Some people have done well out of the Christchurch earthquakes, others have lost thousands of dollars.
Continuing in our series of Migrant Tales – first hand accounts of the migrant experience of New Zealand.
Today’s tale was written by a migrant married to a New Zealand woman, living in Christchurch. His family lost thousands of dollars after the Canterbury earthquakes, and have experienced corruption in the city.
Fed up with the lack of opportunities for skilled migrants, poor standards, ignorance and bullying he wants to warn other migrants from wasting their time and money going to New Zealand. He and his family will shorty be leaving to live in Australia.
Here’s why
“Unfortunately, I read the comments on this site and they disturb me. I have experienced corruption after the Christchurch earthquake. I lost a considerable portion of my life savings dealing with the inept EQC insurer. The EQC coffers have been pilfered by the NZ Government, leaving an IOU to be repaid. As a consequence the folks in Christchurch have never been paid their true entitlements, what I have observed on the ground in Christchurch is absolutely disgusting and criminal.
If any migrants are considering moving to NZ, do not sell up in your country of origin and give serious thought before moving here.. I have never encountered so much arrogance, ignorance and bullying here in NZ There are very few opportunities for skilled migrants and if you are prepared to do menial work for little remuneration then this is the place for you.
The only redeeming feature living in NZ is the picturesque countryside. The education standards are very poor and I sent my daughter to an OS university to receive a quality education.
There is to much internal focus on rugby and it is the topic of conversation 24/7. The abuse of alcohol is of concern and it saddens to see many young people intoxicated.
I am married to a New Zealander and my wife agrees with me that her country has not matured. We are leaving NZ to take up residence in Australia and I will not return to NZ again.
Generally the standards right across the board are lacking. It is a very sloppy place to do business and the she will be right attitude with poor attention to detail is annoying.
THE BOTTOM LINE IS DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY TAKING UP PERMANENT RESIDENCE HERE. YOU WILL BE VERY DISAPPOINTED.
If I can prevent intending migrants making the same mistakes as I have and regretted will give some comfort to me.”
E2NZ.org 
Admin, you and some commenters on this topic might be interested in this article. It’s not an opinion piece from a journalist, the author is undertaking PhD research in disaster studies.
https://theconversation.com/christchurch-five-years-on-have-politicians-helped-or-hindered-the-earthquake-recovery-53727
Thanks for posting that Russell,unfair practices and corruption are normal in N.Z and have been since the recorded history of this country,it will take many years and a new legal and social system to correct these issues ,don’t hold your breath as the people who benefit from this corrupt system will kill to keep it.
Today I read in the N.Z Herald that the corruption is being caused by immigrants,I didn’t know that.The skilled immigrants who serve me at the local take out food outlets never rip me off.The people I pay my rates ,electricity ,Internet etc to rip me off every month,the N.Z real estate company I’m working with trying to sell my house are just blatant low life scum,liars and thieves,anyway I’m going to keep an eye on the corrupt immigrants now because the Herald says I should.
Hey Tony. I went to New World yesterday because I couldn’t be arsed travelling all the way to Pak n Save with the $7 I had and only wanted some pretzels and cat food. You’ll never guess what…I had terrible customer service by a moody Adams Family looking Kiwi teen. The pretzels said $3.50 on a special price sticker thing on the shelf, reduced from the normal price of $4.00. So when they got scanned the young, moody, no smiles lady charged me $4.00. Normally I wouldn’t have given a toss but everything that i had I had carefully tallied up to $7 and not a cent over, so the net total came to $7.50. I said to her that hey, you’ve charged me 50 cents more for the pretzels, they are on special offer. She did a little check and said naaaah, thats only if you have a clubcard, do you have a club card? I had one from years ago but never go to shitty new world anymore so…Anyway, throughout my ten years here they checkout people have always had a clubcard to scan incase you forgot yours and made no big deal about it. Well this tight arsed little shit wouldn’t take the 50 cents off and as usual some impatient twat was right next to me waiting to be served and giving me the evils so I stared back. Would it really hurt her to bloody take the 50 cents off with the staff clubcard they had? Fucks sake, instead of making me look a complete twat and standing there listening to her going “do you want me to put the pretzels back?” I said no, no I bloody don’t. They are my beloved pretzels that i need to scoff tonight. So i gave my sons mothers name to look up her clubcard and the little twat put the discount though and finally I was able to bag my stuff (something she was too fucking lazy to do, as they all are) and i got handed my receipt, and just as I took it off her I said very audibly and clearly “fuck you very much”. I then walked away to a deafening silence from everyone around me. Losers.
God, they are such tight arsed pricks here aren’t they? 50 cents for fucks sake. When I worked at Tesco in England and some stupid item wouldn’t scan or the PLU number wouldn’t be accepted that i typed in id just say to the customers “fuck it, have it for free” and they’d give me a great big smile and go “nice one mate”.
When I worked for Farmers, we had a customer who traveled all the way across Christchurch to get the ten cents change that a sales assistant had forgotten to give them. I laughed hysterically after they left, it would have cost them at least $3 in petrol money to travel back to the store. The fact that they would waste all that time and effort to get THEIR ten cents was laughable.
There is a lot of false economic logic employed in NZ.
Lots of old wives tales still adhered to, as well.
Yes carpentaro, there is a lot of “false economic logic”. In Scotland we call it being a “Stupid, insufferable, stubborn dickhead that would cut his/her own nose off to spite their face”. Lolololol. Actually it’s not funny, because they ruin peoples careers with such an irresponsible attitude in business as well as create nonsensical dramas in personal lives.
Haha. I bet it was for the ‘principle’ but it really shows how bloody petty they are. It defies logic. Also, I never understood the obsession with those New World miniature toy things they gave you if you spent something like $40. An absolute load of shite but Kiwis fighting for them on Trademe like insipid little children. I remember the checkout girl looking at me in disbelief when I said no thanks i don’t want it when she handed me one of the little toys things in the packet. What exactly would i do with it? Just more pointless junk. How about a discount voucher or free kiss?
Funny how the small things start to wear you down after a while ,I notice that many employees act as though they are company shareholders and if you don’t pay the full amount or attempt to return the defective cheap ass goods you bought it will somehow effect their paycheque ,funny cause in the U.S people would often steal beer and wine from the supermarket,the cashier would just look up as they walked out and say you know you’re on camera ,here they’d take it personally and risk their lives to chase someone down over a bag of pretzels ,they’d be called a local hero in the Herald.
@ mcleodkiwitony-hahahahaha, thats exactly right, shareholders hahahaha. Theres definitely an inbuilt fear in them that if they put a foot wrong or do something out of company policy that they will be shot on the spot. They even make the staff stand up all day, can’t get my head around that. It’s supposed to make staff more ‘pro-active’ and all that new age hippy tree hugging liberal bullshit and obviously it isn’t working at all is it?
One thing you will notice in NZ is how they spend so much money and time on advertisement, with cheesy, quirky slogans to make you think “Hey, Nz is so cool and laid back and really freindly, hell yeh, I’m gunna sign up to Spark Broadband because I get the first month free and the advert was soooooo funny and they make everything so easy like the guy said in the advert”. Then you put it all into practicality and end up having a full blown aneurysm just trying to actually communicate with the twat at the call centre who can’t give you a date as to when you can actually get fibre internet but it IS available at your address…like this is any help what so ever to anyone. So-they love to advertise things that they can not back and up and produce. It’s all bullshit. False advertisement.
Mitre 10 make their cashier staff go stand in the aisle the minute they are done serving the last customer ,as a customer I hate seein this humiliating and degrading treatement of staff,I’d attack the manager with one of their cheap Chinese power tools .
It’s all so cool on the advertisements here ,one guy tells a cool story how he can scrape the wax off his surfboard with his BP fuel card ,how cool and laid back is that until he arrives at the actual service station with a damaged magnetic strip and no other means of paying,they arrest his sorry ass and siphon the fuel out of his car at a cost to him of $500 haha
I remember seeing the Allied Workforce advert (0800 Labour) and I wanted to throw the cat at the TV. They were a horrific company to deal with and racist, but the advert tells you otherwise. That they are a great respectable company. Among loads of jobs I’ve had in this country over the years, I worked for Allied Workforce about 7-8 years ago. They get you to register and then just tell you to turn up at 6am/7am every morning and you have no idea what you will be doing for the day, or if you will even get work. They provided bread and sausages and this random maori guy demanded that I butter all the bread. I said make me fatty. He then gave me the Jake The Muss stare and I thought what a lovely start to the day. This branch was in Hornby, I don’t think its there anymore. It was a shithole. You then pile into a van and the driver drops everyone off at the designated jobs for the day. I worked at a pallet making/cleaning business called Chep which was shite, and got sacked one day with a German couple because we were sitting down by some crates outside with nothing to do along with 4-5 maori guys. The Maori guys didn’t get sacked and just laughed at us. I knew this was because we were not Kiwis and to be honest i didn’t give a flying shit.
The Allied Workforce advert reminds me of the pathetic Army recruitment adverts trying to coax young people into joining up and ‘you’l have so much fun jumping out of planes parachuting and doing this and that like an adventure’ and its all horse shit as we know.
Jesus christ, thinking back to that allied workforce job just reminds me how bloody long i have been in this awful country. It really is bloody depressing. It feels like 20 years ago. Someone kill me now.
@ cloggie-yeh, does remind me of the bus drivers in Cambridge where im from. Useless, miserable bastards who failed in life and take it all out on the passengers. This prat wouldn’t let me off 20p (yes I was a broke peasant back then as well haha) despite him being an hour late, an empty bus apart from two The Hills Have Eyes comatose passengers, and it pissing with rain outside. “If I let you off 20p mate then I’d have to do that for everyone” he told me. Then I said “yeh but you’re an hour late as usual and its the least you could do seeming as im fucking soaked and late for work.” He refused. I wanted to punch him in the face I really did haha. The one way single fare was about 1 pound 40 and I only had 1.20p.
Thats the only tight arse I came across in UK. Sometimes I was 10p short once in a blue moon and the shopkeeper just let me off and didn’t give a shit. Whats 10p? I also just let shop keepers keep the change if its a little amount as i cant be arsed with it jingling about in my pockets.
You’re right though. I feel most of the time when I go into the shop here in NZ that I’m treated as a liability. Its utterly bizarre.
Put your finger on it there ,it’s about accountability to the management (their uncle) ,not the customer.
Yes mate good post and an entertaining read. The “She’ll be ‘right” attitude doesn’t apply to $’s, not even a 1/2 of one. The “She’ll be ‘right” attitude only applies to mediocrity and less than desirable standards of integrity. Sometimes they really do suck a large one……. well actually more often than not! Nevermind…. “She’ll be ‘right”…….. Wankers!
Haha too right Neil.
When I have encountered this behavior I have walked away and not taken the products. Then, I have made official complaints about the worker involved to the NATIONAL OFFICE of the retailer. Works a treat. In New Zealand, you can’t just take the shit, or it will keep finding you. Kiwis are loathe to do anything about it. Another post on here points to large scale bullying in NZ. They are right and what you described fits that bill.
And that’s why Dick Smith Electronics has vanished from NZ!
I suppose this falls under the “ineptitude” heading
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11589222
An award-winning Auckland University mathematics professor will leave the country after his residency application was rejected because of his stepson’s autism.
Professor Dimitri Leemans moved to New Zealand from Belgium in August 2011 with his wife, Francoise Duperoux, their 5-year-old daughter, Margaux, and his stepson, 13-year-old Peter Gourle, after winning a job at Auckland University.
He was the recipient of the 2014 New Zealand Mathematical Society Research Award and a Marsden grant of $580,000 for his work in mathematics. In a letter of support, Auckland University said it and the country would be disadvantaged without him.
Leemans was extremely disappointed with the “short-sighted” decision by Immigration New Zealand (INZ). “It is already hard to have a disabled child but it is even harder when you live abroad because you don’t have the family to support you and then it is even harder when you see you are not welcome with your child in the country where you live.
“Immigration is telling us: ‘You are not welcome to live here because you have a disabled child’.”
My comment? It’s truly LOL-worthy that they treat the children in that way, working with people that had special needs, I was struck by how they were actually interested in what they were studying at university, unlike many other students I interacted with
(Remember, most people in NZ, even if they went to university – didn’t graduate … BUT that’s a good thing, as it also shows standards are maintained – at least on the technical side, where I’m from)
I can remember discussing the rebuilding of Christchurch on this site a few months after the earthquake, I’m even more convinced now that NZ simply does not have the resources to rebuild the city. Another serious quake would push NZ into the Third World.
Quite honestly I think even in ten years, not much progress will have been made.. it may be partly resources but I think its also the New Zealand psyche/mentality that is getting in the way. With a ‘she’l be right’ attitude, they are likely to only fix what would be really hazardous, and even then, only when it affects them directly. Kiwis have the ultimate passive attitude to life, and don’t care about anything, except rugby, binge drinking and making other people’s lives a misery to assuage their own insecurities and feelings of hopelessness. God help them, because they are certainly not capable of helping themselves.
Christchurch deserves nothing. The people are a disgrace to humanity and do not care about bettering themselves, are know it alls, arrogant, obnoxious and seemingly content living like retards in a broken down, archaic society. Bollocks to the lot of them!
I went into ‘Inspirations’ yesterday to get some incense sticks (don’t laugh lol), for this mouldy, smelly shit hole of a flat, and as I was paying, I looked over the counter and saw two strange little dogs asleep in a basket. I asked the lady who was serving me what breed they were and their names, and she replied in a really nasty, stuck up, shitty manner. I frowned and thought “…what the fuck is your problem?”. You will never meet such anal, weird, twatty, wanker faced people in all your life. I bet my life on it.
Was having a look at rental properties here in Crimechurch on Trademe earlier. $400 plus for revolting shacks, open planned kitchens which I absolutely hate. Who the hell wants greasy, cooking smells wofting into the living room? Nasty ass carpets and stained windows which look like they’ve never been cleaned ever. Bathtubs you wouldn’t wash your dog in, rotting wallpaper, If you want to ‘upgrade’ and pay out your arse for a better standard of living, you won’t have any money left to survive.
This property Requires 4-weeks bond, 1st-week rent, $345 letting fee, and we only let you have a 12 month lease. Whats the point? They usually shaft you at the end, even if you have been the perfect tenant/s. Westside Real Estate for example who screwed me over big time with more things than you can possibly imagine.
Money grabbing parasites here.
Yeah, doesn’t surprise me. Its ironic really because if New Zealand was truly the paradise/Godzone that its government portray it as, and many of its citizens delusionally believe to be the case, then paying the generally exorbitant prices for cold second world shacks may even be justified. Like paying a small fortune to live in a teepee on some mysterious beautiful planet. But it’s just the opposite. It’s blatant thievery.
I’m thinking of living in my car again just to save money. I can read loads of books that I have and park up somewhere safe to sleep at night, suits me fine. Sick of paying bullshit power bills etc. I never get ahead. Pay day comes and boom, 80% of my money has gone towards bills etc.
Thats awful Cloggie. People have absolutely no respect here and live like slobs and scoundrels. I moved into this shitty flat last November and the previous tenants had done a runner and were in the font page news not long ago for some kind of fraud. There are what appears to be knife marks on the living room walls, the oven was absolutely filthy as the shit head land lady never bothered to clean this place at all before I moved in. There was a fuse missing from the power thing in the house, whatever you call it, so one of the bedrooms lights wouldn’t turn on at all…on and on it goes the bullshit never ends.
The house i moved out of before this one, was in a much nicer area and wasn’t a unit like this dump, but also had things wrong with it when I moved in. The boiler was broken and flooded from the roof down onto the floor one day, the heat pump was busted, the plug sockets were hanging out the walls. I was expected to clear up what looked like a years worth of weeds and vegetation that had not be maintained by anyone to be able to stay. One of the contractors, a really nice Aussie bloke who i got on with like a house on fire who was working on the house i was in quit after getting so fed up with the real estates bullshit and messing him about. He also told me him and his wife went to look at a house in the area to rent and one owner was trying to rent out a laundry room (where the washing machine goes) as a bedroom! The real estate agent bitch that i dealt with had so many complaints made against her, including several by me (I told her to go fuck herself one day when she turned up unannounced demanding i do this and that) ended up doing a runner as well, leaving her job. I later found out she was an alcoholic.
This was Nationwide Westside Real Estate by the way. I remember the owner of the house coming a few times with the wanker owner of Westside to look at the rotting window sills and skanky bathroom etc and upon letting her in I said hello and she completely ignored me. She was a snotty stuck up old bag and I was disgusted with her attitude towards me. If it wasn’t for me love you’d have no income!!!! Twat.
Just had a planned visit on Thursday from a bunch of tools from some development company who are planning on demolishing this flat and the others to pave way for some wanky new 2 storey apartments to make more $$$$$$. Two of them started arguing with each other by my bedroom so i angrily told them to fuck off outside and argue out there. Bloody piss take. They have absolute no respect, decorum, nothing. Might as well go live in my car, because any property i move into ends up having to have some EQC work done (or some other bullshit problem) to it despite the fake lying promise that it doesn’t need any work from the owner.
I knew someone really well who lived in Uzbekistan. Her house was brick, insulated, and didn’t have a leaking roof. This is in a country where the average income PER YEAR was $2,500 Australian dollars at the time.
How come in a country this poor they can get the housing to a higher standard than is possible in New Zealand?
NZ are cheap bastards thats why. Make shit and charge premium rates. Don’t like it? “Go back to your own country” is what I get.
Yeh I think I got a few ad homs aimed at me that were deleted haha.
Absolutely correct. NZ does not have the resources and as a result delays will stretch and shortcuts and low quality rebuilds will be the norm. Every season is silly season in NZ.
Yesterday, there was one of those rare reports about NZ on the ABC 24 hour TV news here in Australia, the claim was that only 3/20 of the post earthquake projects have been completed. Jeeez.
I agree with you completely, and the quake WILL happen, it is only a question of when and where. The where is likely to be in Wellington or along the Alpine Fault (one of the largest fault lines in the world), or both. The when? Well, that is an unknown. It could be soon, it might be many years away, but a large quake is an absolute certainty.
Thank you for sharing your story. I think going to live in Australia is a good decision because Christchurch is a desolate place with poor living conditions. Leave wile you can.
The city is an abomination after the earthquakes. Not only was it mentally disturbing and life changing for many people, most people in Christchurch have taken it as a huge opportunity to exploit and rip off people. Scum bag landlords and estate agents come to mind.
Constant road blocks, diversions, horrible traffic gridlock, constant state of disrepair, the constant sound of construction and industrial power tools, machinery…on and on and on. The traffic seems to be 10 times worse now. People were already wankers here but are even worse now.
It was 31 degree heat here yesterday (4/02/16), absolutely revolting to endure. A city of unrest. I literally can not relax now, anywhere i go. The only peace of mind my brain gets is at night when I down a few whiskeys and have some red wine at home, and watch a movie.
If you enjoy stress, misery, extortion, volatile people, shit tasting food etc etc, come to Christchurch. It is the Detroit of NZ.
Haha you need to get out of that he’ll hole ,you are not alone in your sentiments I have heard all the same concerns before about road cone city
I’m trying as hard as I can haha, I’m saving money. I will be out of here June!