THE AGORA

agora

The Agora

This is the place for our readers to have their say, to talk about whatever interests them.

The floor is all yours – shoot the breeze.

Our usual comment guidelines will apply.

Over to you.

137 thoughts on “THE AGORA”

  1. I’ve been watching football this Christmas season, an American tradition as the college bowl games are on and the NFL playoffs are starting. I’ve had fairly good luck, with HOLA and other various links to get around the “geo-blocking”.
    Do you think that the “geo-blocking” is a means to blind the general NZ population to what is available beyond their shores? I would not have been aware of exactly how expensive and crumby the NZ cellular system was until I was watching some American TV and saw ads for “$49 unlimited cellular” and compared that to what is available in NZ. It is not even apples to apples, as there is NO unlimited cellular available in NZ. I wouldn’t have known that unless I’d seen it [as an ad on TV].
    Maybe the cloistering is a way of trying to make some $ off of a free to air [network TV] program that can be blocked unless you pay. This is NOT A PAY PROGRAM, this is like watching free TV like Prime, TV1, or TV3, in the States. Very frustrated and dissappointed in what is considered “normal” in NZ at the moment [in case you hadn’t noticed].

  3. I live in the United States, and was, at one time, thinking about going to NZ to live. But when i hear Australians, Canadians, and people from the British Isles saying the same thing, it scares me. I probably better give this a lot more thought. The NZ government makes it sound like The Land That God Loves Best. Thanks to all of you for your feedback. NZ sure sends out a lot of tourist emails, I will say that. Mybe that is what they do best? Send it out, hope for money?

  5. Friend of ours turned us on to the Google game “Ingress”. So I loaded it on to phone and went and played for ~ 1.5 hours [quit as my battery was going down]. When I got home to check how much credit it took to play, I found out it consumed ~ $4.50 in data on a pre-pay phone. Needless to say, when I got home I uninstalled the game as it would be too expensive to play at the data rates [or what I’d be willing to pay] charged in NZ.
    We’d wondered why txting was so widespread in NZ when we first moved here. When we were in the States, we’d never heard of txting as calling on a cell phone was not prohibitively expensive. Now we know why txting was so popular. Cell phone service is EXPENSIVE in NZ.
    We went to Oz a couple of years ago. I bought a sim card with some pre-loaded credit on it. I was able to turn my data on and use it, txt, and call [almost like normal or at least how the phone was meant to be used] and that lasted for the whole month we were there, all for $30. Back in NZ, had to turn the data off [again] and limit my useage to not go broke with huge phone charges. I limit my data [in NZ] to wifi [no network] so 2g, 3g, 4g is meaningless to me as “network data” is soo expensive.
    Pay a lot, get a little, unless you can get your company to pay for it [perks], then they’ll be the one footing the bill.

  6. Curious as to what the numbers actually were; there is no unlimited plan available from either Spark or Vodafone.
    5gb data=$139, 8gb data=$169 with unlimited txt and talk.

  7. Christmas time, time for football [American football].

    So, I was watching some football online, ads included.
    Cell phone coverages = $45/ month, unlimited talk, unlimited text, unlimited data, 4G lte.
    A plan like that, in NZ, would cost between 3-4 times that, and the exchange rate doesn’t cover that big of a difference.

    NZ IS EXPENSIVE! Pay a lot, get little.

  8. I saw an interesting thing on the news: job fairs in Australia for NZ companies to recruit NZs living in Aus. to come back to NZ. http://www.nzjobfair.co.nz/
    Their tag line: ” we don’t pay as much, but you can live in a clean, green…”
    The only people they could get to believe that are people who’d not been in NZ for quite a few years.
    Funny that NZ is feeling that the “economic climate” is right for such a move.

    • My nephew graduated from the New Zealand School of Architecture with a BA in Building Science specialising in lighting design. He was unable to find any consulting engineering companies here in NZ who were interested in his speciality. He set up his own company and struggled for some years and finally pulled a contract in Australia. He has been there for three years and has said he won’t come back as there are no opportunities for people like him in NZ. His story is not unique as there are many other graduates who are leaving varsity and only being offered entry level jobs like receptionists or clerks or worse “INTERNSHIPS” WHICH MEANS WORKING FULL TIME FOR A YEAR WITH NO PAY!!

  10. Another “only in NZ” puts December 1st as “the first day of summer”. The first day of summer is really December 20something [it changes from year to year].

  12. Noreen,

    As other have said, your comments are so true about “Godzone” (as the New Zealanders love to call their tiny islands) and sum up everything my family and I feel about that place. I am not a New Zealander, but my wife is and, sadly, my children have NZ passports being born there. I never want to go back again. We have all moved to the Middle East and we are so much happier already. My wife mentions, “when we go back one day”, from time to time in conversation, but I have no sentiments along those lines at all.

    Particularly, your you said how “they appear at first friendly but it’s very much a dog-eats-dog society where you have to guard against bullying (Kiwis call it management) and being ‘taken for a ride’” is 100% accurate. We were taken for a ride, naively thinking that entering in to a business deal with a ‘friend’ wouldn’t end up with my family having to sell our house, most of our possessions, and end up with over NZD140,000 worth of debt because he was a snake. My wife is so disappointed with her own country on so many levels.

    We are much happier all the way over here, far away from that place.

    • Thanks NoKiwi,

      I have some hair-raising stories about a few things that go on – particularly in small-town Retardicon 6.

      Once I can articulate them so they make sense, I’ll share them here.

    • Sucking every dollar out of relocating Brits is a national pastime, and it is rubber stamped by the Government.

    • When we were first thinking of coming here and talking about it with others, we’d just about have to break out the atlas to explain where it was. Blank stare.

    • Mr McCracken said he was pleased with the outcome. “It’s done a very important thing. I think it’s put them firmly in their place.” LOL, thaaaaaaaaaaaaaat’s New Zealand for you!

  15. Further to my original comments I would like to add this,, My nephew by marriage graduated from the School of Architecture with a degree in building science specialising in lighting design, No consulting engineering company were interested in using him, He tried setting up on his own with some small success and then was asked to join a design team in Australia to design the lighting for a hospital. He is now settled their and never coming back to live.

    Recently I heard that many graduates with degrees in economics or management are leaving varsity with$55k+ student loans and the only jobs being offered are entry level as receptionists etc

  16. In Glasgow at the Commonwealth Games. Just watched South Africa butcher NZ in the Rugby 7’s. South Africa in gold…….Well done guys and celebrations to all the South Africans in Auckland.

  17. Prevailing attitude towards dishonesty.

    I’ve stated [on here and elsewhere] that the “say what you mean, mean what you say” mentality is beyond the grasp of many Kiwis. If you say one thing, yet mean another, that is basicly telling a lie. I know some will say there can be circumstances where a lie is really “better”, less hurtful [my butt look big in these pants?].
    Yet here, this lack of truthfullness is EVERYWHERE. Primary industry, corner store, government, prospective employers…
    Seems as though you can not get a straight answer out of any of them.
    I very much DO NOT like being lied to, and it seems to happen all the time, and no big deal, even when you catch them at it.
    I can hear them say:
    “Harden up, mate, she’ll be right, just the way we do things here.”

    • It is worth considering the enormous difference between the founding stock of the United States and New Zealand. Many of the early settlers in the United States were religious refugees or entrepreneurs that hailed from the merchant and artisan classes of Europe.

      In contrast, the New Zealanders are largely ex-convicts most of whom come from the bottom of the barrel in England. Their attitude towards creating wealth was not one of producing, as was the case in the United States, but rather extracting natural resources with very little thought given to adding value. One sees the maniacal obsession with the “property obsession” in the United States.

      I see a deviousness and dishonesty amongst the Kiwis that I have rarely encountered in any nationality. They are essentially the chavs of England transported across the world to live amongst themselves in remote isolation.

      • Some were working class people attracted out of the UK’s city slums of the UK to New Zealand with false promises of land, fresh air and improved health. We all know
        how that ended up…thousands of penniless and disgruntled migrants forced to stay in the country, adding in no small measure to the nation’s reputation for ‘staunchness’ Pakeha settlers Wikipedia.com

        Land
        Another factor in attracting people to New Zealand was undoubtedly the prospect of owning land. The New Zealand Company had purchased large amounts of land from local Māori, which they were willing to sell to settlers at a low price as a way of attracting them to New Zealand. At this time Europeans were seen by Maori as a tuku or gift as they bought with them new skills and technology. The scheme worked, thousands of people who would have had no hope of owning land in the United Kingdom were given the opportunity to do so in New Zealand. Settlers found this attractive because they could farm it and make money from it as well as being able to keep it in the family for future generations. Few of the new settlers understood Maori or the recent history of wholesale tribal upheaval,nor the Maori tradition of associating mana or power with the conquering of land.

        “Campaign posters advertising New Zealand in England did give many settlers false hopes, manipulating their reasons. These posters often described New Zealand as an island paradise, complete with white sandy beaches and coconut trees. This heavenly image also did a lot to attract settlers to New Zealand, as it was such a welcome contrast to the rain and cold weather in England. Many settlers also believed that the paradise New Zealand was presented as would be good for their families’ health as the warm weather as well as the small population in New Zealand could keep dangerous diseases that were rife in England to a minimum in New Zealand.

        The irony is that many third world diseases are prevalent in New Zealand which also has one of the world’s highest rates of asthma.

  18. the NZ Government PM says lots of people want to come and live in New Zealand??????????? so some advice for you from one of 75,000 migrants in this country…secure your savings and investments before you come here …….otherwise on retirement 65 if you have worked and paid all your taxes etc YOU WONT GET NZ PENSIONS AS is your legal entitlement according to the law and NZ Super Act 2001…. you will have to use all your personal savings to fund your OWN RETIREMENT and your NZ pension will be kept and put into their SLUSH FUND so hard cheese………Social Security Act 1964 Section 70 (the stealth clause??) does it http://www.apnz.org.nz
    http://www.nzpensionabuse.org
    http://www.nzpensionprotest.com
    these web sites are well worth visiting they tell many stories of Migrants who are waiting for their Pensions to be returned to them in full……Auckland University Research Policy Retirement Centre also have good information.

    • Lots of people want to live in New Zealand? That is why the country has the highest level of it’s population LIVING OVERSEAS in the developed world. Around 25% of New Zealander born individuals LEAVE. The brain drain is so well known in New Zealand that it is considered a MAJOR problem!

      If so many people wanted to move there, why is the population so small in the first place? Four million people isn’t even the size of a large CITY overseas. Does the PM over there seriously think that people can’t find these things out?

  20. . In my experience the Country changed for the worst during the 1980s whilst I was working overseas. When I came to New Zealand in 1973 as a young engineer I went to work for a consulting engineers and found the atmosphere very encouraging and welcoming. Our contracts were for 37.5 hrs per week and on the rare occasions when we had to work overtime we got paid extra. The Management treated us as professionals and once we had discussed our design solutions with our Superiors we just got on with the job because we were trusted to do it right. We were encouraged to be innovative but always with the practicalities in mind. The cheapest solution was usually rejected for a superior innovative solution, Our clients sometimes would insist on an inferior solution because that was what they were used to and wanted.
    For family reasons I went back to Europe intending to be away for three to four years but actually did not return until 1994. During that time I was a Senior Engineer involved in the design of the services for several shopping malls, 4 Airports including the Falklands Island one, a 10 operating theatre addition to a major London hospital and my last project before returning was an Anglo/German collaboration on the most technically advanced building in Europe.
    I was completely shocked by the deterioration of working conditions in this Country that had occurred during my absence. Gone was the overtime, and working weeks in excess of 40 hours were the norm. I also had thought that the knowledge I had brought with me would be welcomed by the Company as an asset.
    I was soon disabused of this notion when on the first project I was working on I wanted to incorporate the latest energy saving techniques and was bluntly told not to waste the client’s money as power was far too cheap in this Country! Next run-in I had with Management was over the design of a lecture theatre, using the same ventilation principles that had just been installed in two European Opera Houses that had just been refurnished, because there was no-one in the Company that could check my work as my knowledge was unique! I stood my ground on this one and the system worked perfectly, as I knew it would. The final straw for me came when I asked the Directors for additional Draughts people because our workforce was over tired working 48 hours per week and their productivity was dropping off markedly. I was forcefully informed that the average hours worked in the equivalent department in Auckland was 57 per week and in Singapore 60. The message was quite clear, I was the slacker only doing 49 hours per week.
    Since leaving them I have observed New Zealand industry largely continuing to decline with these common themes. Firstly, productivity is increased by making your workforce do 50 hours per week for 37.5 hours pay. Secondly, only use the cheapest solution because anything else will affect the bottom line and maximising profit is the only goal of Management. Thirdly, do not use Overseas innovative ideas until your competition has tried it. Fourthly, your workers will be more productive if you keep yelling at them rather than setting the example yourself. It is no wonder that our brightest young engineers and scientist leave for position overseas where they will be respected and better remunerated, thus ensuring they have no reason to return home.
    Until there is a major paradigm shift in the attitude of Managers and Government departments, New Zealand is not going to get the productivity increase it desperately needs and is not a place to work..

    • WWINZ [won’t work in NZ]. There is a fear of being seen as ignorant, so unless someone [in the firm] knows about it, you and the client are out of luck [and you are made to look the fool, just for good measure [tall poppey].
      There is a huge fear [while secretly envious, jealous…] of things not normally done here, hence the same things [good, bad] being done over and over [as they were 50 years ago].
      With that attitude, regression.

  21. Here is an article from the NZ Medical Journal that show the Prime Minister John Key who is a creature of the big American Banks is getting ready to sell NZ down the river. The Transpacific Partnership Agreement is supposed to be a free trade agreement; however it is being negotiated in secret and if signed will not be available to be read by ordinary new Zealanders for 4 years!!!!

    Pharmaceutical industry behaviour and the Trans Pacific
    Partnership Agreement
    Erik Monasterio, Deborah Gleeson…

    link http://journal.nzma.org.nz/journal/127-1389/5986/content.pdf

  22. Still trying to get justice for payment of our NZ pensions after 45 years living and paying taxes in NZ over 75,000 ethnic kiwis 9migrants) shortchanged by NZ govt on their pensions …S.70 is part of Social Welfare Act 1964 which is being used (misinterpreted) against ethnic kiwis to deny them full NZ pensions we get $50. a week to live on NZ pension ????????????? but we are only one couple out of 75,000 others some get nothing have to go to social welfare and become welfare beggars on the system…………www.nzpensionprotest.com
    http://www.apnz.org.nz see NBR news front page April 11 2014 look up on Google reads anger grows among ethnic kiwis over their NZ pensions being withheld by NZ Govt. so going on twn years now to try and get our full NZ pensions big discussions going on Auckland Uni Research Policy Unit also trying to help see their web site and lots of information on there

  24. Here is a link to NZ’s shockingly bad statistics. It puts shot to the ‘Clean, Green’ image touted for years about our country – we locals all knew it was a load of bs right from the beginning of the advertised campaign. It was like, ‘Are you serious?’ Take a look…
    http://www.anewzealand.com/statistics-bad.php

  25. I came across your site through a link on http://reddit.com/r/newzealand and have spent the last 2 days reading through your pages. I’m relieved I found you. I’ve spent years wondering what was wrong with me and why I’ve suffered from depression since I moved to this beautiful land. I’m heartened now I know I’m not alone with what I’ve been feeling. It’s not me but it’s this place that’s to blame and I need to get out! Thank you for putting this site together and for telling it like it is. Please can you send me an invite to your private reddit, my name is <deleted> and thanks again.

  26. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/529617/20131212/new-zealand-backpacker-samuel-blackman-stripped-electronics.htm

    Samuel Blackman was returning home for Christmas on 11 December from London Heathrow to Auckland via San Francisco when a customs officer at his final destination took the law graduate’s two smartphones, iPad, external hard drive and laptop, demanding the passwords for all devices.

    Tweeting about his ordeal, where he claims he was not offered legal representation, Blackman said his attendance of a talk in London about the mass surveillance of the NSA and GCHQ, revealed by documents leaked by Snowden, “could well be the red flag,” which caused the confiscation of his possessions.

    /end snip

    New Zealand is sometimes cited by fans of privacy and anarchy as a great place to live – to those “escape from america” types, it isn’t.

    • The difference between the American version of Big Brother and the Kiwi version is that the Kiwi one is much more incompetent. However, if you step out of line, they will target you. Google Vince Siemer and visit http://www.kiwisfirst.co.nz to get an idea of how they operate. Big Brother has not become as violent in New Zealand as in the USA, but this is only because Kiwis are such passive sheep that it is unnecessary to use violence to have them comply. Big Brother in New Zealand is alive and well, as the decision to Red Zone properties in Christchurch might attest.

  27. So the conduct of the New Zealand Police in the matter of the Roast Busters affair is to be referred to the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) at the behest of Minister Anne Tolley. Now Anne Tolley was my member of Parliament when I was living in Gisborne and referred the conduct of the Gisborne Police to the IPCA after they invaded my privacy and my home to deliver a verbal warning about my and my wife’s alleged harassment and intimidation of a woman who was a patient receiving treatment at Gisborne Hospital. The complaint came not from the woman but, according to the officer who entered our home, from four nurses working at Gisborne Hospital.They have never been identified to me or my wife and remain annonymous.To our knowledge no written statement was taken from them before the Police decided, prima facie, that we were guilty as alleged. This conduct is best understood in the context of the behaviour of Tairawhiti District Health Board (TDH), in particular Clinical Nurse Manager Natasha Ashworth and the Director of Nursing Sonia Gamblen, towards my wife. Google “Traumatised Nurse Flees New Zealand” and “Medic Service Flops” two related articles that appeared in the New Zealand Herald newspaper in April 2013. The false and unsubstantiated allegations about my wife’s professional competence and the involvement of the Nursing Council and the New Zealand Police meant that my wife was unable to find work and we, both Permanent Residents, were obliged to leave New Zealand. The actions of the Police and TDH were a gross breach of our human rights. The IPCA referred my complaint back to the Gisborne Police for investigation. It came as no surprise therefore that the IPCA did not uphold the complaint. I expect the same result after investigation of the Roast Busters affair (the interview by Police of a young woman in 2011). The Police will be found to have acted properly. My message to Minister Tolley is that the New Zealand Police service and the Tairawhiti District Health Board in your home town of Gisborne are both corrupt and malfeasant and that if you care to read the pages of E2NZ.org you will see that corruption and malfeasance are widespread in New Zealand’s public bodies. What, Minister, do you have to say about that corruption and malfeasance forcing hardworking and honest Permanent Residents to leave your country?

  28. Something I learned in my 6 years living in New Zealand is that if you have enough points for Oz you should go there. All the “happy migrants” that I met were either too old/under-qualified for Australia or hippies happy to live in commune-style conditions in that shit-hole of a country.

    I’ve been on Australian for over a year now and the two countries are worlds apart. My like is so much better here. Every day I wrestle with a dark hatred for NZ that continues to intensify. New Zealand took so much from me. I hope I live to see the place devastated.

  29. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11111042
    “100% Pure, a tourism slogan, became spuriously identified as the New Zealand brand, even though it was never intended to cover areas such as environmental standards or food quality.”
    vs.

    Click to access 10%20year%20anniversary%20of%20100%20%20pure%20new%20zealand%20campaign%20-%20pure%20as%20magazine.pdf

    “in 1999, when we launched our new global marketing campaign, i said that
    the phrase ‘100% Pure new Zealand’ was the synthesis of everything we are — as a people, as a country and as an experience. that it embodied our warmth, our diversity and
    celebrated our unique identity”

  31. I lived in Dunedin from mid-2007 until the end of 2008 before deciding that New Zealand wasn’t for me. My experience wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as some I’ve seen in the forum, but when my return flight landed in Los Angeles, I actually got off the plane and kissed the ground. This is going to be a really long post. My thoughts:

    Employment

    The reason NZ wants skilled migrants is because every almost Kiwi who is capable of doing the job packed up and moved to Australia/UK the first chance they got because the pay was better. I’m a veterinarian with 15 years of experience: in the US, I don’t show up for less than $70k, and the custom is to work for a base guarantee plus a percentage of gross receipts. Depending on the area of the country I work in, I can expect $85-115k. The award schedule in NZ guarantees someone with my experience $NZ60K: in theory it’s a lot for NZ but in $US it’s less than my first job right out of vet school in 1997.

    My US credentials transferred to NZ without any problem. I got a job at a small animal clinic for $25.64/hr: excellent pay by NZ standards. I worked only 12-15 hours a week, but this gave me almost the same salary as a minimum wage employee working a full 30 hr work week. It still wasn’t enough to live on alone: my life in NZ was heavily subsidized by my VA pension.

    As long as all I wanted to do was work in private practice, everything was fine. But good luck to any migrant trying to get a job with the NZ government, as I don’t think it’s possible. The NZ agricultural industry desperately needs vets for their slaughterhouses and processing plants: they recruit nonstop and it’s a financial windfall with a salary at the end of 15 months of $92k. I did this job for the USDA for 6 years prior to moving to NZ; I even signed export certificates that NZ accepted for import without question. When I applied for the NZ job, I was told that I wasn’t qualified. MAF would apparently prefer to leave the jobs unfilled rather than give them to the skilled migrants that NZ encourages to immigrate. I’m not kidding: the vacancy announcement has been running non-stop with the same contact info since at least 2005. When I moved back to the US, I went straight back to the USDA, got promoted, and proceeded to sign a gazillion more export certifications that easily cleared NZ customs. My industry experience is apparently only good enough for NZ when I’m not in NZ. I totally believe the poster above who couldn’t get the special ed teacher job.

    Housing

    Air tightness, insulation, and a lack of mold aren’t too much to ask for. Especially somewhere that is supposed to be a first world country. Reality is that most NZ housing doesn’t meet World Health Organization standards for a habitable environment. And if you find something that does, you will pay dearly for it.

    My first apartment was rented sight unseen from the US: I lived there for my first 6 months. It was basically a furnished studio with private bath, and then an upstairs shared kitchen. $270 a week or about US$875 a month. Dunedin is a college town, but this apartment was way above the budget of most NZ students who seem to be packed like sardines into apartments where they can pay $110 a week or less. All the other people living in the building with me were Asian students from overseas. The free ”high speed” internet was almost useless: it moved slower than US dial-up speed. The property managers were clueless: every month they sent me a pay or quit notice claiming that they never received my security deposit. And they kept sending it even after I provided the bank statements and wire transfer receipts that proved I had paid. They then tried to claim that the bank in question doesn’t exist and that I forged the documents: they finally gave up when I threatened to contact the housing council. Then the heater in the bathroom broke: it took three weeks to fix. After all this, the landlords seemed genuinely surprised that I declined to accept a $30 rent increase and moved out when my lease was over.

    My Dunedin CBD apartment was also $270 a week, but unfurnished and with a parking spot. I had blue paisley circa 1970 carpet that smelled kind of moldy and was coming up at the seams: I never went barefoot. The subfloor sounded as if were about to collapse when I walked; there were occasions when I really expected to fall into the downstairs apartment. Although it was technically a 2 bedroom, it came with a tiny dorm sized refrigerator that was equally as old as the carpet and had no freezer. No bathtub, which was no biggie. But the floor of the shower stall was slanted the wrong way for drainage, so I had to squeegee after use unless I wanted standing water. The pipe under the bathroom sink burst twice in the year that I lived there. The night store heater didn’t work, and it took 6 weeks and a threat to contact the housing council before the landlord fixed it. In the interim, there were days when my indoor temp was 45F with the electric space heaters that I bought going full blast: the inside of a refrigerator is 33-41F. All this for an apartment in a neighborhood that was questionable at best: there was a brothel a block down the street and a strip club a block away in the opposite direction. Prostitution is legal in NZ, by the way.

    My general rule of thumb is that I would never pay more than five times my annual salary for a house. This would have given me a max budget of NZ$300,000 if I had been working full-time. I looked at buying a house: everything in Dunedin that was less decrepit than my apartment cost more than $350,000. Tiny new construction in a part of town even dodgier than where I was already living started at $400,000. To buy in Auckland, I would have needed more than a million.

    As an FYI, I lived in Rochester, NY before moving to Dunedin. Rochester and Dunedin are about the same size, but there all similarities end. The 2000sf house that I owned at the time cost only $146k, had central heating/air, was located in a nice neighborhood, and there was no breeze blowing indoors when all the windows were closed. Even before I replaced the original 1940’s windows, my utility bill never topped $400 a month. I would probably have gone bankrupt trying to heat a similar home in NZ.

    Hygiene

    For a supposedly first world country, I thought NZ was filthy. The number of grubby looking people walking around barefoot and shirtless in cut off shorts is disturbing. The “no shirt, no shoes, no service” rule in US/Canada doesn’t apply in NZ. In Dunedin, the broken bottles and vomit from student drinking binges would remain on the streets for days: the tolerance for public drunkenness is shocking. People were also weirdly fascinated by my teeth: there’s nothing interesting about them except for the fact that they are all still there, and relatively straight and unstained. None of the comments about how nice my teeth are were hostile, but every time I heard one I would start thinking about Deliverance and Dueling Banjos: not good.

    Education

    Probably adequate if remaining in NZ; probably inadequate otherwise. I enrolled in the MPH program at the University of Otago while I was there. The program covered the general core competencies that you would expect, but it was very NZ specific. We spent a lot of time talking about the health implications of the Treaty of Waitangi, which has no status outside NZ. An MPH earned in NZ is worthless as far employment with a US city/state/federal government and many international health organizations is concerned. I’m eligible for specialty board certification and would be laughed at if I listed the NZ credential on my board application. I dropped out and enrolled at Johns Hopkins when I returned to the US. An MPH would have made me eligible for District Health Board jobs that paid a whopping $43k.

    Racism

    I think race relations in break down along the lines of Pakeha/Maori & Pacific Islander/Asian. There isn’t enough of any other group to really play into the big picture. I am African-American, and I think I generally got lumped in with the Pakeha(white European descendants). I don’t know if this is because the average Kiwi hasn’t met enough Black African diaspora people to know how classify me, or maybe sympathized with me as someone who probably hadn’t been treated fairly in my home country: media portrayals of life as a Black person in the US are generally unfavorable. I personally experienced nothing that I would have perceived as racism, and neither did my Black South African friend (she was a nurse).

    The fact that the blatant racism wasn’t directed at me doesn’t make NZ any less racist. Being Maori would be preferable to being Asian, but I wouldn’t want to be either in NZ. Another friend (Indian doctor) was extremely unhappy and ended up leaving to take a job in Dubai.

    I encountered no anti-American sentiments. I can generally say that every Kiwi I met hated President Bush. There was cheering in the bars and pubs as the 2008 election results came in and it became clear that Barack Obama had won.

    Summary

    If you already live in US/Canada/UK, everything bad about life in your current location is going to present in NZ: road rage drivers, shoplifting teenagers, loudmouth businessmen on cell phones, etc. And whatever it is you are hoping to find in NZ is already available in your own country: if you’re tired of the rat race, move to Montana or the Scottish countryside. The scenery there is just as nice as in NZ and you won’t have to struggle to make ends meet. NZ is a second world country pretending to be a first world country: it’s not worth the hassle or effort.

    For those who choose to ignore my advice, and that of others in this forum: leave your stuff at home in storage if you decide to move to NZ anyway. NZ$ are worthless on the world market: the exchange rate fluctuated wildly between 0.55 and 0.83 while I was there. You will never be able to earn enough money in NZ$ to transport your stuff back home when you decide to leave.

    • @Kiwinomore, very accurate and excellent accounting of the NZ experience for a skilled migrant, and outside of the anti-Americanism (which I personally did experience, despite not having voted for Bush either), the issues characterised my own time there as well. Thanks for sharing it.

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  37. A wee update on my posting above.

    I was out with a group of Kiwis at the weekend and whilst eating our lunch (outside) I was sat with 4 of the group. I listened to a long conversation they were having about how all of them were dealing with the rats that were in their roof space, ceiling spaces (one lived in a 2 story house) and their walls. They agreed that the best thing to do was nail poisoned bate to a log but commented that there was a lot of noise as the rats dragged the logs around. One person said that the rats in the roof made a lot of noise and she could see them scampering around in the ceiling space (between floors) through the light fittings in the ceiling!!!! Another said that the dead rats made a smell but you get used to it!

    I didn’t dare ask how they got the dead rats out of the walls but I expect they provide some insulation!! Anyone know of the insulation properties of dead rats???

    • Hi I’m a kiwi married to a european currently living in the middle east, and planning on returning to NZ next year. I really value this website as it’s so important to get another perspective, and remind ourselves we are subjected to a lot of propaganda in NZ. We’ll still be going back to NZ, but at least we’re going with our eyes wide open. That’s why we’re in the middle east – to live in NZ you have to leave it.

      Re the rats – this is what worked for us when we were living back there last time: mix a packet of dried bacon soup with cement powder (i think about 50:50) and put it in an empty tin on it’s side. Lay about 4 of these around the place and that will solve the problem. You’ll find them stopped literally dead in their tracks on the lawn.

    • Hi Noreen, you’ve summed up our last 7 years here, I hate everything about this place. Thankfully we have an exit plan, counting the days. Good luck to you and all escapees!

      • Thanks for the comment. We have now been back in Scotland for nearly six months. We bought a house in the Scottish Highlands just an hour from Aberdeen and we both have jobs. This part of Scotland never really saw the UK recession because of the “Aberdeen effect” (oil and gas). We had the best Christmas in 4 years (no snow and a mild winter but lovely). Back walking the Scottish mountains and rediscovering real cities. Had forgotten how cheap everything here is and how fantastic the quality compared to NZ. Quality of life is far superior to NZ and the people are so friendly and helpful. We miss nothing, absolutely nothing about NZ and have no regrets about returning. Lots of people have asked us why we returned saying that they thought NZ was a rich country and had a wonderful lifestyle. We have put them right about that and at times, especially in the first few months we were back, have had to stop ourselves from going on and on about how awful it really is to live there. One last anecdote from just a few weeks before we returned. We had been selling off a load of household stuff on Trade Me and had sold our fridge/freezer 2 weeks before we were due to leave. I was telling someone in the Tramping club I walked with about how our sales were progressing. She said that if we needed to borrow a fridge she had one that had been outside in her garden for a few years but she could check if it was still working if we wanted to pick it up ‘to borrow until we left’! The strange thing is I know that most Kiwis would thing nothing of this!!!! Like the comment left above by Whakatikiwa…….The point is that in a developed country people just don’t live like that with rats!!!!

  38. We have been in New Zealand for coming up to 3 years after emigrating from Scotland due to the financial recession in the UK. My partner was in property
    development and was made redundant. Most of the development companies in the UK closing we thought we would try our luck in New Zealand a country we had visited on holiday 10 years ago. We first moved to Auckland as my partner had a job there. I joined him 4 months later after selling our house. We didn’t bring our money over…thank god as we are now counting the days to returning home (beginning of December). For both of us it has been a nightmare and after reading comments from others on this website I realise we have not been alone.

    I so agree with so much of what has been written. Here are some of the memories we will take back with us:

    Housing.

    Auckland.
    Greenhithe North Shore. Rental house costing nearly $3000 a month. Carpets rotting with something called ‘carpet beetle’, ants swarming all over the house, dead insects and bits of insects continually falling through gaps in the boards in the ceiling. Only one heat pump and an open fire so even in Auckland it was freezing . 3 rats captured (fortunately by our cat) in the house. Then winter when every time you got a piece of clothing out of the wardrobe you had to wipe off the mould. The house would have been illegal to rent in the UK and would never have sold. It was basically a wooden shack with no insulation and rotten wood everywhere.
    Incredibly after we moved the owner sold the property for 350KGBP

    Wellington.
    Kapiti Coast. We did manage to find a decent property that was only 4 years old. It didn’t have double-glazing but did have air-conducted central heating (which was very expensive but worth it). However everything was cheap…cheap kitchen units that stained easily (a coffee mug would leave a stain then a Jiff rub down would take off some of the colour of the worktop) and windows that leaked water to the inside when you washed them!

    Christchurch
    Very difficult to get a half decent property that wasn’t earthquake damaged (yes Kiwis were renting out damaged properties that should by any civilized standards should have been illegal to rent out). We are now in a ‘brick’ bungalow that is about ten years old. The owners (who moved out for earthquake damage to be repaired and didn’t move back in …English emigrants) have put it lots of heating but the property is so badly insulated (as all NZ homes are if insulated at all) that here now, in winter, it is often warmer outside than inside. The windows need to be squeegeed every morning and the water moped up ON THE INSIDE! Our clothes get damp in the wardrobes and we have to have ‘damp rid’ buckets and hanging sachets to try an alleviate the problem.

    Jobs.
    My partner, a chartered building surveyor and Project manager hasn’t had a problem getting a job but his jobs have often left him stressed and really down because of the un-evolved working practices over here and the Kiwi ‘character’ of ‘we know best’ ‘this is how we do it here’ and an inability to see where change is needed e.g. in the quality of buildings. He has had 3 jobs since we have been here (hence the moving around continually trying to find an employment that he can get some satisfaction out of which by the way he did not have such a problem in the UK). His final job here is supposed to be as part of the Christchurch re-build after the earthquakes but he has found out that nothing much is happening because, as we have suspected for some time, the country is VERY poor and although it tries to give the impression of a first world country it really, really isn’t any where near it.

    I am a qualified special needs teacher. I was accepted for NZ teacher registration (after spending money of course which is the ‘Kiwi way’ as in ‘how can we make as much money as we can out of you’). I have never been able to get a teaching job, though I have applied, and have been working as a Teacher Aide after scores of applications for each move we’ve made. Finally in Christchurch my luck has run out and I can’t even get an interview for a Teacher Aide after numerous applications for jobs advertised as requiring someone with special needs experience. Mostly I have put in an application and have never heard back from the schools even after requesting acknowledgment of my application. (As a generality Kiwis don’t reply to emails unless they want something from you).
    The schools I have worked in Auckland and Wellington have been ‘Decile 10’ schools supposedly located in wealthy areas. The buildings have been awful. Damp, cold, mouldy, absolutely filthy and smelly, with black mould on the ceilings and ants crawling all over everything. There is very little equipment and education is done on a shoestring. One school I was at (primary) had a class budget of $3.95cents per child per term (that’s less than 2GBP and class teachers weren’t allowed to photocopy (no worksheets here) as the copier in the school was just for the local community so the school could raise funds!) Teachers???? Commonly referred to my special needs students as ‘retards’ (most special needs pupils are included in mainstream schools but are taught by Teacher Aides). Then of course there is Novopay whereby a new system set up by the Ministry of Education to pay school staff got it all wrong resulting in teachers and support staff being underpaid or not paid at all. I am still awaiting the equivalent of 400GBP in pay owed me since November 2012 and don’t expect to get it before I return home.

    The people
    In our experience they appear at first friendly but it’s very much a dog-eats-dog society where you have to guard against bullying (Kiwis call it management) and being ‘taken for a ride’. The TV channels continually throw out propaganda telling Kiwis how lucky they are to live here but the whole system has a built in lack of rights that sometimes verges on abuse. We suspect that your average Kiwi, if they were honest with themselves, know that the system (and that includes shops, services etc) takes then for a ride but they are too afraid of the truth to confront it.
    I personally have been at the receiving end of some astonishingly poor social skills especially when a Kiwi becomes aware that in some sense you are different to them. For example I am a vegetarian and have been for over 40 years. At a social do with a Tramping (walking) club I asked another member if he was also a vegetarian after I had overheard him say something that I thought suggested he was. His reply!!! ‘Do I look like a f…ing vegetarian?’ said very aggressively. Probably because a lot of Kiwi men are very much into some kind of macho mindset as hunting is very big here (and with bow and arrows) with little animal welfare legislation sense. Wild pig hunting is a family ‘day out’ and children are encouraged to use guns to kill anything that moves in the ‘bush’ (there has also been several ‘accidental’ killings of ordinary campers and walkers whilst I have been here. Hunters, from what I have heard from Kiwis’ like to drink heavily whilst hunting).
    In general Kiwis, because of the housing problems of dampness, lack of insulation and heating, have problems drying washed clothes in winter resulting in an awful lot of them actually smelling bad during the winter months. Not just BO but damp, mouldy unwashed clothing smells.
    In work situations they are very un-evolved. Management is getting employees to work hours they are not getting paid for and to do tasks they are not employed to do. They very much have a mindset of ‘not seeing the wood for the trees’ and they like to talk and to do but find it incredible difficult to think.
    The young Kiwis seem to travel a lot and like to work abroad for a period before returning. What is really strange is that they do not seem to return changed in any way. Travel doesn’t seem to broaden their horizons nor make them think about their own country and it’s culture.

    General

    Everything except wine is expensive. More expensive than in the UK

    Wages are about a third to half what they are in the UK

    Houses are the same price if not higher than the UK but the houses really are just cold, damp un insulated mouldy wooden shacks

    All goods are of a much poorer quality than the UK. I gave up buying clothes a year ago as I was paying a lot of money for really poor quality (cloth and make)
    When you buy something that is faulty it is a hell of a job to get it replaced (we had a new fridge delivered that didn’t work on arrival and had a job getting it replaced)

    Supermarkets are really poor and all stock the same goods. If you buy only fresh fruit and veg then the quality is generally fine but forget about convenience foods. They are taste horrible and are really unhealthy.
    Eating out is a real problem. Kiwis will wax on about a particular restaurant and how fantastic the food is but when you go there it is at best like a Sainsbury/M&S convenience food and at the worst so bad you end up leaving most of it. (and it will be expensive).

    The only way to find out what goes on in the world is to log on to the BBC website or watch BBC World News. All Kiwis are generally interested in, according to the news, is what happens here and what the All Blacks are doing
    Kiwis can be very racist and are very outspoken in being racist especially against people from Asia

    As a generality there is a lot of animal abuse cruelty and neglect here with little in the way of animal welfare

    It also appears that there is a lot of Domestic abuse and child abuse

    A survey was recently done questioning 2000 women in the Waimakariri area near Canterbury (where I am living) about animal and child/domestic abuse they have witnessed. 40% of respondents said they had witnessed child/domestic abuse and over 50% said they had witnessed animal abuse (that’s not neglect that’s actual abuse)

    There appears to be a lot of alcohol and drug abuse and car accidents resulting in death due to these kinds of abuse (reported in the newspapers) are very common

    The roads are congested (Kiwis like to have big 4×4 gas guzzlers. Kiwis are heavily into personal debt) the configuration of roads and road signs can be dangerous (as it trying to get onto a highway from a standing start when everyone is rushing past at 100-120k per hour). The maximum speed limit is 100k but even the police are saying everyone should drive at between 95 and 115 K per hour. I was pulled over by the police for driving on the inside lane at 80K an hour on a maximum 100K an hour road and told I was dangerously going too slowly!!

    Anything else? Loads.

    If any one is thinking of emigrating to New Zealand then beware. If you don’t mind roughing it, if you don’t mind watching you’re back against bullies and dishonest people, if you don’t mind poor wages and poor working conditions, quality of food and goods and if you never want to leave the country (it’s expensive to get out of it for a holiday and remember the wages are poor) and you will put up with all of the above for a bit of sunshine then give it a try. New Zealand is best observed as a holiday, in a camper van touring round the South Island for a couple of months and then GO HOME (forget the North island there is nothing there except for a lot of bush and some hot springs).

    Home to Scotland….5 months and counting the days!!!

    P.S It cost me 50GBP for a dental check!!!

    • Noreen, I am from another country (Canada) but I have to say your post says every single thing I no longer have the energy or brainpower to say about living in New Zealand. This place will kill you from the inside out if you stay here too long!

    • Noreen thanks for sharing your experiences with such honestly, we’d like to include this in our migrant tales series if that’s ok with you Good luck with your plans to return to Scotland.

      • Yes, they had the gall to call it a tax and then complain bitterly about the British government raising air passenger duty – saying it would harm tourism in New Zealand.

        tvnz.co.nz/travel-news/hike-in-uk-departure-tax-nz-slammed-4610472

        The British Government has announced an increase in departure tax for air travellers to New Zealand.

        Prime Minister elect John Key has slammed the decision to increase the UK Air Passenger Duty (APD) next April from 85 pounds ($170 NZD) to 92 pounds ($184 NZD) per passenger coming to New Zealand.

        “The APD places a significant burden on New Zealand businesses, on families who travel, and on our tourism industry,” said Key.

        Guess there’s only so much of the pie to go around but it is worth noting that the UK’s levy was imposed on environmental grounds. Surely clean, green NZ shouldn’t be complaining about that?

    • Noreen, this has to be one of the best summaries of everything we found wrong with New Zealand that we have ever seen. We left a year ago, but I have found that when people ask me what it was like, I stall out trying to find a succinct way of conveying our impressions. Your commentary would be too long for the kind of quick answer they need but I can direct people over to this website. Thank you for adding your impressions! Thank you to everyone who has validated our impressions. We doubt our own memories sometimes until we read that other people experienced the same thing as we did, because no one truly realizes that the prettiness is more or less all there is to New Zealand. You can’t “live on” pretty. It is not a First World country. Think an Anglo-Saxon-Polynesian Eastern bloc country in the 1950s, with postcard scenery, and you’re closer to the mark.

    • I’m a 4th/5th generation New Zealander, and I have to agree with everything you have said

    • ‘@New Zealand is best observed as a holiday, in a camper van touring round the South Island for a couple of months…’

      This would be the only thing I would disagree with you about… touring in a camper van (and hitch hiking) are extremely dangerous in New Zealand. There are many many tragic examples of murder, beatings, robbery, rape and abduction of tourists in this country… I used to hitch hike when I was at varsity in New Zealand but I would NEVER consider doing that or traveling in a camper van – these are magnets for every psychopath in the country!

  40. Hi, i stumbled upon your website and it makes me less crazy I have a similar story with someone who shared about how the Family Court is holding me captive in NZ. I feel like I am living in a prison here. I have not seen my family for 3 years now and have lost everything I saved fighting in family Court. I am happy to share my story but how do I do it?

  42. Kiwis are uniquely blind to their own country’s problems and sensitive to how they are perceived in the world. This has been noted many times before before.
    http://www.city-data.com/forum/australia-new-zealand/1574378-fed-up-kiwis-head-oz-en-7.html
    “smug and thin-skinned”
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterfoster/8141791/Under_fire_in_Golden_Bay/
    “good riddance”
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/news/295788
    “arrogant”
    http://www.freelancestar.com/2013-03-22/articles/4044/argo-leaves-kiwis-hopping-mad/
    Kiwis would not take them in, but don’t tell anyone that

    They cannot take any criticism, so between the cultural attitude of being highly sensitive and the need to make money off their international rep has led to any negative things being said about New Zealand being stomped on like a gnat anywhere it appears. I’ve never seen such an insecure people. The result is that the conditions that reign in the country are not actually well known, and people who try to bring it up as a topic are slapped down. Please do move on. And stay moved.

    • Hi everyone, I arrived in NZ 4 years ago from UK with wife & kids. I had read about negative experiences of other Brits & foreign nationals living in NZ on similar internet sites prior to emigrating to NZ, but foolishly i ignored the warnings. We have a nice house & the kids are in a great school here in NZ, but despite these positive factors. I hate living in NZ. As well as the geographical isolation of NZ the thing i hate most of all are the people! Like many other people on this site, the friendliest and nicest people i have met in NZ have been people from other countries, not New Zealanders. They cannot take any criticism about NZ & are very sensitive about any form of criticism of the country. They appear like insecure island monkeysl cut off from the rest of the world, falsely believing that they are living in some kind of Utopia. Like other people have mentioned on this site i have found Newzealanders to be smug and arrogant. New Zealanders really are a passionless people who often communicate with you like frowning zombies. I have lived & visited other countries around the world, so i have positive comparisons. I plan to leave NZ permanently once my kids have finished school & save them from a mediocre existence of living in New Zealand.

  46. From this newspaper review –
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10797098

    “Right from the start it was challenged by critics who argued the land boiled with passion, especially in the convulsive events surrounding the 1981 Springbok tour.
    The author says that view is wrong. “Passion is not just anger, the madness of the moment,” he says. “It’s not just throwing bricks, it’s explaining why you’re throwing bricks”.

    My god, this reminds me so much of the line in Idiocracy. “Pvt. Joe Bowers: [addressing Congress] There was a time when reading wasn’t just for fags. And neither was writing. People wrote books and movies. Movies with stories, that made you care about whose ass it was and why it was farting.”

  47. “Thirty-five years ago in The Passionless People I called New Zealanders ‘Smiling Zombies’ – the living dead but happy enough about it, even smug. Then, we were still relatively affluent. But now, we are ‘Frowning Zombies’, still the living dead but impotently aware we have been drifting towards social and economic disaster for decades.”

    “A major difference between 1976 and now is we have leased our home and are paying rent and homage to outsiders. We have become an economic colony, mainly of Australia.”

    He forgot to add, “Still smug”.

    The Agora is a great idea. 🙂

  49. A quote from the Passionless People by Kiwi journo Gordon McLauchlan

    The Smiling Zombie.

    “New Zealanders are meandering through the 1970s reciting an elaborate mythology that we are a benevolent and contented people in a green and sunlit land.We are weaving with cold and tremulous hands the delusion that we are also bold and large-minded. But there is a tic running up the side of our faces (Not quite stilled by the booze and drugs which make our blood run thin) because the reality is that we are ensnared in a montrous irony. Here in beautiful benign and uncrowded country…we are unhappy with intransitive anger…We suffer by the hundreds of thousands from depression , and from the indefinable anxiety the Germans called angst”

    Guess what, he’s got a new book out called The Passionless People Revisited. Has much changed? yes, Kiwis have gone from smiling to frowning zombies.

    The Passionless People Revisited is possibly even more outspoken than The Passionless People, in which he called New Zealanders the living-dead, smiling zombies. It was first published in 1976 and sold, he recalls, 25,000 copies in six months.

    Thirty-six years later, things are worse. New Zealanders are now dubbed frowning zombies and the promise of the 1960s and 70s has evaporated. “Even though in the 1960s and 70s New Zealand was a stultified society, very conformist, we were poised to come out of it. It never happened.” New Zealanders, he says, are impotently aware that they have been drifting towards social and economic disaster for decades.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/culture/6742579/Gordon-McLauchlan-produces-Passionless-People-sequel

    Where can I get a copy of this book? it looks like essential reading for anyone intending to immigrate to New Zealand.

    • E book available here http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Passionless-People-Revisited-ebook/dp/B0082ZUQBI

      Product Description: “When The Passionless People – an examination of New Zealand society and its people – was first published in 1976 it was a sensation, selling tens of thousands of copies. Its title became part of the language. More than thirty years on — have New Zealanders changed?

      The Passionless People Revisited is Gordon McLauchlan at his most outspoken: “Thirty-five years ago in The Passionless People I called New Zealanders ‘Smiling Zombies’ – the living dead but happy enough about it, even smug. Then, we were still relatively affluent. But now, we are ‘Frowning Zombies’, still the living dead but impotently aware we have been drifting towards social and economic disaster for decades.”

      “A major difference between 1976 and now is we have leased our home and are paying rent and homage to outsiders. We have become an economic colony, mainly of Australia.”

      McLauchlan covers a broad spectrum of cultural, social and political issues in this witty, insightful and no-holds-barred look at New Zealand today.”

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