When people want answers they deserve to get them
Here’s a question that many migrants ask when they’re considering moving to New Zealand.
We’ve all been there, we’ve all drunk the kool-aid, and wanted to believe there is a real middle earth that’s 100% pure and crying out for skilled migrants.
Here’s some of the responses from the good people of reddit new zealand to the above question.
New Zealand is a beautiful country that one could dream of living all his life. One of my cousin lives in Auckland, and she told me that people here are so laid back and awesome.
So why aren’t you asking your cousin these questions? I’m sure they would be more helpful than us.
She also told me that the IT boom here is raising, and there is a significant need for the IT people. How much of this is true? Is it open for immigrants?
It’s true. It’s open for immigrants who meet our immigration criteria which you can easily research.
How is the education system? Is it affordable?
Free for primary/secondary except uniforms, trips and a mandatory donation every year. Uni/Tech is subsidised and you can get an interest free loan for the rest if you’re a citizen.
What about health care? Is it free?
Yes except GP visits & $5 per prescription medicine.
How much different is your country from other countries?
100% different from all other countries. This might be mainly because they’re other countries, and we’re this country.
I’m all ears to all the details that i don’t know or even heard of.
Auckland, NZ, is among the least affordable housing in the entire World.
Half of our economy relies on our clean green image, which is being mercilessly destroyed by the dairy industry which props up the other half of the economy.
NZ has one of the worst Child Abuse records in the world. On average one child is admitted to hospital with injuries inflicted by a family member on purpose every 2 days. On average a child is murdered every 5 weeks.
NZ is one of the worst places in the world for income inequality and child poverty.
NZ has the highest melanoma rate in the world.
NZ has the highest suicide rate in the world for 15-24 year olds.
Tonylee0707: Definitely not perfect. Rising house costs and low average pay forced me to move to a different city. There is no way I could afford a home in Auckland and I dont really want to live in crap-weather Wellington or Christchurch with its earthquake issues.
Having said that, that’s the only bad thing about Auckland. If I could afford it, I would move back to Auckland as most of my friends are there, I love small-ness, clean-ness, easy to get around in a car.
Edit: wow why the heck am I downvoted? I thought I contributed fairly reasonably to this discussion by providing my honest opinion.
Team_satan: “love small-ness, …easy to get around in a car.”
But, neither of those apply to Auckland. Auckland is a sprawling mess that you can only get around in a car, that short sighted planning and car dependency is why the traffic is shit.
Tonylee0707: Yeah i dont disagree but also note that the adjectives I used might have different degrees depending on where you are comparing it to
Team_satan: Maybe people have downvoted you for knocking their beloved Wellington or Christchurch. I mean, someone must like Christchurch, there’s people that didn’t leave after the earthquakes. It’s not Hamilton.
And yeah, I get the comparison that you are making, I’ve lived in three cities that have populations greater than all of New Zealand’s, and one of those places felt like a small town (or just a whole lot of small towns close together).
And yeah, Aucklands traffic isn’t bad, just bad for NZ. It’s all teething trouble, a big city trying to pretend that it’s not a big city yet and retain a small town way of life.
Nouncommittee:Try the “/r/newzealand wiki pages” on the right side of the screen.
Nowhere is perfect. Expecting a place to be or to solve all your problems is setting yourself up for Paris syndrome.
Accommodation in Auckland is very expensive.
It is much easier to get an IT job if you’re experienced or highly skilled. As a new graduate it’s much harder to get a job especially outside of the largest cities, and if you do it’s more likely to be an entry level job.
You may also be interested in
This response to the question “why do kiwis tolerate so much noise in their cities?”
E2NZ.org 
Ha ha have to laugh at “Primary & secondary education is free…with an annual mandatory donation.” This really irked me when I was living there.
What exactly is a “mandatory donation” if not a compulsory fee by another name? Isn’t paying a compulsory annual fee just an education system that is NOT “free” at all but just a sneaky play on words so that the NZ Government can CLAIM internationally that primary & secondary education is “free” whilst systematically underfunding it and relying on parents to pay a hefty annual fee (or a “mandatory donation” in weasel-speak?)
The key word here is MANDATORY. Which is synonymous with COMPULSORY. A donation on the other hand is by definition a VOLUNTARY payment. You can’t have something which is both voluntary and mandatory at the same time, it is internally contradictory, therefore the entire concept of a “mandatory donation” is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron. It just doesnt make sense.
Doesn’t seem to bother the NZ Govt. or the NZ education authorities when you raise these points though. Their eyes glaze over when you try to explain the absurdity of a “mandatory donation” to them. The attitude seems to be “just shut up and hand over the money if you want your child to attend school! By the way, it’s free (with a mandatory annual donation!)”
Exactly the same thing with St Johns ambulance, I got threatening letters from Baycorp, (their precious preferred debt agency) to pay up or face legal action or something like that, all because I made one ambulance call.
I never paid shit. The letters stopped coming .What the fuck did I pay my extortionately high taxes for? Not my problem their government are scumbags.