The above question was asked a few hours ago on the forum at Reddit New Zealand.
Let’s take a look at what Kiwis say about their own country:
What Sucks About Living in New Zealand?
Hi everyone. New Zealand sounds like a dream place. As no country is perfect, I would like to know from you guys, what you think are New Zealand’s imperfections?
Here are some of the answers:
- I guess that depends on what you consider “sucking”. Our cost of living is high (particularly housing), job opportunity in many fields is limited and we’re not as wealthy as many other OECD countries, but the standard of living here is still very high on a global scale. One of our biggest ‘imperfections’ imo is our high rates of domestic/child abuse. Things like our GDP/capita and cost of living have limiting factors and excuses like our geography, but the rate of domestic abuse has no excuse. Some people complain about the weather too, but I don’t think it’s too bad, but that’s because 15-20 degrees is perfect weather for me lol.
- Home break-ins are quite common. Quality of housing is very low due to the mild weather – but you can freeze your ass off in winter as a result. People can be a little ignorant of the rest of the world but I think it’s kind’ve a natural consequence of our geographic location. Public Transport is only just starting to become decent in our largest city. A drinking culture that gets a bit tragic on the weekend in the centre of our major cities. Althought the UK is probably the same. Many international companies like Amazon don’t actually have a New Zealand version – our product choice is therefore restricted (or at least the price you pay is much higher).
- The cost of housing both to rent and buy, and the quality of housing available. Being a low wage economy. Our drinking culture, the social impacts of that and the lack of government support to correct it. But the main thing for me is a lack of forward thinking and planning. Everything we do is reactionary. As a result, our public transport is utter shit compared to most of the developed world, our infrastructure isn’t handling the growth we’re forcing on it, our environment is getting worse by the day, and our economy relies on 2 markets (tourism and dairy). The laid back, slow and steady mentality of the last 50 years in NZ is going to severely hamstring us for the next 100 years. IMHO.
- The weather. It’s frankly shit. Obviously this summer has been abnormally atrocious but New Zealand’s weather is at best a mild temperate and at worst overcast, damp and cold.
- Wages. House prices. Red Tape. Public transport being a complete joke in our biggest city. Not much of a singles scene outside Auckland and Wellington if you happen to be single and moving.
- The uninsulated, under-heated (ie. no central heating) houses, especially in the cold South Island.
- Unless you’re skilled, your salary in NZ will also be a joke compared to London. You’ve got to look at both.
- Even if you’re skilled, it’ll be a joke comparatively. All around salaries are quite a bit lower in NZ than England or the US. Just comes with the territory of making the lifestyle choice.
- The shipping costs more then the goods and they take 2-8 weeks to arrive.
- …and for some things that you just can’t buy in NZ, you get slapped with customs and they are insanely slow at getting into contact. What would have been a 3 day “estimated delivery time” took about a week to get through customs.
- People complain about rent in NZ but what they really mean is the affordability of housing, there are tons of places in the world with worse prices but those places also come with higher wages. http://demographia.com/dhi.pdf London isn’t even top 10, yes your rent is higher, but you are more likely to be able to afford it.
- Rent is too damn high. It propped up a whole industry of non productive leeches.
- Keep in mind that rent is per week and salaries are lower. For my skilled, degree required position I would make the equivalent of around 67000 nzd in London and 55000nzd in New Zealand. Now I don’t know what you pay in rent, but that listing you were linked is 500 nzd a week, or 2000nzd a month, or about 26 000 nzd a yeat
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Low purchasing power. As you said, rent isn’t as bad as London, but there are heaps of small expenses where we get shafted. Our supermarkets are pretty expensive, and our clothing retail scene is utterly tragic – bad selection, crap falls apart within months, and it costs heaps compared to other countries. Identical brand name shoes cost twice as much in Auckland as London, and often you’ll feel lucky if you can even find a pair you like.
Read the thread here: http://archive.is/6vtPM
E2NZ.org 
Cold damp shithole of a place l think. If you can put up with violent, stupid, ignorant morons who think they are better than the rest of world pack your bags and give it a go. I did and it was a big mistake. In addition to the rip off low wages, lazy people and high cost of living NZ also has a nasty underbelly of domestic violence against woman and children which no one wants to talk about. Shameful bastard of a place.
If you really want to live in New Zealand, its best to live in multicultural areas like Auckland and Wellington(although very expensive). At least you will be able to make genuine friends with lots of immigrants. Kiwis in general are very shallow and impossible to make good friends with although those kiwis who have lived and worked overseas for some time are easier to make friends with
Immigrants in general have much better values than the local backward racist kiwi like hard work, respect for education, ambition, receptive to new ideas in general, flexibility in thinking, adaptibility, entrepreneurship. The workplace in these two cities( Auckland and Wellington) also will be multicultural and you will never be in a horrible situation where you are the only employee among kiwis.
Basically, one in general should totally avoid the narrow minded and racist kiwi and never mix with them. Kiwis in general do not like immigrants after all and do not want us in NZ. Therefore why should we mix with with them? Make sure your lawyer, doctor, carpenter, plumber, electrician are all immigrants. If you want to get any work done in your home make sure your contractors are immigrants.
I live in Auckland where almost half the population are born overseas and this is what I do. Of course, there are serious problems in Auckland like excessive congestion for such a small population for a city, extremely high house prices for a small city, poor quality housing etc and low quality education. However, I have chosen this city to be my home as I am unable to return home at this stage of my life due to commitments here and I have to accept all the flaws of Auckland