenge is now open during the week for people to just turn up and wander round. I do however recommend booking one of the tours – it really is fascinating.
Given that we didn’t make it to the Celtic Festival – we made do with our own Midwinter Feast. Christmas Dinners always seem a bit odd here – but today it felt a lot better. With a roaring fire, and being cold enough to drink mulled wine it was a lovely day to have a Turkey and Trimmings. And it made up for us all missing Christmas together last year. We just have Black Forest Trifle to go for pudding!
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Immigration Scam – NZIS and the Immigration Minister do sod-all about it.
With all the problems facing the Immigration Department right now – the last thing they probably wanted was a full blown scam being uncovered – with the discovery that neither INZ or the Immigration minister seem to be that bothered about shutting it down.
The deal is this; a Maori Sovereignty activist- Gerard Otimi – has been supplying fake visas to desperate Samoan overstayers and pocketing $500 each time he does it. He has amassed $45,000 so far which – despite his supposed hatred of all things non-Maori – and the fact that he is giving “Maori Money” to the people he exploits – is sitting in a fully colonial bank account – earning interest from a system he claims to despise.
Typical!
Thousands of Pacific Islanders have been queuing up to be scammed by this man, and all the police are willing to do is look into “whether an offence has been committed”.
Holy Crap! You mean it’s not actually illegal to provide someone with a fake visa? Well why didn’t you tell the rest of us that? We too could have circumvented years of frustration and being treated like dirt by NZIS, and just got a fake stamp too – and become certified as Maori to boot!!!
And what about defrauding people? Is that not illegal?
So why hasn’t this man been arrested yet?
On the news last night – the reports just got worse (certainly from the point of view of the many migrants who work their butts off to earn a legitimate place here instead of trying to get past the system by paying $500 to a shyster). It seems that the immigration minister (Jonathan Coleman) is well aware that there are plenty of overstayers in New Zealand – and says that they are a “Low Priority”. Tell that to the two families of Pregnant women who are being hounded out by immigration. It seems it does still depend on your Nationality as to which rules you will be expected to follow.
Worse – Mr Annakin Depoty Secretary DOL) claims that INZ expect overstayers to leave voluntarily or come and talk to them [INZ]. Now am I being thick here – or is it the case that if they left voluntarily they wouldn’t be overstayers? Come on – get your act together! You cant treat my family like crap for 15 months when we did nothing wrong – on the basis that you are “protecting New Zealand” – and then sit back and calmly say that you expect illegal overstayers to leave of their own accord. Your staff should have spent time finding these people instead of hounding us and wasting UK NHS recourses on Medical Tests that you didn’t need!
Why does NZIS treat those of us who work our butts off to get in – work in highly skilled jobs and pay high taxes – like utter crap, and yet are not getting these illegal overstayers out of the country? And worse – NZIS are not working exceedingly hard to persuade the government to jail the scam artist immediately?
Now there are calls to speed the process up for Pacific Islanders. No – sorry but that’s just wrong. They already have an advantage over the rest of us – they have special quotas and do not need to prove they are highly skilled in order to live here. They have their own special branch to fast track the process anyway .
Once again this highlights the colossal unfairness of the New Zealand immigration Service, and the unwillingness of the service – from the top management down to clean up its act. Until they do – New Zealand risks continuing to lose out on the best migrants, or allowing scams like this to rage unabated.
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Weekend Blog Roundup June 20th
Now I’ve spent some time getting used to this blogging lark, and got to know some of the other really good blogs out there – I’m going to start a weekend roundup of the best posts from the week. I’ll also link to some of the interesting forum topics that are going.
So – here is the first ever Avalon’s Guide Weekend Blog Roundup!
This New Zealand Life ran a somewhat depressing post about the state of New Zealand Driving, and how motorists drove past a woman who had crashed her car and needed help. To be honest – the state of New Zealand driving probably constitutes it’s very own blog!
They also have a weird and wacky (I love it) post about Alien Bombs Splatting on Wellington pavements (honestly – it kinda makes sense when you read it).
Operation Kiwi has an interesting blog looking at the problem (or not) of what do do when you move to a new country and are not going to be continuing your previous career. This was something I came across – I used to be a pharmacist. It often amazes me just how much my life has changed since then.
Chez Lee (they have been in New Zealand a lot longer than us) posted some truly stunning photos of Wellington in the winter. And also a lovely blog about all the things they are grateful for. Turns out that their daughter loves Star Wars more than Barbie! Couldn’t agree more!
The British Expats forum has a useful thread on proving your relationship – started by a young couple. As usual with NZIS – somepeople have no problems with this bit – and other people who have been married for year and have teenage kids get put the ringer!
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And to lighten up the day …
Ok, I’ve had my NZIS rant for the day – so here is some more Kiwi Advertising magic to brighten things up a little. I was hoping to post some more of the BNZ Pigs – but it looks like BNZ doesn’t want the WWW advertising them for free on You Tube – all the links I could find had messages along the lines of “This video has been removed”. Sheesh – it seems BNZ really doesn’t want people to find out about them!
So instead – we have Toyota Hilux. These adverts are somewhat in keeping with the fact that Top Gear utterly failed to destroy a Hilux – they are hysterically funny. Not unlike demolishing a building on top of a Hilux and still getting it to work.
Toyota Ads don’t tend to stay on air very long – due to the fact that too many people complain about them – possible because they are funny, rude and don’t scream at you. On saying that – there is some bad language – so don’t watch if you are likely to be offended!
And this one is for Top Gear Fans:
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No wonder NZIS is in a mess – it’s from the top down!
We have now just completed part 3 of the Official NZIS Complaints Procedure (the one they don’t want you to know about).
Well, given that stage two resulted in the most pointless whitewash, and a vague “oops sorry” and “I’ve taken these issues up with the Branch Manager”, we were as usual less than impressed and escalated it to the Deputy Secretary (Workforce) of the Department of Labour – one Andrew Annakin. (This is the same position held by the Infamous Mary-Anne Thompson). You see these were issues of serious misconduct.
His response? Basically – he’s happy with what they have so far said – and I can jump if I’m expecting any more. Even though the regional manager actually didn’t even start the investigation when he should have done – thinking that giving us the Visas would allow him to get away with doing nothing.
Well guess what – it’s not good enough. Mr Annakin – your staff lied. Not only to us, but to a Member of New Zealand’s parliament. We have proved this to you and yet neither you nor the regional manager has even commented on this, let alone disciplined the Case Officer involved. Your staff were bullying and abusive, and did not follow the procedures laid out in the Operation Manual. They did not follow the complaints process, and indeed denied us access to it. The medical assessor failed in over a year to even attempt to show that my Dad did not have an acceptable standard of health, and over 6 separate medical reports refused to listen to the specialists that repeatedly told him his health was actually very good. He also failed to follow the correct procedures, and yet again – nothing is going to be done about iother than he has been to improve the way he does assesments. Your staff knew he wasnt doing his job 9 months ago but told us it was our fault!
Your staff put my family through hell for 15 months because they did not want to do their job properly or efficiently, and kept hiding behind the fact that they are the Immigration Department, and as applicants we can’t stop them.
This needs to stop – and if the head of Immigration New Zealand will not do more than get the branch manager to have a word with them, them quite frankly it does not bode well for him overseeing the changes that need to be made in light of the Auditor Generals report. Many of the problems we encountered are highlighted in that report – and the Deputy Secretary doesn’t seem too bothered about it.
So – now it’s back to the Ombudsman – who is already looking at why NZIS have so far failed to publish the complaints procedure. I hope they will also take this more seriously that NZIS seems willing to. In constrast to this – during the time we were going through this – we also had to make a complaint against a member of staff in a Parlimentary office. The willingness of Parliamentary Srevices to take the issue seriusly and act on it could noit have been a bigger contrast. We were treated kindly and respectfully, and an employment investgation was started immediately and completed within 2 weeks. NZIS on the other hand have dragged this out for 6 months and still wont take action against the staff involved, other than to speak to thier managers.
In the meantime – we will soon be setting up a second blog on this site – something like a diary – showing day by day what we had to put up with and what was said to us. Names will be changed to save embarrassing the people who really ought to be embarrassed.
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Right to Roam does not exist in New Zealand.
There is an article in todays Dom Post which talks about a farmer locking the gate which allowed access to a beach through his land. It raises the point that many migrants may find unusual: you have no right here in New Zealand to wander across someone else’s land. In this guys case there is a legal access across his land – but that is not the route that people use. Instead they are making a mess of his land and not taking care of it. So he has locked the gate for the foreseeable future.
If you live somewhere like us in the Wairarapa, where a lot of the land is owned by farmers – just be aware that you cannot go traipsing all over it without permission. We are fortunate in that the land round here is owned by the guy who keeps his sheep in our paddock – so he has kindly said we can walk up on the hills behind the house.
This is just one of the many difference between two contries that many people think are so similar.
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How to beat the banks?
Filed under: Banks, Economics, Interest Rates, Credit Cards & Mortgages in NZ
I don’t know if the Dom Post are recycling news today (either they couldn’t get to work because they have swine flu, or stayed home cos its cold), but there is another article in the Dom Post today about the finance minister telling us how to beat the banks.
Only he doesn’t.
He simply says that if the banks don’t drop their interest rates – customers will go elsewhere. Which is unlikely to happen. As explained here from the last time this article was published.
You know – I’ve put a lot of thought into this – and as far as I can see the only way to really beat the banks (in the word of a rather old movie Wargames) is “not to play”.
At the moment in New Zealand, if you have a mortgage, the banks have you over a barrel. You can’t move banks unless you have 20% equity in your house – and a lot of people don’t have that (because the banks lent them 90%+ 2 years ago, and values have dropped). So you are stuck there, and they can charge high interest rates because they know you can’t move.
If you want to really beat the banks –get rid of the mortgage. Fast. And then watch the banks weeping because they can’t screw you for thousands in extra interest. I’ve been stuck in this situation for 18 months now – where I wanted to buy another rental and the banks told me I needed to pay down about $20,000 off my current lending. Which I did within a few months, by which time they had changed the rules, and needed more paying off before they would re-lend. In the 18 months since then, I’ve reduced the personal mortgages by over $70,000. And I’ve decided that rather than borrow more money to buy more rentals – I want the bank to have absolutely no hold on our house whatsoever. I’m going to keep going so that one day (in the not to distant future I hope) I can tell the bank to get stuffed.
I don’t really know what Mr English is expecting – the banks are not taking any notice of calls to drop the rates – and why would they if the finance Minister won’t do more than wring his hands. I still think the first step is to remove the deposit guarantees. When the banks start dropping the rates to a reasonbale level, then they can have them back. But until there some fairness applied here – the taxpayer should not be gaureteeing bank deposits. Its just wrong.
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50 reasons to just be sensible
Filed under: Cost of living, Economics, General Budgeting, Hubby's Views, Jobs & Work, Life in New Zealand
As a follow up to this item, the Dom Post came out yesterday with their ’50 tips to ride out a recession and still have a life’.
Now here, interestingly enough – discussing interest rates with your bank was all the way down at 46 while watching what you spend came in at number 11 – both of which are going to have a bigger impact on cash flow than anything else such as;
Number 8 – Supposedly cheap airfares at grab a seat – just watch for the $310 fare to fly out of Invercargill after you’ve ‘only’ paid $10 to fly there!
Number 10 – About not paying others for what you can do for free. Well bugger that! I can walk for free to work, (it’ll only take me 24 hours if I don’t stop to sleep or eat), or I can pay the train company $11 to drive me there. Cutting back on non-essential spending is the right principle, however not necessarily at the cost of your time or happiness. I’d be bored senseless spending time mowing the lawn, and I’m happy supporting a local businessman by paying him to do it instead.
Which lead to the point that most of the tips have the immediate and direct impact of not spending money on small businesses and other services. Rather than cutting back on spending generally by looking at whether you need the greatest mobile phone plan, or you can buy a less expensive brand of coffee. Just stop spending! – Yeah right – if that worked we’d have all inherited the millions our grandparents could have saved decades ago.
While it’s unlikely Telecom will go out of business if we all start using Skype, or AirNZ because we’re not flying oversea’s anymore and doing house swaps with other Kiwi’s, they do employ your friends and neighbours – less spending means fewer jobs.
Now, I can’t actually believe I’m suggesting we all keep spending to stave off a recession – far from it. Just budget your actual earnings for what you need to spend money on, then what you want to spend some money on, don’t spend more than you earn, and stick to the budget.
This way money keeps going around, you maintain a half way decent lifestyle, and very few people go out of business.
Or you could just quit smoking, saving an average of $5,000 per year – and then blow that saving on a “..brand new TV with all the bells and whistle’s.”
Hmm – yes – that’s really thinking about how to manage the household income sensibly then. Especially when you read suggestion number 41 – where “every cent counts“.
Some balance and sensibility would go a much longer way than spending an hour picking daiseys for 1c each. Or you could have a look at our jobs summit thoughts too for some inspiration.
Ho hum.
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There’s a new Cost of Living Index for New Zealand
This New Zealand Life has come up with what I personally think is (probably) the coolest cost of living index. Basically cos it involves coffee.
Introducing the 178 Cuba, Flat White cost of living index
Its nice to take a break from the last week of Train Wrecks regarding emigrating to New Zealand.
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