Where to live in the world?
It’s index time, apparently, with the OECD Better Life Index & Vision of Humanity Global Peace Index coming out with their best places to live in the world annual surveys.
The OECD survey is quite interesting as it allows you to give weight to particular things you care about, be that quality of life, jobs, income etc. They do produce a summary report with analysis which makes fascinating reading.
Everything being equal, NZ only scores bottom in the ‘employee’s working very long hours’ category – which appears to mostly be driven by the relatively low average income. Although at least the Aussie’s & the UK score badly for that factor too. Turkey skews the average results a bit by having a very high level of weekly hours worked. So 10 out of 38 are ‘above average’.
At $18k USD NZ average income is below the OECD average. Interestingly this compares with being the seventh best in terms of levels of employment, and fourth ‘best’ for long term unemployment (i.e. fourth lowest).
(Another) interesting outcome is that NZ comes second, behind Sweden, for environmental factors. As it turns out this is actually a measure of pollution in the air in cities of over 100,000 people (NZ=7, Sweden=5). Which as a generalisation for the majority of the population is probably a fair assessment.
We’ve mentioned the GPI before, and this year it puts NZ second place – behind Iceland. So assuming you ignore the bankrupt banks, stagnant economy, exploding volcano’s – sure Iceland is a great place to be. We’ll ignore our own earthquakes, buggered-ish economy and the Rugby World Cup for the moment.
Funnily enough the NZ drop in score is for curious reasons;
More Police officers – delivering on a Govt pledge to put ‘more police on the street’;
More people in prison – possibly linked to the greater number of Police;
And an increase in involvement in International conflict! I hadn’t noticed NZ invading any other countries recently and I don’t think lots of Kiwi’s going to Aus really counts as an invasion let alone a conflict. Unless they were thinking of the international jousting tourney in Taupo?
ho hum.
Taking a much needed day off…
After 4 or 5 weeks (I’ve mercifully lost count) of working really long hours and not really being the laid back “I-don’t-have-a-job” part time blogger – we took a day off yesterday and spent the whole day at the beach.
Where our biggest worry was whether the storm that the Met Service was promising was going to materialise. When we arrived there was absolutely no sign of impending storminess:
It did start to get grey and cloudy just after 1pm, but we ended up having an afternoon nap and by the time we woke up it was once again clear blue skies and warm sunshine.
After another coffee, we decided to use the paper cups to build sandcastles with – so we hereby introduce you to the lesser-known Sand-Henge:
It was an absolutely lovely day. No phones, no laptops, no decorating, no “must sit down and get info together for the lawyers”. Just a day on the beach with us the only people on it.
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Filed under: Hubby's Views, Life in New Zealand, Things to do
After six years of living and working in Wellington, within spitting distance of a decent astronomical observatory, we finally made our way out to the Carter Observatory in Wellington last week. Now, of course we live down the road from Stonehenge & The Phoenix Astronomical society who operate some telescopes there. So we’ve had a few evenings looking through a decent telescope there.
A planetarium show is something else though. Warmth & comfy seats being two particular advantages that come to mind.
While we were waiting for the show we took the tour around the exhibition. As well as having a rather old and very wooden smelling library, which was rather nice, they had a helpful set of directions. From which you could get your bearings;
Not at Wordcamp or the Joust this weekend.
The plan for this weekend was somewhat different to how it turned out. We booked tickets a few weeks ago for WordcampNZ – which is basically an event for people who run blogs or websites on WordPress. Like this one. I figured I might be able to learn a few things to improve the blog: make it more useable, easier to navigate that sort of thing. About the only thing that went easily was paying the money. That went out of the account real quick. But we couldnt get a proper receipt (it’s a business expense so with respect to the organisers an email telling me I have paid $145 is not acceptable.)
Then there was the issue over not actually getting any tickets sent – but hubby did get a “redeem” code. He was supposed to log in to the website and enter the code – but he couldnt because that didnt work. We couldnt contact the organisers as there was no “contact us” page on thier website, and while comments on thier twitter page were passed on – we still got no response. In the end we replied to a mail we got telling us all the wonderful things that were arranged at the event, and asked for our money back. At which point I got the email equivalent of a “strop” from one of the organisers telling me what a tough life he has. But I got my money back, and thus we are not at wordcamp this weekend.
As it happens there was also an International Jousting Festival at Harcourt Park, Upper Hutt this weekend. So we stayed in the city Friday night, had dinner with friends, and decided to head over to the Waiararapa on Saturday and call in to the joust on the way. When we got there (and it’s a good job we knew where it was becuase there was no signage), we had a hellish job parking. There’s a Holiday Camp near the park – but they weren’t letting anyone else park there, the only enterance into the park we could find had the gate closed, a small carpark we could find was full, and the road was full of parked cars for anout half a mile in each direction. There were plenty of stewards about in bright orange vests, but everyone we saw were lounging about on picnic tables and not elping people find places to park.
We finally parked up and got into the park itself. We had to climb over the closed gate (it was a very low one – so not an issue unless you havd a pram or something), and then tried to figure out how to get in to the event. We came across 4 young people stamping peoples hands, so figured that was the enterance.
When we asked how much it was to get in we were told. $20.
$20!
For 2 of us.
Well, bugger that. I very rarely carry cash, but as it happened I did have $10 in my bag, but they wouldnt take that. So just a little disgruntled at the effort wasted – we trekked back to the car and left for the Wairarapa.
And thus we are also not at the Mediavel Joust this weekend.
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No Money? Why not buy a few top range BMWs?
It’s the end of the second year of a recession, and last week the Finance Minister Bill English said that we could actually face a “double-dip” recession. (That means its going to get worse before it gets better). And yet, because the VIP fleet that Government uses is 3 years old – we have to buy a whole new fleet. That’s 34 BMWs at $200k each. That’s $6.8million spent on replacing a bunch of 3 year old cars.
When apparently there is no money to be spent on front line services. You will be left to die if you have the bad luck to have certain types of cancer because we wont pay decent wages for oncologists – but who cares – government ministers will have a flash car to be driven around in while you die.
The Green Party has called the ordering of the cars a disgrace.
Which is way too mild – they should call it revolting and abusive.
The cars are for transporting ministers, their guests, the leader of the Opposition and occasionally judges.
We have 121 MPs. Why do we need 34 cars in the first place? And why do they need to be replaced after 3 years? I bought a 10 year old car and I’ve kept it so far for 5 years. We have had to buy a second car, but we cannot afford to replace the first one for a new model. I mean we could if – like the government – we were prepared to live with a debt that grows each week. But we are bullied, insulted and forced to cut back and save. But the people in charge get to spend spend spend.
It really is sick isn’t it.
[The green party leader] understood the cars were ordered to arrive in time for the Rugby World Cup. “People can’t even afford to go to the games.”
I am personally sick to death of money we don’t have being spent so that NZ looks like it has money when the RWC fans descend on the place. NZ is not a rich country, and beggering oursleves to try and trick tourists into thinking we are flash is just not on. They will be going home – we have to live with the pile of debt and we will be forced to save money we don’t have to get the government out of the crap.
Not impressive.
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Why do so many Kiwis leave for Australia?
Filed under: Cost of living, Economics, Getting to New Zealand, Life in New Zealand
The herald ran a piece asking kiwis for thier thoughts on whether they are considering moving to Australia. I thought it was interesting because for a lot of immigrants there’s a bit of a toss up between going to Aus or NZ – things like this give a different perspective on the whole issue. A frequent complaint about us immigrants from Kiwis is that we only come here so that we can get residence for 2 years and then go to Aus. Of course it ignores the fact that people also get residence in Asutralia as a way of getting into NZ because it’s easer for people to get jobs in Australia.
It also completley ignores the fact that the vast majority of people so sick of New Zealand that they move to Australia – are KIWIS.
Not Immigrants.
Here’s a selection of some of the more colourful comments (inclusion in no way should be taken as a sign that I agree with these comments)- but I really recommend working through them all.
“NZ – where we are forced to pay global prices for our products – but cannot earn global incomes. As a social experiment, NZ is a failure, if not a disaster.
New Zealand employers need to realise that they are in a global contest for talent. To attract and retain the best workers they need to benchmark pay and conditions with the rest of the world, especially Australia.
Of course, we may never be able to match what is offered overseas but more of our companies must strive to become globally competitive to “raise the bar” on our wages and salaries. New Zealanders are some of the most mobile people in the world and have proven they have no qualms about leaving New Zealand for greater opportunities
I am going to Australia because of the complete lack of job security and career options in New Zealand. Five years out of ten NZ has a recession and there is no sign that change is on the horizon.
Number one is because of the money but a close second is all the PC rubbish that goes on in this country. A particular annoyance is the prefrential treatment of Maori and the amount of tax dollars spend on Treaty settlements that would be better used elsewhere.
Our polititions have been way too sucessful in making their policy buying billionaire mates very rich. Unfortunately they forgot to leave some leftovers for the local peasants.
Yes me and my family are moving in october, we have A young family with two kids under the age of three and the only way we can give them the best in life with more opportunities is if we move over.
I have to say I love new zealand but with our pay rates staying the same and only climbing A little each year but the price of everything going up including mortgages, rates, rent and normal cost of living were only going around in A little rat race and only have the option to move.
We live in australia (qld), but cant wait to return to nz, the weather is awful, too humid and hot, in the winter its always very windy so we dont even get to use our boat, the fishing is crap also.
The aussies dont look after their elderly and nz’ers get no help unless you become a citizen (not even nz flood victims), we wish we had never wasted so much money and come over.Its not all its cracked up to be, cost of living very much the same as nz, fuel rising, food prices high, nz is still the best place to be.
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Free Wi-Fi in Wellington (but not Petone).
As hubby announced yesterday – free Wi-Fi was being talked about in Wellington City. Not to make life nice for us city dwellers you understand – this is one of many many projects costing a small fortune with the express intent of making us look better than we are for the Rugby World Cup. While I can’s stand rugby myself – I am grateful to the world cup, because the roads are getting smartened up, eftpos terminals are getting upgraded to join the 20th century of banking, and we get free wi-fi – but only at the waterfront.
We haven’t tried this yet – but comments suggest that not only does it work – it is fast and easy to access. Oddly enough though – it doesnt seem to cover Te Papa or Waitangi park next to it. I wonder if that is to reduce the number of apartments that could access the network for free. Our apartment is just outside the free area as well, so we are still going to have to pay for internet. Dammit.
But on the whole – you can now grab a coffee, stare at the harbour and update facebook.
But, this is better than Petone have. Highlighted in a friends property blog. Jackson Street, the main shopping drag in the town (well worth a saunter) has flags all the way down advertising free Wi-Fi. My friend couldn’t get access to the network, and ended up calling the council trying to find someone who knew something about it.
So I called the local council who also didn’t know anything an mentioned it might be a private enterprise and was certainly nothing to do with the council.
Eventually I had them understand that I probably was a council project due to the flags saying “This is a Hutt City Council Initiative”.
The nice lady at the council promised to get back to me with some answers.
The next day I had the funniest call……..
Council Lady: I’ve gotten down to the bottom of this wireless hotspot issue.
Me: Great what’s the story?
Council Lady: Well they got the flags done, but the budget didn’t go far enough to get the actual wireless hotspot installed.
Me:……….
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100% Pure New Zealand finally dies!
‘Bout bloody time too! One of the most misleading advertising slogans ever created (probably alongside “Briscoes: You’ll never buy better”) is coming to an end.
It is in fact being replaced by a swanky new advertising campaign from Tourism New Zealand:
100% Pure You!
I bet they paid a lot for that change. 
Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler said research suggested New Zealand could increase its appeal as a holiday destination by personalising its marketing message and focusing on more than scenery.
“We have identified people around the world already considering travelling here and the addition of You to the successful 100% Pure New Zealand advertising message is a logical step that will benefit the tourism industry by highlighting the individual experiences on offer,” Bowler said
Sounds like a load of old waffle to me, but I have to be honest – I much prefer the new tagline. It’s a bit cheesy,but hey – what advertising isn’t. At least it’s not as blatantly dishonest.
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Whangamomona: A republic in New Zealand.
Filed under: Life in New Zealand, Only in New Zealand, Things to do
Following a fascinating (if somewhat drunken) gathering of friends last night – it seems that New Zealand has its own little nest of republicanism hidden away up in Taranaki.
In 1989, Whangamomona (try saying that after several glasses of wine – it’s hilarious), declared itself a republic in response to boundary lines being redrawn and being told they were no to be part of Manawatu/ Wanganui, rather than Taranaki.
How cool is that?
Their first president was elected when his name was put forward without his knowledge, but he then went on to hold the office for 10 years. They even have their own “passports”. (I don’t think you need to pass a medical to get in, and I daresay it’s a damnsite less fraught than dealing with INZ. And I can probably give you advice on how to get there without being thrown in jail!)
The local hotel is up for sale at the moment, which seems to be the main congregation point for the biannual Republic Day.
This almost qualifies for an “only in New Zealand” tag, so it’s getting an honourary one. But here I think Hay On Wye deserves a mention for being proclaimed an independent kingdom in 1977. It’s nice to see that mad and batty ideas can spring up anywhere. Next time I’m heading up to Taranaki, I think a stop off for some lunch at the hotel is in order.
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Kiwi’s are sick of rip-off food prices too.
I came across a small article yesterday, in which it seems Sanitarium are complaining that people wont buy their stuff unless they discount it at the supermarkets with a “special”. For those of you not here yet – Sanitarium is the local equivalent of Kelloggs – they make cereals – except they look really naff next to Kelloggs. Sanitarium is also known to be a “charitable trust” which gives it’s money to the 7th Day Adventist church, and doesn’t pay tax on it’s profits.
Not only that by they apparently threatened Best Of British: a UK Food Supplier over here with legal action if they continued to sell UK Weetabix (instead of their own awful Weet-Bix). So I pretty much hold this company in contempt anyway.
It seems that rather a lot of Kiwis do as well. I have no sympathy.
Weet-Bix’s manufacturer, Sanitarium, has seen its promotional costs – in-store discounting, rather than advertising and sponsorship – almost double in the past 10 years.
Ah diddums. The article really doesn’t say much to be honest – as is often the case the meat is in the comments.
Researcher Tim Morris says “We’ve created a Frankenstein monster – a population of people who buy everything on special, and if it’s not on special they’re not buying it.”
Most of the comments have an overriding view that the reason for this is that food is always overpriced here, and the “discounts” bring the food down to the price it should be in the first place. Maybe if these companies stopped overcharging us, they wouldn’t have to keep discounting to get us to buy their stuff.
There are many people commenting who are so sick of this gouging and being ripped off that they have done the only thing they can to be able to afford food – grow it themselves.
Now, I’m not a fan of that – cos I hate gardening – but theres no doubt that food in New Zealand is horrifically overpriced, and a veggie & fruit garden could make a huge difference. Be aware of this – it has a huge impact on your cost-of-living, and it will pay not to underestimate the effect.
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