Today is the final day of the four-day holiday weekend for Easter. I’ve talked about these holidays, and thier oddities, many times, but this year several things were different, including one thing I mussed last year. Combined, this Easter weekend was unlike all the others in my 30 years in New Zealand.
Last Wednesday, the New Zealand Parliament passed a Member’s Bill to streamline the rules for bars and restaurtants selling alcohol on the three and a half days a year with unusual sales restrictions: Good Friday, Easter, ANZAC Day morning, and Christmas Day. The Governor General provided Royal Assent the next day, and the new law was in place for Good Friday (and Easter, obviously). To me, the reforms were simply common sense reforms.
There was one other thing that was new this year: This year, for the first time, TV commercials were broadcast on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The thing is, Parliament passed the law back in October, but for whatever reason I never mentioned it. Whatever the reason for that oversight, the first of the three and a half holidays tihe the change was Christmas last year, but I was with family all day and not watching television, so I wouldn’t have noticed anything (though I don’t know whether I would’ve noticed if I had seen TV that day). I also wouldn;t have noticed that ads were broadcast on Sundays because I don’t turn the TV on until 5 or 6pm.
I was glad to see the ad ban removed, even though I think ads are mostly annoying, but forbidding ads on broadcast TV when it didn’t apply to streaming services, including YouTube. There was no reason to force NZ broadcasters to take a financial hit that didn’t apply to anyone else. As it happens, in my post on Easter Monday last year, I talked about mo bill having passed Parliament, and that was actually an update to something I said in a post on Easter Monday in 2024. Yet despite my interest in the topic, I nevertheless seem to have missed the news when the bill finally passed. Oh, well.
This particular Easter Weekend also had to unusual add-ons. The latest school holidays began on Good Friday because that was a public holiday (they’ll end on April 19). The other thing that happened this weekend was that we changed our clocks on Sunday. Apparently, on Sunday NZ parents (as recounted on Facebook) were complaining about their children waking up at 4am demanding chocolate, which doesn’t sound ideal.
So, for many reasons, this Easter weekend was unlike all the others in my 30 years in New Zealand. Fortunately, I think all the changes were good ones. Well, except for sleep-deprived parents having to cope with kids high on sugar. Fortunately, all those coincidence of dates don’t happen every year: Next year, Easter will be on March 28.
Showing posts with label New Zealand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Zealand. Show all posts
Monday, April 06, 2026
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Opportunities for change
Every once in a while, I come across an interesting story in a very indirect way, and it’s even better when it’s a topic I’m both insterested in, and that’s also timely. Creating green hydrogen in Australia using some Kiwi can-do is just the sort of thing I might not expect, particularly when it came by way of Facebook.
The video up top is from Australia’s “A Current Affair” programme from Channel Nine. The specific segment, abuot producing hydrogen in Australian using solar power, came to my attention because of a Facebook post by “I Fucking Love Australia”, an unabashedly lefty Facebook Page that often talks about politics, including the dire affect the USA’s Felon in Chief has on the world. The post was also published on the “IFLOZ” Substack, and it was on Substack that I saw the video.
I was interested in this story because I’ve said for years that producing green hydrogen should be a major focus for New Zealand. “Green hydrogen” production is carbon neutral because it’s made from water using solar, wind, or hydro electricity. When produced from fossil fuels, it’s usually called “blue hydrogen”, unless it’s made from coal gasification, when it’s called “brown hydrogen” because it’s usually made from lignite, aka “brown”, coal.
As you may be aware, New Zealand is surrounded by water, and we have ample sources of hydro, geothermal, and, increasingly, grid-scale solar power. The story in the video is about using hydrogen to make fertiliser, but they mention making it to be used as fuel, too. When hydirgen is burned, its byproduct is water vapor, not deadly gasses like fossil fuels produce. If NZ fully commited to hydrogen, we could be self-sufficient in carbon-neutral fertiliser AND fuel for our vehicles, and no idiotic war on the other side of the planet could affect our fuel and fertiliser ever again.
Australia, because of its size and suitability for solar power, could become an exporter of fertiliser from green hydrogen, and help the world turn its collective backs on the volatile Middle East while also helping other countries reduce their carbon emissions. There are so many wins.
There’s one final twist in the path to this particular story. This evening I checked Facebook and saw a post from the IFLOZ Facebook Page saying they were going to concentrate on Substack, where most of their content will be by subscription. They’re doing this, they say, because Facebook has been de-emphasising content from the political left, and that results in declining ad revenue for the content creators, and they had charts to back that up. They also suggested that Facebook is doing it because their future plans will require consent from the current US regime, and so they’re basically turning down the volume of the Left in order to avoid problems with the regime. Whatever the specific reason, many left-of-centre content creators on Facebook have complained about suddenly declining page views, and so, revenue. I have no idea whether the speculations about the motivations are correct or not, but given the current regime’s constant posturing against the First Amendment to the USA’s Constitution, the speculation is at least plausible.
Still, it’s always nice to run across a topic I’m intertested in, no matter how roundabout the course may be. Apparently I won’t have a repeat of this particular path, though. There’ll be others.
The video up top is from Australia’s “A Current Affair” programme from Channel Nine. The specific segment, abuot producing hydrogen in Australian using solar power, came to my attention because of a Facebook post by “I Fucking Love Australia”, an unabashedly lefty Facebook Page that often talks about politics, including the dire affect the USA’s Felon in Chief has on the world. The post was also published on the “IFLOZ” Substack, and it was on Substack that I saw the video.
I was interested in this story because I’ve said for years that producing green hydrogen should be a major focus for New Zealand. “Green hydrogen” production is carbon neutral because it’s made from water using solar, wind, or hydro electricity. When produced from fossil fuels, it’s usually called “blue hydrogen”, unless it’s made from coal gasification, when it’s called “brown hydrogen” because it’s usually made from lignite, aka “brown”, coal.
As you may be aware, New Zealand is surrounded by water, and we have ample sources of hydro, geothermal, and, increasingly, grid-scale solar power. The story in the video is about using hydrogen to make fertiliser, but they mention making it to be used as fuel, too. When hydirgen is burned, its byproduct is water vapor, not deadly gasses like fossil fuels produce. If NZ fully commited to hydrogen, we could be self-sufficient in carbon-neutral fertiliser AND fuel for our vehicles, and no idiotic war on the other side of the planet could affect our fuel and fertiliser ever again.
Australia, because of its size and suitability for solar power, could become an exporter of fertiliser from green hydrogen, and help the world turn its collective backs on the volatile Middle East while also helping other countries reduce their carbon emissions. There are so many wins.
There’s one final twist in the path to this particular story. This evening I checked Facebook and saw a post from the IFLOZ Facebook Page saying they were going to concentrate on Substack, where most of their content will be by subscription. They’re doing this, they say, because Facebook has been de-emphasising content from the political left, and that results in declining ad revenue for the content creators, and they had charts to back that up. They also suggested that Facebook is doing it because their future plans will require consent from the current US regime, and so they’re basically turning down the volume of the Left in order to avoid problems with the regime. Whatever the specific reason, many left-of-centre content creators on Facebook have complained about suddenly declining page views, and so, revenue. I have no idea whether the speculations about the motivations are correct or not, but given the current regime’s constant posturing against the First Amendment to the USA’s Constitution, the speculation is at least plausible.
Still, it’s always nice to run across a topic I’m intertested in, no matter how roundabout the course may be. Apparently I won’t have a repeat of this particular path, though. There’ll be others.
Saturday, January 03, 2026
As for example
The photo up top is of my weedy back lawn yesterday afternoon. It had become about as overgrown as around a month ago (“almost” because it was three weeks between mows, not four), and this happened because of the reason I talked about last Tuesday: Rain—lost and lots of rain. The only days it didn’t rain were days I wasn’t able to do the mowing. As it happens, I was planning on visiting my mother-in-law yesterday, but when the sunny weather wasn’t going away, so I decided to do the mowing first.
When I got to my mother-in-law’s place, were laughing about not being able to remember what day it was, something I mentioned in a more serious context yesterday. After I left from my visit, I headed to one the home centres, Mitre 10 Mega, to pick up some suplies the other one (Bunnings Warehouse) doesn’t carry. I didn’t know what traffic would be like, much as I talked about on m post about Boxing Day. But wait, there’s more!
When I went to Bunnings on December 27, it was technically an ordinary Saturday, so I knew the hours would be the same. But yesterday, January 2, was a public holiday, and I realised I had no idea what the opening hours were for Mitre 10 or the supermarket I was going to afterward. I looked them up online before I left my mother-in-law’s place—and had some trouble finding the answer. Mitre 10 seemed to be their normal 7pm, but the supermarket closing was 7pm, a couple hours earlier than normal.
I got to Mire 10 around 5 to 6, picked up the first thing on my list, and then a minute later an announcement came over the P.A. that they were closing in four minutes. Fortunately, I’d looked up the aisle and bay that other items were in, and just skipped over what I hadn’t written down, and headed to the checkout, feeling a kind of disappointed frustration (though, to be clear, I still like the store: It’s NZ-owned and closer to my house than Bunnings is, but Bunnings has greater depth in some specifically hardware things, which I won’t go into right now. You’re welcome).
When I got to the supermarket, they had a sign with all their holiday hours for past two weeks, and it was, in fact, 8pm, so I could take me time shopping. I was back home before 6pm.
And speaking of rain, it was still sunny when I got home last night, but the clouds moved in and around 8:30 I heard some of the expected thunder, accompanied with heavy rain. Around midnight, the rain became extrelemy heavy and there was louder thunder. All of which was over in around an hour or so. Today started out sunny again, then yet more rain, and then thunder, returned early afternoon.
Rain has clearly been the number one topic over the past month or so in particular. I thought it was interesting how just one day had so much of what I talked about over the past week or so. But the holidays are over for now (the next one, Auckland Anniversary Day, is Monday, January 27), so it’ll mostly be mostly ordinary days. And mostly rainy, too, apparently. Oh, well.
Friday, January 02, 2026
Forgetting the weekday because of a good focus
This is the time of year when I can’t remember what day of the week it is. That’ll happen when there are two weeks in a row that each have two public holidays. This speaks volumes about how different life in New Zealand is from life in the land of my birth, but many countries have it far better than folks in the USA have it. It doesn’t have to be that way for the US, and some want to take it away from New Zealanders—though, yeah, nah, that’s not going to happen.
Christmas Day and Boxing Day (December 25 and 26) are both public holidays, and the following week January 1 and 2 are also both public holidays. There’s also a “trading ban” on Christmas Day, which, despite werdly complicated rules and exceptions, generally means most businesses must close on that day. The other three are ordinary public holidays, but in New Zealand that actually means something.
Public holidays are sometimes called “statutory holidays” (or “stat day” for short) because they’re specifically named in law and have specific regulations. For example, most full-time workers who are required to work on a public holiday will receive 1.5 times their normal hourly pay, and they’ll be entitled to another day off in lieu (as it’s called) at a time the worker and employer agree to. In reality, it’s a bit more complicated than that, with some variations because of a worker’s specific circumstances, however, that’s the gist of it.
Another important thing for workers about the public holidays for Christmas Day and Boxing Day and January 1 and 2 is that if one or both days fall on a weekend, the public holidays are observed on the following Monday, or Monday and Tuesday if both fall on a weekend. For example, in 2026 Christmas Day falls on a Friday, and Boxing Day on Saturday, so the Boxing Day public holiday for workers will be on Monday, December 28.
This same thing repeats the following week for 2027 New Year’s Day and the day after. So, most Kiwis get two four-day weekends in a row—not every year, but many years—which is supremely awesome, and it allows many folks to have a two week break from work while only using maybe six annual leave days (“vacation days” in Americanese) instead of ten. Full-time workers in New Zealand are generally entitled to 20 annual leave days per year, plus 12 paid days off for public holidays.
I mention all that, even though I have several times before, because it make a very important point: Workers’ rights to things like paid time off don’t have to rely on the graciousness or mercy of employers, and that governments can, and most do, enforce workers’ rights. American workers aren’t treated poorly compared to workers in most OECD countries because “it’s just the way it is” or because “government can’t change things”, but, rather, it’s because of weak or compromised politicians who refuse to do the right thing for working people, and instead do only the absolute bare minimum that won’t upset big corporations and oligarchs too much. They do only enough to prevent working people from using the power in their numbers to force change by electing politicians who are on the side of working people, and not consumed by doing the bidding of corporations and oligarchs.
Most politicians in US state and federal governments rely on campaign donations from corporations and oligarchs, directly or indirectly, and so, they vote to advance the interests of their financial benefactors and not the needs of ordinary working people. It’s said that “the love of money is the root of all evil”, but campaign contributions from corporations and the rich are particularly rich fertiliser for those roots, and the rotten fruit that grows is merely the logical result.
Money weakens democracy in nearly every country, and the love of money is certainly at the core of many Rightwing parties throughout the OECD, and that includes New Zealand. When conservatives are in power, we see attempts to restrict workers’ rights and to enrich corporations. But the centrist parties don’t push hard enough to do what ordinary working people want and need.
Most politicians spend most of their time telling ordinary citizens what they “can’t” have. What those things are will vary from place to place, but the tendency is pretty much universal. Politicians on both the Right and the Left do this, but there are difference: To the Right, nothing the people want is possible, but what corporations and oligarchs want always is. Centrist politicians do some things to help some ordinary people, but their difference from the Right is mainly one of degree, and perhaps a bit more humanity. Maybe this will soon change.
The mission of politicians—the people’s representatives—is to do one thing: Deliver what the people want. If something is difficult to achieve, then it’s their job to work how to deliver what the people want, and if there really are genuine trade-offs, then they must be open and honest with the people so they can weigh in on what should be priorities and what really can be deferred. In other words, politicians must do the work their bosses—voters—elected them to do. If they can’t or won’t to what voters want, they need to get out of the way.
I’ve seen signs that things are beginning to change in some countries, and that people are beginning to demand that their elected representatives do what the people want. This is the possible antidote to many governments sole focus on the needs of corporations and oligarchs. Ordinary people far outnumber the oligarchs, and only destruction of democracy can slow this gradual march toward more just societies—which means, it’s still possible for the oligarchs to kill off the infant people’s movement.
In the meantime, people like me who live in countries that respect workers will continue to sometimes get confused this time of year about what day of the week it is because of the time off that workers get at this time of year. But countries like the USA can still catch up. It’s time they did.
Christmas Day and Boxing Day (December 25 and 26) are both public holidays, and the following week January 1 and 2 are also both public holidays. There’s also a “trading ban” on Christmas Day, which, despite werdly complicated rules and exceptions, generally means most businesses must close on that day. The other three are ordinary public holidays, but in New Zealand that actually means something.
Public holidays are sometimes called “statutory holidays” (or “stat day” for short) because they’re specifically named in law and have specific regulations. For example, most full-time workers who are required to work on a public holiday will receive 1.5 times their normal hourly pay, and they’ll be entitled to another day off in lieu (as it’s called) at a time the worker and employer agree to. In reality, it’s a bit more complicated than that, with some variations because of a worker’s specific circumstances, however, that’s the gist of it.
Another important thing for workers about the public holidays for Christmas Day and Boxing Day and January 1 and 2 is that if one or both days fall on a weekend, the public holidays are observed on the following Monday, or Monday and Tuesday if both fall on a weekend. For example, in 2026 Christmas Day falls on a Friday, and Boxing Day on Saturday, so the Boxing Day public holiday for workers will be on Monday, December 28.
This same thing repeats the following week for 2027 New Year’s Day and the day after. So, most Kiwis get two four-day weekends in a row—not every year, but many years—which is supremely awesome, and it allows many folks to have a two week break from work while only using maybe six annual leave days (“vacation days” in Americanese) instead of ten. Full-time workers in New Zealand are generally entitled to 20 annual leave days per year, plus 12 paid days off for public holidays.
I mention all that, even though I have several times before, because it make a very important point: Workers’ rights to things like paid time off don’t have to rely on the graciousness or mercy of employers, and that governments can, and most do, enforce workers’ rights. American workers aren’t treated poorly compared to workers in most OECD countries because “it’s just the way it is” or because “government can’t change things”, but, rather, it’s because of weak or compromised politicians who refuse to do the right thing for working people, and instead do only the absolute bare minimum that won’t upset big corporations and oligarchs too much. They do only enough to prevent working people from using the power in their numbers to force change by electing politicians who are on the side of working people, and not consumed by doing the bidding of corporations and oligarchs.
Most politicians in US state and federal governments rely on campaign donations from corporations and oligarchs, directly or indirectly, and so, they vote to advance the interests of their financial benefactors and not the needs of ordinary working people. It’s said that “the love of money is the root of all evil”, but campaign contributions from corporations and the rich are particularly rich fertiliser for those roots, and the rotten fruit that grows is merely the logical result.
Money weakens democracy in nearly every country, and the love of money is certainly at the core of many Rightwing parties throughout the OECD, and that includes New Zealand. When conservatives are in power, we see attempts to restrict workers’ rights and to enrich corporations. But the centrist parties don’t push hard enough to do what ordinary working people want and need.
Most politicians spend most of their time telling ordinary citizens what they “can’t” have. What those things are will vary from place to place, but the tendency is pretty much universal. Politicians on both the Right and the Left do this, but there are difference: To the Right, nothing the people want is possible, but what corporations and oligarchs want always is. Centrist politicians do some things to help some ordinary people, but their difference from the Right is mainly one of degree, and perhaps a bit more humanity. Maybe this will soon change.
The mission of politicians—the people’s representatives—is to do one thing: Deliver what the people want. If something is difficult to achieve, then it’s their job to work how to deliver what the people want, and if there really are genuine trade-offs, then they must be open and honest with the people so they can weigh in on what should be priorities and what really can be deferred. In other words, politicians must do the work their bosses—voters—elected them to do. If they can’t or won’t to what voters want, they need to get out of the way.
I’ve seen signs that things are beginning to change in some countries, and that people are beginning to demand that their elected representatives do what the people want. This is the possible antidote to many governments sole focus on the needs of corporations and oligarchs. Ordinary people far outnumber the oligarchs, and only destruction of democracy can slow this gradual march toward more just societies—which means, it’s still possible for the oligarchs to kill off the infant people’s movement.
In the meantime, people like me who live in countries that respect workers will continue to sometimes get confused this time of year about what day of the week it is because of the time off that workers get at this time of year. But countries like the USA can still catch up. It’s time they did.
Saturday, December 27, 2025
Boxing the days
Yesterday was Boxing Day here in New Zealand, and that meant people flocking to the shops to take advantage of the Boxing Day Sales. I was not among them. But I did buy some things. I also learned a few things, too.
Just like last year, I bought another pair of jeans because since last year two pairs of jeans now have big holes in one or both knees, and I turned a third pair into cutoffs. I also bought a black and brown belt, one of which is a replacement, and a couple shirts. It’s rare that I’ll even look at new clothes, much less buy anything, but most of my summer shirts are now suitable only for wearing around the house, not out and about. I’m trying to slowly add to what I have available to me.
I decided that today I was going to head out to one of the home centres to buy supplies for some of my projects around the house, and then maybe head up to the supermarket. I had no idea what the traffic would be like, particularly up by the supermarket I was headed to because it’s directly across from the main car entrance to The Base shopping centre. Boxing Day Sales are still on, after all.
On the other hand, many people head out of town for some (or all) of the holidays over Christmas/New Year, so I knew it was also possible the roads would be empty. It turned out to be the latter. In fact, the main (busy) road I was on had only a bit more traffic than at night. I was impressed and pleased.
The traffic was a little thicker up by the supermarket, as I expected, but there was ample parking and was able to acquire all necessary purchases (and a few unnecessary ones…). The traffic was thicker heading toward the road I needed to turn onto, but that was totally clear after that point. It ended up being a good trip home.
The project supplies were mainly for things I’ve already talked about, plus a little for other ones I haven’t mentioned, but will as I get to them. Actually, I still hope to video at least some of the projects I work on, but if that doesn’t work, I’ll at least have photos to share.
Yesterday I worked on an expressly political blog post using the Boxing Day public holiday as a starting point, but I got bored with it. However, it may resurface around a different public holiday at some point. Maybe.
In that post-that-wasn’t, I talked about how the origins of Boxing Day are uncertain, however, one possibility is that it may date back to the late middle ages and the use of the “alms box” to collect cash donations for the poor. Those boxes were apparently opening on The Feast of Stephen—December 26, a holiday for a person some claim was “the first Christian martyr”.
I’d heard that possibility before, but this time it was the reference to “the Feast of Stephen”, because earlier I’d heard it referred to by it’s more common name, “St. Stephen’s Day”. The “feast” name is, of course, a line from the Christmas carol, Good King Wenceslas, and is based on a story about Saint Wenceslaus I, who was Duke of Bohemia ca907–935CE, who some regarded as a martyr after his death.
The lyrics for the carol was written in 1853 by English hymn writer John Mason Neale to fit the melody of a13th Century Spring/Easter Carol (maybe even back then creators were wanted to use public domain works to avoid copyright infringement?). Neale’s motivation was that he wanted to revive some of the pomp of the Catholic church in the Anglican church, including Feast Days, and that’s why his carol promoted “The Feast of Stephen”. Interestingly, some folks were angry that he’d appropriated a carol for Spring/Easter and changed it to Christmas. Apparently even back then critics didn’t approve of changing public domain works for new uses.
The Christmas Carol isn’t directly related to Boxing Day, apart from the fact that they’re both connected to the Feast of Stephen. However, because I was looking into Boxing Day, I saw the Feast of Stephen and became curious about what it had to do with the carol that mentioned it, which, in turn, led to the story of its creation and who the heck “Good King Wenceslas” was.
So, this year I again bought some “Boxing Day Sale” things online for the second year in a row, and I also learned a few things, too. I consider that a win.
Just like last year, I bought another pair of jeans because since last year two pairs of jeans now have big holes in one or both knees, and I turned a third pair into cutoffs. I also bought a black and brown belt, one of which is a replacement, and a couple shirts. It’s rare that I’ll even look at new clothes, much less buy anything, but most of my summer shirts are now suitable only for wearing around the house, not out and about. I’m trying to slowly add to what I have available to me.
I decided that today I was going to head out to one of the home centres to buy supplies for some of my projects around the house, and then maybe head up to the supermarket. I had no idea what the traffic would be like, particularly up by the supermarket I was headed to because it’s directly across from the main car entrance to The Base shopping centre. Boxing Day Sales are still on, after all.
On the other hand, many people head out of town for some (or all) of the holidays over Christmas/New Year, so I knew it was also possible the roads would be empty. It turned out to be the latter. In fact, the main (busy) road I was on had only a bit more traffic than at night. I was impressed and pleased.
The traffic was a little thicker up by the supermarket, as I expected, but there was ample parking and was able to acquire all necessary purchases (and a few unnecessary ones…). The traffic was thicker heading toward the road I needed to turn onto, but that was totally clear after that point. It ended up being a good trip home.
The project supplies were mainly for things I’ve already talked about, plus a little for other ones I haven’t mentioned, but will as I get to them. Actually, I still hope to video at least some of the projects I work on, but if that doesn’t work, I’ll at least have photos to share.
Yesterday I worked on an expressly political blog post using the Boxing Day public holiday as a starting point, but I got bored with it. However, it may resurface around a different public holiday at some point. Maybe.
In that post-that-wasn’t, I talked about how the origins of Boxing Day are uncertain, however, one possibility is that it may date back to the late middle ages and the use of the “alms box” to collect cash donations for the poor. Those boxes were apparently opening on The Feast of Stephen—December 26, a holiday for a person some claim was “the first Christian martyr”.
I’d heard that possibility before, but this time it was the reference to “the Feast of Stephen”, because earlier I’d heard it referred to by it’s more common name, “St. Stephen’s Day”. The “feast” name is, of course, a line from the Christmas carol, Good King Wenceslas, and is based on a story about Saint Wenceslaus I, who was Duke of Bohemia ca907–935CE, who some regarded as a martyr after his death.
The lyrics for the carol was written in 1853 by English hymn writer John Mason Neale to fit the melody of a13th Century Spring/Easter Carol (maybe even back then creators were wanted to use public domain works to avoid copyright infringement?). Neale’s motivation was that he wanted to revive some of the pomp of the Catholic church in the Anglican church, including Feast Days, and that’s why his carol promoted “The Feast of Stephen”. Interestingly, some folks were angry that he’d appropriated a carol for Spring/Easter and changed it to Christmas. Apparently even back then critics didn’t approve of changing public domain works for new uses.
The Christmas Carol isn’t directly related to Boxing Day, apart from the fact that they’re both connected to the Feast of Stephen. However, because I was looking into Boxing Day, I saw the Feast of Stephen and became curious about what it had to do with the carol that mentioned it, which, in turn, led to the story of its creation and who the heck “Good King Wenceslas” was.
So, this year I again bought some “Boxing Day Sale” things online for the second year in a row, and I also learned a few things, too. I consider that a win.
Friday, December 26, 2025
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2025
The video above is the annual Christmas broadcast by King Charles III, the King of New Zealand (and other places). As is usually the case, I didn’t see the message broadcast on New Zealand television, though I assume it was (I was at our family Crhistmas gathering at the time), however, I didn’t check that. At any rate, I’ve been sharing the royal messages every year for more than a decade.
I’ve never been a fan of the religiosity that the royal messages have always contained, something they do because the UK monarch is head of the Church of England (aka Anglican Church). But I’m not even remotely religious, and only a minority of New Zealanders are Anglican—actually, people who say they have any religious identification now make up a minority of New Zealanders, the majority of whom now identify as “Nones”, something I talked about last year. Still, it’s traditional for the monarch to talk about the UK’s homegrown brand of Christianity, and, of course, what I think about it is irrelevent.
These TV broadcast messages are also a tradition themselves, dating back some 68 years. As long as they (and this blog…) continue, I’ll keep sharing them. That, too, is now a tradition.
Previously:
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2024
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2023
The King’s first Christmas Broadcast – 2022 (oddly, the video is no longer available, but the post has my commentary about it.
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
I’ve never been a fan of the religiosity that the royal messages have always contained, something they do because the UK monarch is head of the Church of England (aka Anglican Church). But I’m not even remotely religious, and only a minority of New Zealanders are Anglican—actually, people who say they have any religious identification now make up a minority of New Zealanders, the majority of whom now identify as “Nones”, something I talked about last year. Still, it’s traditional for the monarch to talk about the UK’s homegrown brand of Christianity, and, of course, what I think about it is irrelevent.
These TV broadcast messages are also a tradition themselves, dating back some 68 years. As long as they (and this blog…) continue, I’ll keep sharing them. That, too, is now a tradition.
Previously:
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2024
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2023
The King’s first Christmas Broadcast – 2022 (oddly, the video is no longer available, but the post has my commentary about it.
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
Thursday, December 18, 2025
Yes, we have no commercials
There are a lot things I forget to write about for this blog, but Christmas TV ads haven’t been one of them. This year, I didn’t even have the choice.
I’ve shared and written about Christmas ads since 2010, though that post was called “Classic Christmas TV” and was just about, well, classic ads—obviously? In 2016, I started writing about ads from around the world, the first of which was an ad from the UK’s Marks & Spencer (and I still love that ad). However, over time many of the YouTube ads would disappear, leaving the “Video unavailable” placeholders. Annoying.
In 2021, I started creating YouTube Playlists of New Zealand Christmas TV ads, That way, if a video was no longer available, I oculd just delete it form the playlist, and the rest would still be visible—and the display frame would also be visible—no more “Video unavailable” placeholders. Instead, I’ll just do a strikethrough on the title of any deleted video. Amd this has worked well—until this year.
There have been NO new New Zealand Christmas TV ads this year. Instead, the two supermarket chains, New World and Woolworths, are running the same ads they ran last year (ads 2 and 3 on my 2024 playlist), there are no new Christmas ads from anyone else this year, either. As in past years, retail chains are running ads promoting whatever’s on special that week, but nothing else. Even Air New Zealand hasn’t done a Christmas ad this year, instead releasing their new general promotion video that debuted this week.
So, there’s no playlist Christmas ad playlist this year. That’s too bad, but I’m kind of matter-of-fact about such things these days. Maybe if the economy is stronger next year there’ll be new ads, but for now, take a look at the playlists for 2021 onwards (links in the left sidebar), because I play them periodically to make sure that all the videos are still there.
And, have yourself a merry little Christmas, even without my annual Christmas ad playlist.
I’ve shared and written about Christmas ads since 2010, though that post was called “Classic Christmas TV” and was just about, well, classic ads—obviously? In 2016, I started writing about ads from around the world, the first of which was an ad from the UK’s Marks & Spencer (and I still love that ad). However, over time many of the YouTube ads would disappear, leaving the “Video unavailable” placeholders. Annoying.
In 2021, I started creating YouTube Playlists of New Zealand Christmas TV ads, That way, if a video was no longer available, I oculd just delete it form the playlist, and the rest would still be visible—and the display frame would also be visible—no more “Video unavailable” placeholders. Instead, I’ll just do a strikethrough on the title of any deleted video. Amd this has worked well—until this year.
There have been NO new New Zealand Christmas TV ads this year. Instead, the two supermarket chains, New World and Woolworths, are running the same ads they ran last year (ads 2 and 3 on my 2024 playlist), there are no new Christmas ads from anyone else this year, either. As in past years, retail chains are running ads promoting whatever’s on special that week, but nothing else. Even Air New Zealand hasn’t done a Christmas ad this year, instead releasing their new general promotion video that debuted this week.
So, there’s no playlist Christmas ad playlist this year. That’s too bad, but I’m kind of matter-of-fact about such things these days. Maybe if the economy is stronger next year there’ll be new ads, but for now, take a look at the playlists for 2021 onwards (links in the left sidebar), because I play them periodically to make sure that all the videos are still there.
And, have yourself a merry little Christmas, even without my annual Christmas ad playlist.
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Flying in from the past
Tonight I saw a new Air New Zealand commercial on TV (video above). It was a new version of an ad that was running on TV when I arrived in New Zealand 30 years ago (a version is in the video at the bottom of this post). I was already in love with Nigel, of course, but that ad? It extended the love to New Zealand, too.
Both ads use the traditional song “Pōkarekare Ana”, which was composed sometime in 1914, and it’s essentially a love song. Some scenes in the new version are reminiscent of ones in the 1990s ad, with some influences form their c2000 ad (about which more in a bit).
The 1990s and current ad are both effective at creating an emotional response, particularly for New Zealanders, who are the primary target of the ads. They certainly work for me, anyway. It’s the scenery combined with the song and the arrangement of it. But I always thought that the birds coming together to form the Air New Zealand logo at the end of the 1990s ad was especially magical.
Here’s the 1990s version:
Between the two versions I liked was the circa 2000 ad (at the bottom of this post, and it’s the longest version, and so, seldom aired). That ad didn’t move me. I think the difference was that the 2000s ad was about New Zealand connecting with the world and vice versa, and so, it was less focussed on New Zealand. That’s neither good nor bad, just a difference, and, I think, the reason I didn’t like it as much as the other two. Having said that, I wasn’t a fan of the key change in the middle of the song in that version, but it may have only been in the long version—I honestly can’t remember.
The tagline is different in all three versions, too. In the 1990s, it was “Air New Zealand. The airline of the world’s greatest travellers.” In the circa 2000 ad, it was “Air New Zealand. The world’s warmest welcome.” And in the current version, the tagline is, “Of New Zealand. For New Zealand. Air New Zealand.” Given New Zealand’s bad economy of the past few years, and the fact that the United States now seems hostile to foreign tourists, maybe it;s a good idea to centre the current ad on New Zealand, and to do so while offering “all the feels”. In my opinion.
Finally, the lyrics of the part when they soar to sing were stronger than I expected: E hine e / hoki mai ra. / Ka mate ahau / I te aroha e. In English, that’s “Oh girl / return to me, / I could die / of love for you. I knew the song was a love song, likely written about soldiers heading off to fight in World War One, but it’s also a quintessentially New Zealand song, and that’s the context I first connected with it (I didn’t read the lyrics, especially the translation, until many years later).
This new ad reminded me so much of an ad I fell in love with when New Zealand was still new to me—and me to New Zealand, for that matter. That 1990s ad really was a small part of what gave me an emotional connection to the country, and the new ad reminded me of that, too. It’s nice when that happens.
Both ads use the traditional song “Pōkarekare Ana”, which was composed sometime in 1914, and it’s essentially a love song. Some scenes in the new version are reminiscent of ones in the 1990s ad, with some influences form their c2000 ad (about which more in a bit).
The 1990s and current ad are both effective at creating an emotional response, particularly for New Zealanders, who are the primary target of the ads. They certainly work for me, anyway. It’s the scenery combined with the song and the arrangement of it. But I always thought that the birds coming together to form the Air New Zealand logo at the end of the 1990s ad was especially magical.
Here’s the 1990s version:
Between the two versions I liked was the circa 2000 ad (at the bottom of this post, and it’s the longest version, and so, seldom aired). That ad didn’t move me. I think the difference was that the 2000s ad was about New Zealand connecting with the world and vice versa, and so, it was less focussed on New Zealand. That’s neither good nor bad, just a difference, and, I think, the reason I didn’t like it as much as the other two. Having said that, I wasn’t a fan of the key change in the middle of the song in that version, but it may have only been in the long version—I honestly can’t remember.
The tagline is different in all three versions, too. In the 1990s, it was “Air New Zealand. The airline of the world’s greatest travellers.” In the circa 2000 ad, it was “Air New Zealand. The world’s warmest welcome.” And in the current version, the tagline is, “Of New Zealand. For New Zealand. Air New Zealand.” Given New Zealand’s bad economy of the past few years, and the fact that the United States now seems hostile to foreign tourists, maybe it;s a good idea to centre the current ad on New Zealand, and to do so while offering “all the feels”. In my opinion.
Finally, the lyrics of the part when they soar to sing were stronger than I expected: E hine e / hoki mai ra. / Ka mate ahau / I te aroha e. In English, that’s “Oh girl / return to me, / I could die / of love for you. I knew the song was a love song, likely written about soldiers heading off to fight in World War One, but it’s also a quintessentially New Zealand song, and that’s the context I first connected with it (I didn’t read the lyrics, especially the translation, until many years later).
This new ad reminded me so much of an ad I fell in love with when New Zealand was still new to me—and me to New Zealand, for that matter. That 1990s ad really was a small part of what gave me an emotional connection to the country, and the new ad reminded me of that, too. It’s nice when that happens.
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Fast track to waiting
Today the current NZ government announced changes it plans to make to speed up supermarket construction based on results of their official RFI (Request For Information) to the supermarket industry. The government wants to entice new retailers to increase competition in the supermarket industry. There’s still a very long way to go.
Nicola Willis’ announcement for the government is basically just another “things we’re going to do later” sort of thing, and not yet any concrete action. However, it’s nevertheless a little bit of progress. As usual, “the devil’s in the details”, but supermarkets do need an easier and faster path to build new stores, especially (or maybe only?) when that increases competition, because competition is the entire goal. So, the government plans to create a “fast track” to make it quicker and easier to bui;d supermarkets by allowing them to get consent to build faster (one year rather than 18 months), and to also allow them to use standard plans to speed up approvals and building permits.
Competition has already proven itself: When Costco opened in Auckland, it drove down prices among competitors in the area—and there were also news stories of people driving six hours to buy butter at Costco for people in their communities because the price, at the time, was about half of what the two existing supermarket chains were charging. Right now, there’s no real competition in most of the country, with the existing two supermarket chains being the only option.
Costco said not long after their store opened that they planned to expand in New Zealand, and clearly that would be a very good thing for families. However, that will do little for single person households (mine) or retired people (me again) who can’t use supersized packages of food. We need competition in the supermarket industry that includes “normal size” supermarkets, too.
Willis talked about existing companies wanting to expand, and I hope that happens, too, because in an ideal world competition should be an “all of the above” situation, not a “this or that” one. However, it matters which companies want to expand. New Zealand has a number of small grocery retailing companies, including specialists, like for meat, fruits/vegetables, or for different communities (especially South Asian and East Asian). Would limited retailers really help much when we need more general supermarkets? Also some of the existing smaller companies may be foreign-owned, for all we know, and that could be its own issue.
We know that inviting in foreign corporations will obviously result in profits being shipped overseas, but it may also make New Zealand more vulnerable to international supply chain disruptions that the existing duopoly has somewhat less exposure to because they both rely heavily on producers in New Zealand and Australia. Over-reliance on foreign (in this case meaning not “Australasian”) companies could create a whole bunch of new problems. Personally, I don’t have confidence that NZ’s current Rightwing government will put the national interest ahead of foreign corporations, but I’d be delighted for them to prove my scepticism wrong.
I also noticed that Willis said there was no participation in the RFI from Aldi or Lidl, both of whom have expanded internationally. Aldi is established in Australia (Lidl isn’t there), so one would’ve thought it’d be an easy add-on for Aldi. Why didn’t Willis’ team reach out to the companies individually when they didn’t participate in the RFI? They both would have insights into what a foreign company might need to be tempted to enter the NZ market. After all, there were no promises of anything to any companies—it was just an RFI.
Things being what they are, the most optimistic view, perhaps, is that new supermarkets from either new foreign entrants or expansion of smaller existing operators are probably three years away, maybe longer. In the meantime, we’ll have to continue paying higher prices than people in Australia or the UK. Overall, food prices in New Zealand are around 3% higher than the average paid in the OECD. That, too, won’t change any time soon.
All of which is why the government’s announcement today is good, but just another (very) small step on a journey that’s still hundreds of metaphorical kilometres from its end. We need competition to drive down supermarket prices, but, at the moment, getting that is still a very long way off, despite today’s announcement.
Nicola Willis’ announcement for the government is basically just another “things we’re going to do later” sort of thing, and not yet any concrete action. However, it’s nevertheless a little bit of progress. As usual, “the devil’s in the details”, but supermarkets do need an easier and faster path to build new stores, especially (or maybe only?) when that increases competition, because competition is the entire goal. So, the government plans to create a “fast track” to make it quicker and easier to bui;d supermarkets by allowing them to get consent to build faster (one year rather than 18 months), and to also allow them to use standard plans to speed up approvals and building permits.
Competition has already proven itself: When Costco opened in Auckland, it drove down prices among competitors in the area—and there were also news stories of people driving six hours to buy butter at Costco for people in their communities because the price, at the time, was about half of what the two existing supermarket chains were charging. Right now, there’s no real competition in most of the country, with the existing two supermarket chains being the only option.
Costco said not long after their store opened that they planned to expand in New Zealand, and clearly that would be a very good thing for families. However, that will do little for single person households (mine) or retired people (me again) who can’t use supersized packages of food. We need competition in the supermarket industry that includes “normal size” supermarkets, too.
Willis talked about existing companies wanting to expand, and I hope that happens, too, because in an ideal world competition should be an “all of the above” situation, not a “this or that” one. However, it matters which companies want to expand. New Zealand has a number of small grocery retailing companies, including specialists, like for meat, fruits/vegetables, or for different communities (especially South Asian and East Asian). Would limited retailers really help much when we need more general supermarkets? Also some of the existing smaller companies may be foreign-owned, for all we know, and that could be its own issue.
We know that inviting in foreign corporations will obviously result in profits being shipped overseas, but it may also make New Zealand more vulnerable to international supply chain disruptions that the existing duopoly has somewhat less exposure to because they both rely heavily on producers in New Zealand and Australia. Over-reliance on foreign (in this case meaning not “Australasian”) companies could create a whole bunch of new problems. Personally, I don’t have confidence that NZ’s current Rightwing government will put the national interest ahead of foreign corporations, but I’d be delighted for them to prove my scepticism wrong.
I also noticed that Willis said there was no participation in the RFI from Aldi or Lidl, both of whom have expanded internationally. Aldi is established in Australia (Lidl isn’t there), so one would’ve thought it’d be an easy add-on for Aldi. Why didn’t Willis’ team reach out to the companies individually when they didn’t participate in the RFI? They both would have insights into what a foreign company might need to be tempted to enter the NZ market. After all, there were no promises of anything to any companies—it was just an RFI.
Things being what they are, the most optimistic view, perhaps, is that new supermarkets from either new foreign entrants or expansion of smaller existing operators are probably three years away, maybe longer. In the meantime, we’ll have to continue paying higher prices than people in Australia or the UK. Overall, food prices in New Zealand are around 3% higher than the average paid in the OECD. That, too, won’t change any time soon.
All of which is why the government’s announcement today is good, but just another (very) small step on a journey that’s still hundreds of metaphorical kilometres from its end. We need competition to drive down supermarket prices, but, at the moment, getting that is still a very long way off, despite today’s announcement.
Tuesday, July 01, 2025
Senseless census?
The current New Zealand government announced recently that it’s scrapping New Zealand’s five-yearly census. The government says it’s doing this because of rising costs, which, it thinks, can’t be justified when much of the information the census surveys can be extracted from data collected from various government agencies. Are they right? Or will their focus on cost alone cost New Zealanders in other ways?
In announcing the change, Statistics Minister Shane Reti described the change as being a”sharpened focus on quality economic, population stats”. Beginning in 2030, the new system will end the traditional nationwide census and will adopt a new approach “using administrative data, supported by a smaller annual survey and targeted data collection.” Reti claimed this “will save time and money while delivering more timely insights into New Zealand’s population,” but will it really? I think they’re overlooking the importance of what isn’t collected by anything except the census.
The government plans to use what’s called “administrative data”, which is basically statistics collected by various government agencies every day, things like tax records, education enrolments, health data, and other government data. in fact, Stats NZ uses administrative data for reports between censuses. Also, some of that sort of data is NOT collected by the current census, and so, it’s true that routinely including administrative data will give Parliament and the government of the day a better idea of the state of the country—or, at least, programmes central government manages.
However, the census also collects data no one esle does, including sociological and cultural data, such as, languages spoken in the home, religious affiliation and non-affiliation, and, most recently, sexual orientation and gender identity. Administrative data may sometimes hint at such data, but there’s no reason for them to collect it. To be blunt, it’s not merely about taxation or performance of the economy, so government agencies don’t need, and so, don’t collect such data. This kind of data provides a fuller picture of who, exactly, New Zealanders are, things beyond empoyment, tax, student debt, or any other things government departments collect information on.
Censuses provide the data that helps elected governments to work out not just where government spending is needed, but also WHY the money needs to be spent. Census data also gives local government insights into where new parks, public libraries, and various local improvements will be needed. Basically, getting the fullest, most complete picture of the people helps elected representatives to better represent the people who put them in power, as well as all the people who didn’t for whatever reason, like, for example, because they’re under 18.
Continuing the financial argument, Reti said, “Relying solely on a nationwide census day is no longer financially viable. In 2013, the census cost $104 million. In 2023, costs had risen astronomically to $325 million and the next was expected to come in at $400 million over five years [emphasis added]. I have absolutely no idea what that “over five years” thing means, and neither the press release nor media coverage have explained it—at all. Speaking of unexplained things, the announcement says that the census will end in 2030, but the next census was due to be in 2028—two years before the announced end of the census, so what’s going on? Are we not doing the 2028 census? If not, why isn’t the end date 2028 instead of 2030? The press release doesn’t say, but I saw a journalist’s comment (sadly, I didn’t bookmark it…) that we may have done our last census. Does the current government know what's up?
Still, despite Reti’s focus on cost alone, and even ignoring his weird, unexplained conflicting timeline, he was correct about one thing when he said, “successive censuses have been beset with issues or failed to meet expectations.” Absolutely true. It’s also absolutely true that we don’t know if the current government ever explored ways to improve the census rather than killing it off, because they don’t seem to have ever mentioned doing that, or having decided not to do that.
I have huge concerns about whether any of the data after the census ends will be complete, or even as useful. Stats NZ is the agency that currently conducts the census and will presumably collate the administrative data and the results from the “smaller annual survey and targeted data collection” the current government claims will fill in the missing data from the cancelled census. Will Stats NZ actually even be ABLE to get useful information about the needs of minority and vulnerable communities through the those planned targeted special surveys? Asking people who already mistrust government to do the census is a huge ask right now, but getting them to do a special survey most people don’t get asked to do sounds like it’s destined to fail. In fact, this non-compliance could make the “errors” in recent censuses seem very minor.
Conservative governments always look to cut costs, and so, services provided by government. In general, those who are obsessed with the cost of everything seldom understand the true value of anything. The current coalition government has the numbers to push through the required legislation, though if they lose the 2026 election, the new government could repeal the changes—or, not. That, too, is unknown territory.
To me, this issue isn’t merely about money, but also about the quality of the data, and I’m not convinced that what the current government is proposing with provide quality data that elected representatives in Parliament and local government alike need. As a middle ground, it seems to me that switching to a decennial census (like the USA has) could allow the collection of census data to periodically correct the data collected by other means, while still saving money. Maybe in time, as systems improve, the census wouldn’t be needed, but I’m not convinced that time is now.
Word nerd footnote: The formal term for a census conducted once every five years is to call it a “quinquennial census”. I can't remember ever hearing anyone using the term quinquennial, either for that or to refer to something that last five years (its other meaning). But I avoided using it in this post—until this footnote.
In announcing the change, Statistics Minister Shane Reti described the change as being a”sharpened focus on quality economic, population stats”. Beginning in 2030, the new system will end the traditional nationwide census and will adopt a new approach “using administrative data, supported by a smaller annual survey and targeted data collection.” Reti claimed this “will save time and money while delivering more timely insights into New Zealand’s population,” but will it really? I think they’re overlooking the importance of what isn’t collected by anything except the census.
The government plans to use what’s called “administrative data”, which is basically statistics collected by various government agencies every day, things like tax records, education enrolments, health data, and other government data. in fact, Stats NZ uses administrative data for reports between censuses. Also, some of that sort of data is NOT collected by the current census, and so, it’s true that routinely including administrative data will give Parliament and the government of the day a better idea of the state of the country—or, at least, programmes central government manages.
However, the census also collects data no one esle does, including sociological and cultural data, such as, languages spoken in the home, religious affiliation and non-affiliation, and, most recently, sexual orientation and gender identity. Administrative data may sometimes hint at such data, but there’s no reason for them to collect it. To be blunt, it’s not merely about taxation or performance of the economy, so government agencies don’t need, and so, don’t collect such data. This kind of data provides a fuller picture of who, exactly, New Zealanders are, things beyond empoyment, tax, student debt, or any other things government departments collect information on.
Censuses provide the data that helps elected governments to work out not just where government spending is needed, but also WHY the money needs to be spent. Census data also gives local government insights into where new parks, public libraries, and various local improvements will be needed. Basically, getting the fullest, most complete picture of the people helps elected representatives to better represent the people who put them in power, as well as all the people who didn’t for whatever reason, like, for example, because they’re under 18.
Continuing the financial argument, Reti said, “Relying solely on a nationwide census day is no longer financially viable. In 2013, the census cost $104 million. In 2023, costs had risen astronomically to $325 million and the next was expected to come in at $400 million over five years [emphasis added]. I have absolutely no idea what that “over five years” thing means, and neither the press release nor media coverage have explained it—at all. Speaking of unexplained things, the announcement says that the census will end in 2030, but the next census was due to be in 2028—two years before the announced end of the census, so what’s going on? Are we not doing the 2028 census? If not, why isn’t the end date 2028 instead of 2030? The press release doesn’t say, but I saw a journalist’s comment (sadly, I didn’t bookmark it…) that we may have done our last census. Does the current government know what's up?
Still, despite Reti’s focus on cost alone, and even ignoring his weird, unexplained conflicting timeline, he was correct about one thing when he said, “successive censuses have been beset with issues or failed to meet expectations.” Absolutely true. It’s also absolutely true that we don’t know if the current government ever explored ways to improve the census rather than killing it off, because they don’t seem to have ever mentioned doing that, or having decided not to do that.
I have huge concerns about whether any of the data after the census ends will be complete, or even as useful. Stats NZ is the agency that currently conducts the census and will presumably collate the administrative data and the results from the “smaller annual survey and targeted data collection” the current government claims will fill in the missing data from the cancelled census. Will Stats NZ actually even be ABLE to get useful information about the needs of minority and vulnerable communities through the those planned targeted special surveys? Asking people who already mistrust government to do the census is a huge ask right now, but getting them to do a special survey most people don’t get asked to do sounds like it’s destined to fail. In fact, this non-compliance could make the “errors” in recent censuses seem very minor.
Conservative governments always look to cut costs, and so, services provided by government. In general, those who are obsessed with the cost of everything seldom understand the true value of anything. The current coalition government has the numbers to push through the required legislation, though if they lose the 2026 election, the new government could repeal the changes—or, not. That, too, is unknown territory.
To me, this issue isn’t merely about money, but also about the quality of the data, and I’m not convinced that what the current government is proposing with provide quality data that elected representatives in Parliament and local government alike need. As a middle ground, it seems to me that switching to a decennial census (like the USA has) could allow the collection of census data to periodically correct the data collected by other means, while still saving money. Maybe in time, as systems improve, the census wouldn’t be needed, but I’m not convinced that time is now.
Word nerd footnote: The formal term for a census conducted once every five years is to call it a “quinquennial census”. I can't remember ever hearing anyone using the term quinquennial, either for that or to refer to something that last five years (its other meaning). But I avoided using it in this post—until this footnote.
Tuesday, June 03, 2025
The non-birthday birthday holiday thing
Today was the first day of the work week for most New Zealanders, as it is every year at this time. That’s because the first Monday in June is the King’s Birthday public holiday, which means this past weekend was a three-day holiday weekend. It used to be the last public holiday until Labour Day at the end of October, but now we have Matariki (also known as “Māori New Year”) which comes between the two, and this year it will be on Friday, June 20
Technically, the holiday is actually the “Reigning Monarch’s Birthday” or some such (that’s what it was called in my various employment contracts), because it’s not their actual birthday. The late Queen of New Zealand, Elizabeth II, was actually born on April 21, and her successor and son, King Charles III, was born on November 14. I have a hunch that while most New Zealanders know that the first Monday in June is just a public holiday, I doubt all that many know when the monarch’s actual birthday is. For some unknown reason, I somehow memorised King Charles’ actual birthday, but I could never remember the exact birthday of our late queen, aside from the fact she was born in April. So, yay me? Yeah, I’ll go with that.
King’s Birthday is one of two pubic holidays on which honours are handed out (the other is New Year’s Day), but it’s a werid process. Technically, anyone can nominate someone (other than themselves) online. The nominations go to a special committee chaired by the Prime Minister of the day (currently the National Party’s Chris Luxon). This year, additional committee members include the leaders of the parties in Luxon’s coalition, Winston Peters of NZ First and David Seymour of Act. The other members of the committee are from all three parties in the coalition.
After the committee reviews the list (according to some sort of process), the prime minister makes a recommendation to the King of New Zealand, and he then approves the honours list, as the saying goes, “on the prime minister’s advice”. Put another way, it’s kind of a rubber stamp. Naturally, there are problems with this system.
First, and most obviously, it’s controlled by the government of the day. Traditional, National Party-led governments reward business people, and Labour Party-led governments tend to reward teachers and union/worker organisers. Both tend to reward community organisers, as well as folks in the arts, and sport, though ratios may vary between the two.
I always read through the entire list of folks getting an honour (Related: This year’s full list of King’s Birthday Honours), and I seldom recognise very many names. Whenever I raise an eyebrow at an honours list, it’s inevitably a National Party-led government that’s created it. This year was no different.
The one that jumped out at me was them honouring Ruth Richardson, a neoliberal’s neoliberal, who was Finance Minister from 1990 to 1993 in the Fourth National Government led by Jim Bolger as Prime Minister. She was the first female to hold the position, which absolutely is notable—or, it would be if she hadn’t been so absolutely awful. Darien Fenton, a former Labour Party Member of Parliament, summed it up well on her Facebook page:
New Zealand still hasn’t fully recovered from the damage done by the 1991 Budget, nor from the neoliberal takeover of Labour before that which also caused huge damage to New Zealand. The architects of Labour’s awful neoliberal policies natually joined with Richardson to establish the expressly neoliberal Act Party, and neither they not Act have wavered from their war against working people in favour of the rich—leopards really don’t change their spots, apparently.
All of this just underscores why the honours process should never be under the control of the government of the day: Partisanship always gets in the way. I think that a ministerial committee (made up of non-political career ministry workers) should review all nominations and make recommendations to the government of the day that they can either accept or reject. Ideally, that should be it—the politicians shouldn’t be allowed to add strictly partisan nominees, but maybe they could be allowed to add a certain number (5?) of lower-level honours. In my opinion.
While I’m a huge fan of public holidays—especially because they matter in New Zealand—I’m like most New Zealanders in that, for me, the King’s Birthday public holiday is nothing more than a three-day holiday weekend. Honestly, I don’t even care about the Honours List, even when I think one includes people who shouldn’t be honoured. After all, people who have opposite political beliefs from mine probably think the same of lists put out by a Labour-led government. It is the way of things.
So, a three-day holiday weekend was had. Happy us!
Related: "King's Birthday Honours: Dai Henwood, Tim Southee and Jude Dobson among those recognised" – RNZ
Technically, the holiday is actually the “Reigning Monarch’s Birthday” or some such (that’s what it was called in my various employment contracts), because it’s not their actual birthday. The late Queen of New Zealand, Elizabeth II, was actually born on April 21, and her successor and son, King Charles III, was born on November 14. I have a hunch that while most New Zealanders know that the first Monday in June is just a public holiday, I doubt all that many know when the monarch’s actual birthday is. For some unknown reason, I somehow memorised King Charles’ actual birthday, but I could never remember the exact birthday of our late queen, aside from the fact she was born in April. So, yay me? Yeah, I’ll go with that.
King’s Birthday is one of two pubic holidays on which honours are handed out (the other is New Year’s Day), but it’s a werid process. Technically, anyone can nominate someone (other than themselves) online. The nominations go to a special committee chaired by the Prime Minister of the day (currently the National Party’s Chris Luxon). This year, additional committee members include the leaders of the parties in Luxon’s coalition, Winston Peters of NZ First and David Seymour of Act. The other members of the committee are from all three parties in the coalition.
After the committee reviews the list (according to some sort of process), the prime minister makes a recommendation to the King of New Zealand, and he then approves the honours list, as the saying goes, “on the prime minister’s advice”. Put another way, it’s kind of a rubber stamp. Naturally, there are problems with this system.
First, and most obviously, it’s controlled by the government of the day. Traditional, National Party-led governments reward business people, and Labour Party-led governments tend to reward teachers and union/worker organisers. Both tend to reward community organisers, as well as folks in the arts, and sport, though ratios may vary between the two.
I always read through the entire list of folks getting an honour (Related: This year’s full list of King’s Birthday Honours), and I seldom recognise very many names. Whenever I raise an eyebrow at an honours list, it’s inevitably a National Party-led government that’s created it. This year was no different.
The one that jumped out at me was them honouring Ruth Richardson, a neoliberal’s neoliberal, who was Finance Minister from 1990 to 1993 in the Fourth National Government led by Jim Bolger as Prime Minister. She was the first female to hold the position, which absolutely is notable—or, it would be if she hadn’t been so absolutely awful. Darien Fenton, a former Labour Party Member of Parliament, summed it up well on her Facebook page:
Ruth Richardson did untold damage that our country wears til this day. But 30 years on, she is still boasting about it: "I have always worn those reforms that I championed as a badge of honour, and the restoration of New Zealand's fortunes made it worth it. So I guess this award thirty years down the track is a recognition of that work." Nicola Willis [the current National Party Finance Minister and Deputy Leader of her party] is following in her tradition.Richarsons’s 1991 "Mother of all Budgets" drastically cut benefits to “encourage employment”, but it led to an explosion in income inequality and poverty, and general hardship for the poorest New Zealanders. It wasn’t until 2016 that there was a small effective increase under National, and then Labour largely restored pre-1991 funding levels 2020-21. Richardson’s policies were so toxic that National barely won re-election in 1993 (they had a one seat majority in those pre-MMP days), and she was fired from the Finance Minister role, so she decided to resign from Parliament rather than accept a different Cabinet position, thus forcing an expensive by-election on NZ taxpayers, which, in my opinion, is the ultimate “fuck you” from a selfish, arrogant, and narcissistic politician.
New Zealand still hasn’t fully recovered from the damage done by the 1991 Budget, nor from the neoliberal takeover of Labour before that which also caused huge damage to New Zealand. The architects of Labour’s awful neoliberal policies natually joined with Richardson to establish the expressly neoliberal Act Party, and neither they not Act have wavered from their war against working people in favour of the rich—leopards really don’t change their spots, apparently.
All of this just underscores why the honours process should never be under the control of the government of the day: Partisanship always gets in the way. I think that a ministerial committee (made up of non-political career ministry workers) should review all nominations and make recommendations to the government of the day that they can either accept or reject. Ideally, that should be it—the politicians shouldn’t be allowed to add strictly partisan nominees, but maybe they could be allowed to add a certain number (5?) of lower-level honours. In my opinion.
While I’m a huge fan of public holidays—especially because they matter in New Zealand—I’m like most New Zealanders in that, for me, the King’s Birthday public holiday is nothing more than a three-day holiday weekend. Honestly, I don’t even care about the Honours List, even when I think one includes people who shouldn’t be honoured. After all, people who have opposite political beliefs from mine probably think the same of lists put out by a Labour-led government. It is the way of things.
So, a three-day holiday weekend was had. Happy us!
Related: "King's Birthday Honours: Dai Henwood, Tim Southee and Jude Dobson among those recognised" – RNZ
Sunday, May 04, 2025
Behind my ‘Weekend Diversion’ posts
It’s Sunday, and that often means a “Weekend Diversion” post about pop music, though the next one isn’t until next week. However, one of the important resources for those posts had a significant anniversary this week, and that’s definitely worth noting.
This past Friday, May 2, the official New Zealand music chart turned 50. The very first song to be listed at Number One was “Yesterday was Just the Beginning of My Life” by Mark Williams (it’s available to watch on NZ On Screen, however, that may not be viewable in all countries, at least not without using a VPN). I never heard the song until I came to New Zealand, and even then it was kind of by accident: 20 years after it went to Number One, it wasn’t exactly cool anymore. It didn’t chart in any other country.
Because the official chart is so (relatively) young, it charts, so to speak, a LOT of New Zealand pop culture history as it happened. For example, it documents the first single entirely in Te reo Māori, “Poi E”, which I talked about way back in 2010. The Aotearoa Music Charts site has published a a “50 Iconic Chart Moments” infographic, which provides insight into part of NZ’s pop culture history over the past 50 years—even without being eve vaguely familiar with the songs.
The official NZ music chart provides the local context for my “Weekend Diversion” music posts, and that’s incredibly valuable to me—and interesting, too. Like all bloggers, I have many, many resources to refer to when writing my posts, but this one has been very important. And acknowledging its 50th birthday on the day of the week on which I often celebrate pop music seems to me to be utterly appropriate. Happy Birthday, NZ Music Chart! And happy NZ Music Month, too.
This past Friday, May 2, the official New Zealand music chart turned 50. The very first song to be listed at Number One was “Yesterday was Just the Beginning of My Life” by Mark Williams (it’s available to watch on NZ On Screen, however, that may not be viewable in all countries, at least not without using a VPN). I never heard the song until I came to New Zealand, and even then it was kind of by accident: 20 years after it went to Number One, it wasn’t exactly cool anymore. It didn’t chart in any other country.
Because the official chart is so (relatively) young, it charts, so to speak, a LOT of New Zealand pop culture history as it happened. For example, it documents the first single entirely in Te reo Māori, “Poi E”, which I talked about way back in 2010. The Aotearoa Music Charts site has published a a “50 Iconic Chart Moments” infographic, which provides insight into part of NZ’s pop culture history over the past 50 years—even without being eve vaguely familiar with the songs.
The official NZ music chart provides the local context for my “Weekend Diversion” music posts, and that’s incredibly valuable to me—and interesting, too. Like all bloggers, I have many, many resources to refer to when writing my posts, but this one has been very important. And acknowledging its 50th birthday on the day of the week on which I often celebrate pop music seems to me to be utterly appropriate. Happy Birthday, NZ Music Chart! And happy NZ Music Month, too.
Monday, April 21, 2025
The weird holiday weekend
Today is Easter Monday, a public holiday in New Zealand, and the conclusion of a four-day holiday weekend. It’s also the weirdest holiday weekend. Still.
I wasn’t originally going to say anything about it this year, especially because I pretty much said all I wanted to in a post on Easter Monday last year, especially my criticism of the wacky and very confusing trading ban rules (most shops are supposed to be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, even though Easter isn’t a public holiday, and no TV ads can be broadcast on either of those days, or Christmas Day, not until after noon on Anzac Day and every Sunday. There’s since been an update to to something I said in that post last year, especially about the ad bans. I wrote:
I still think the trading bans should be removed from Good Friday and Easter, not the least because New Zealand is now majority “no religion”, but mostly because those holidays don’t have the same sort of traditions like family gatherings that Christmas Day does (the other all-day holiday with a trading ban, plus Anzac Day morning has a trading ban, too). So I’m fine with keeping the ban on trading Christmas Day, but the trading bans on Good Friday and Easter Sunday seem silly to me. At the very least, the TV advertising bans should be ended, and maybe they finally soon will be.
I wasn’t originally going to say anything about it this year, especially because I pretty much said all I wanted to in a post on Easter Monday last year, especially my criticism of the wacky and very confusing trading ban rules (most shops are supposed to be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, even though Easter isn’t a public holiday, and no TV ads can be broadcast on either of those days, or Christmas Day, not until after noon on Anzac Day and every Sunday. There’s since been an update to to something I said in that post last year, especially about the ad bans. I wrote:
The current broadcasting minister, a former TV show host of dubious ability as a minister, has blandly promised a re-write of the [Broadcasting] Act (written way before the Internet or streaming services were a thing), but given the chaos under our current three-ring circus coalition government, I doubt it’ll actually happen. I think that ending the ad bans ought to be done as quickly as possible: They make absolutely no sense, deny NZ broadcasters revenue that foreigners still get, and has nothing whatsoever to do with New Zealand workers and days off.The first update is that the Media Minister I wrote about was sacked only a few weeks after my post (apparently I’m very influential…). Then, in December of last year, her replacement as Media Minister announced that the government would introduce legislation to allow TV advertising on Sundays and public holidays, because the ad bans don’t apply to streaming services (like YouTube) or to radio, meaning broadcast TV is losing money that other media providers can still get. The Minister told RNZ in the linked article,"Traditional media outlets are operating in an extremely difficult environment and as the government, we must ensure regulatory settings are enabling the best chance of success." Indeed. He also said it “could generate approximately $6 million for the industry” which doesn’t sound like much to me. Even so, I think that’s absolutely the right thing to do—though the government hasn’t yet actually passed the bill.
I still think the trading bans should be removed from Good Friday and Easter, not the least because New Zealand is now majority “no religion”, but mostly because those holidays don’t have the same sort of traditions like family gatherings that Christmas Day does (the other all-day holiday with a trading ban, plus Anzac Day morning has a trading ban, too). So I’m fine with keeping the ban on trading Christmas Day, but the trading bans on Good Friday and Easter Sunday seem silly to me. At the very least, the TV advertising bans should be ended, and maybe they finally soon will be.
Saturday, March 01, 2025
I’ve been walking, yes indeed
February was a good month overall, especially my goal at this point is still to build up stamina, and I think I’m doing that. I thought I’d share some stats from this February—something I may do again at the end of March, at the end of the quarter, but if I do any updates after that, it’ll probably only be at the end of each quarter.
In February, my walking workouts covered a total of 52.68 kilometres (35.219319 miles), compared to 46.36 kilometres (28.806768 miles) in January. My average pace on my workouts over the month was 14:04 per kilometre, compared to 13:09 in January.
I had an average daily total daily of 7141 steps per day in February, which includes all my steps, not just those from the walking workouts (the workouts don’t track steps for some reason). The average total distance I covered each day in February was 5.78 kilometres (3.591525 miles), again, that’s total distance walked, not just from workouts; I only know my distance from workouts alone because of my spreadsheet. The totals in January were pretty similar, however, the difference between this year and last is significant: In February 2024, I had a daily average of 3,953 total steps per day and an average total distance of 3.36 kilometres (2.23694 miles) per day. February was my worst month in 2024 (after that month, my overall totals were much better.
All of those are just numbers, and honestly probably of interest to me alone. So I decided to have a bit of fun: The map up shows the towns in a 50 kilometre radius of Hamilton [SOURCE]. It’s not necessarily possible to easily walk to some of those towns, and certainly not by me, but it’s kind of interesting to see how far 50 kilometres really is. As a bonus, several places I’ve talked about at one point or another—like Cambridge, Raglan, Huntly, and Matamata—are all within that circle, and others that I’ve talked about, and that had roles in my past life, like Paeroa, Thames, Pukekohe, Waiuku, Clarks Beach, and Te Kuiti are all visible.
The thing about these stats, and even the map, is that looking at the data visually on a spreadsheet (or even on that map) somehow keeps me committed to the plan. Some of it’s probably that I’m competitive with myself, and I constantly want to do better than I’ve done in the past. I want to try to tap into that self-competitiveness to get some other things done, too, because maybe it’ll work for other plans and goals, too? I know some people get more stuff done when they make things like chores into a game, and, in a sense, that’s what I’ve been doing.
Still, February is my only full calendar month of daily walks so far (plus most of January, of course), so it’s a bit early to take a victory lap. I want this to be a lifestyle change, and not just a temporary obsession. Creating opportunities for me to compete with myself—including my making a spreadsheet with my data—may do exactly that.
Thursday, December 26, 2024
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2024
Just like last year, I didn’t see the broadcast of the King’s Christmas Broadcast (video above), though I know it was broadcast in New Zealand on Christmas Day because a friend mentioned watching it. I checked on YouTube after I got home last night, but, also like last year, it wasn’t posted yet. I watched it this morning, and found out that it had been posted in the wee hours of the night NZ time, well after I'd gone to bed.
I thought that King Charles did a good a job, and the video itself was well-made. The late Queen used to to mix up the video a bit from time to time, which was nice, so it’s good to see the King continuing that. Because the monarch is the head of the Church of England, some amount of religiosity is probably pretty much mandatory, but I’m impressed that the King, while talking about the Christian Christmas story and even a hymn, also mentioned people with “no religion”. Overall, I think his tone is pretty much on point: Religious for the religious, while acknowledging that not everyone is religious.
I thought the King handled the talk of peace as directly as he could without taking a political position on and of the any wars, something monarchs aren't allowed to do (that’s the job of the elected government). Despite that constraint, he nevertheless was able to stress the importance of peace.
I noted last year that the King “seemed more relaxed and at ease in front of the camera than his late mother did”, and that’s still true, but I’ve also noticed that his manor overall is much less formal than his mother’s was—one might even say he often seems like a regular person. The video has several scenes of the King being hugged, and I simply cannot even imagine ever seeing anyone, and certainly not a subject, hugging the late Queen (though I'm sure some folks would have liked to). Speaking of which, part of the video montage near the end shows the NZ women’s rugby team giving the King a group hug, and at the time, he seemed genuinely pleased to get the hug.
I haven’t seen these messages on TV every year, but then I watch them on YouTube instead, and would even if I didn’t share them here. Maybe it’s because I never saw the annual broadcast until I moved to New Zealand, but, as I said last year, “I’m still fascinated by them, as bits of contemporary history, and for 28 years, a bit of my own, too.” Make that 29 years.
Previously:
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2023
The King’s first Christmas Broadcast – 2022 (oddly, the video is no longer available, but the post has my commentary about it.
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
I thought that King Charles did a good a job, and the video itself was well-made. The late Queen used to to mix up the video a bit from time to time, which was nice, so it’s good to see the King continuing that. Because the monarch is the head of the Church of England, some amount of religiosity is probably pretty much mandatory, but I’m impressed that the King, while talking about the Christian Christmas story and even a hymn, also mentioned people with “no religion”. Overall, I think his tone is pretty much on point: Religious for the religious, while acknowledging that not everyone is religious.
I thought the King handled the talk of peace as directly as he could without taking a political position on and of the any wars, something monarchs aren't allowed to do (that’s the job of the elected government). Despite that constraint, he nevertheless was able to stress the importance of peace.
I noted last year that the King “seemed more relaxed and at ease in front of the camera than his late mother did”, and that’s still true, but I’ve also noticed that his manor overall is much less formal than his mother’s was—one might even say he often seems like a regular person. The video has several scenes of the King being hugged, and I simply cannot even imagine ever seeing anyone, and certainly not a subject, hugging the late Queen (though I'm sure some folks would have liked to). Speaking of which, part of the video montage near the end shows the NZ women’s rugby team giving the King a group hug, and at the time, he seemed genuinely pleased to get the hug.
I haven’t seen these messages on TV every year, but then I watch them on YouTube instead, and would even if I didn’t share them here. Maybe it’s because I never saw the annual broadcast until I moved to New Zealand, but, as I said last year, “I’m still fascinated by them, as bits of contemporary history, and for 28 years, a bit of my own, too.” Make that 29 years.
Previously:
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2023
The King’s first Christmas Broadcast – 2022 (oddly, the video is no longer available, but the post has my commentary about it.
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
Thursday, October 03, 2024
New Zealand is changing
The 2023 New Zealand Census data that I’ve been waiting for has finally been released, and to statistics and demographics nerds like me, it’s utterly fascinating. To avoid burying the lede, New Zealand is finally majority non-religious. I’ve written about that subject several times over the years, and have always said this was inevitable.
This is the way Statistics NZ reported the change:
New Zealand has actually been a secular nation for a very long time, even when religious identification was still a majority (in other words, 2018 and earlier). In my personal experience, most New Zealanders don’t like having religion shoved in their faces, so much so that door-to-door proselytisers, and pretty much any insistent religious person, is likely to be called a “god botherer” (though not to their faces…) by ordinary Kiwis—even including many of those who identify as Christian. Basically, Kiwis want to be left alone.
The 2023 Census was the first to ask people about their gender, sexual identity, and whether they were born with a variation of sex characteristics. The results showed that around 1 in 20 adults belonged to Rainbow or LGBTIQ+ communities. Wellington has the highest percentage (11.3 percent) of LGBTIQ+ residents, Dunedin was second (with 7.3 percent), then Christchurch (6.0 percent), Palmerston North (5.8 percent), and Hamilton (5.6 percent). Auckland, by far New Zealand’s largest city, had a lower percentage of people who belonged to the LGBTIQ+ population (4.9 percent) than Hamilton has, which surprised me. Within Auckland local board areas, Waitematā, which is mainly the central city, including some historically LGBTIQ+ suburbs (neighbourhoods), had the highest proportion of LGBTIQ+ adults, with 12 percent. [For more detailed information, see “2023 Census shows 1 in 20 adults belong to Aotearoa New Zealand’s LGBTIQ+ population”].
Here are a few random facts I thought were interesting:
• In 2023, 22.5 percent of the population was 60 years and over, and 18.7 percent were children under 15 years. These proportions were 20.8 and 19.6 percent respectivelyin 2018. Also, the average number of children born to each female aged 15 years and over was 1.6, down from 1.7 children in 2018 and 1.8 in 2013. Taken together, this shows why immigration will continue to be important for New Zealand if it is to cope with an aging population and declining numbers of New Zealand-born young people to support them.
• Almost 30 percent of usual residents were born overseas. The most common overseas birthplaces in 2023 were: England at 4.2 percent of the total population (208,428 people), People’s Republic of China at 2.9 percent (145,371 people), and India at 2.9 percent (142,920 people). 31,779 people in New Zealand were born in the United States. The number of people born in the Philippines increased from 37,299 people (0.9 percent) in 2013 to 99,264 (2.0 percent) in 2023. Not all of these foreign-born people are citizens or even necessarily permanent residents—they’re merely “usually resident”, and may be on work permits and visas. [For more detailed information, see “Census results reflect Aotearoa New Zealand’s diversity”, which also includes information on languages spoken and ethnicity].
• Around two-thirds of households in New Zealand (1,175,217 or 66.0 percent) now own their home, compared with 64.5 percent in 2018. Stats NZ principal analyst, Rosemary Goodyear, noted that, “This increase in home ownership, although small, is a reversal of the falling rates we have seen since home ownership peaked in the early 1990s.” However, home ownership is lowest in Auckland (59.5 percent), probably in part because it has some of the highest house prices in the country.
• About two-thirds of private dwellings (66.8 percent) had heat pumps in 2023, compared with just under half (47.3 percent) in 2018. That’s a huge increase, and that makes homes warmer and drier, but their energy efficiency makes the increase good new for the country.
• Landline telephones are rapidly declining in use. In 2023, 31.0 percent of households had a landline, down from 62.5 percent in the 2018 Census. I don’t know if they have a way to track VOIP phones (what I have), which are internet-based but use traditional “landline” phone numbers.
Every time I look at newly-released census statistics, I always find things I think are interesting, and there was obviously far more in the press releases than I’ve shared here. Eventually I’ll look at the raw data to see if the answers to any of my questions are there, or can be extrapolated from the data that is there. But that’s a job for the future. Right now, though, it’s like Christmas for statistics and demographics nerds like me. Hooray!
More information on any of these census statistics can be found in the links above. Also, “Home ownership increases and housing quality improves” has data about housing, including the last three points on my random facts list.
This is the way Statistics NZ reported the change:
For the first time since the New Zealand census began to collect religious affiliation, over half of the census usually resident population had no religion at the time of the 2023 Census. The proportion of people with ‘No religion’ steadily increased from 41.9 percent (1,635,348) in 2013, to 48.2 percent (2,264,601) in 2018, and 51.6 percent (2,576,049) in 2023.That’s an increase of ten points over a decade, but it was a slow change. This is the point where I always point out that “no religion” means precisely that: While it includes the categories atheist and agnostic, it also includes those who have “nothing in particular”. The only thing we know for sure about these people—which, full disclosure, is the category I chose for myself—is that we aren’t part of any organised religion. The stats for religious identification are also changing:
The three largest religious groupings in 2023 were:I think that the small increase in those choosing Hindu or Islam is probably because of immigration (though that might take deeper analysis to confirm), but it’s fascinating that less than a third of New Zealanders identify as Christian—this in a country once heavily dominated by those identifying as Christian.
• Christian – 1,614,636 people (down 102,543) or 32.3 percent of the total population, compared with 36.5 percent in 2018
• Hindu – 144,753 people (up 21,369) or 2.9 percent compared with 2.6 percent in 2018
• Islam – 75,138 people (up 14,517) or 1.5 percent compared with 1.3 percent in 2018.
New Zealand has actually been a secular nation for a very long time, even when religious identification was still a majority (in other words, 2018 and earlier). In my personal experience, most New Zealanders don’t like having religion shoved in their faces, so much so that door-to-door proselytisers, and pretty much any insistent religious person, is likely to be called a “god botherer” (though not to their faces…) by ordinary Kiwis—even including many of those who identify as Christian. Basically, Kiwis want to be left alone.
The 2023 Census was the first to ask people about their gender, sexual identity, and whether they were born with a variation of sex characteristics. The results showed that around 1 in 20 adults belonged to Rainbow or LGBTIQ+ communities. Wellington has the highest percentage (11.3 percent) of LGBTIQ+ residents, Dunedin was second (with 7.3 percent), then Christchurch (6.0 percent), Palmerston North (5.8 percent), and Hamilton (5.6 percent). Auckland, by far New Zealand’s largest city, had a lower percentage of people who belonged to the LGBTIQ+ population (4.9 percent) than Hamilton has, which surprised me. Within Auckland local board areas, Waitematā, which is mainly the central city, including some historically LGBTIQ+ suburbs (neighbourhoods), had the highest proportion of LGBTIQ+ adults, with 12 percent. [For more detailed information, see “2023 Census shows 1 in 20 adults belong to Aotearoa New Zealand’s LGBTIQ+ population”].
Here are a few random facts I thought were interesting:
• In 2023, 22.5 percent of the population was 60 years and over, and 18.7 percent were children under 15 years. These proportions were 20.8 and 19.6 percent respectivelyin 2018. Also, the average number of children born to each female aged 15 years and over was 1.6, down from 1.7 children in 2018 and 1.8 in 2013. Taken together, this shows why immigration will continue to be important for New Zealand if it is to cope with an aging population and declining numbers of New Zealand-born young people to support them.
• Almost 30 percent of usual residents were born overseas. The most common overseas birthplaces in 2023 were: England at 4.2 percent of the total population (208,428 people), People’s Republic of China at 2.9 percent (145,371 people), and India at 2.9 percent (142,920 people). 31,779 people in New Zealand were born in the United States. The number of people born in the Philippines increased from 37,299 people (0.9 percent) in 2013 to 99,264 (2.0 percent) in 2023. Not all of these foreign-born people are citizens or even necessarily permanent residents—they’re merely “usually resident”, and may be on work permits and visas. [For more detailed information, see “Census results reflect Aotearoa New Zealand’s diversity”, which also includes information on languages spoken and ethnicity].
• Around two-thirds of households in New Zealand (1,175,217 or 66.0 percent) now own their home, compared with 64.5 percent in 2018. Stats NZ principal analyst, Rosemary Goodyear, noted that, “This increase in home ownership, although small, is a reversal of the falling rates we have seen since home ownership peaked in the early 1990s.” However, home ownership is lowest in Auckland (59.5 percent), probably in part because it has some of the highest house prices in the country.
• About two-thirds of private dwellings (66.8 percent) had heat pumps in 2023, compared with just under half (47.3 percent) in 2018. That’s a huge increase, and that makes homes warmer and drier, but their energy efficiency makes the increase good new for the country.
• Landline telephones are rapidly declining in use. In 2023, 31.0 percent of households had a landline, down from 62.5 percent in the 2018 Census. I don’t know if they have a way to track VOIP phones (what I have), which are internet-based but use traditional “landline” phone numbers.
Every time I look at newly-released census statistics, I always find things I think are interesting, and there was obviously far more in the press releases than I’ve shared here. Eventually I’ll look at the raw data to see if the answers to any of my questions are there, or can be extrapolated from the data that is there. But that’s a job for the future. Right now, though, it’s like Christmas for statistics and demographics nerds like me. Hooray!
More information on any of these census statistics can be found in the links above. Also, “Home ownership increases and housing quality improves” has data about housing, including the last three points on my random facts list.
Monday, August 12, 2024
Left off the map. Yet again.
A very serious international incident occurred today. Sure, it won’t lead to global war, or even sanctions or whatever, but it’s still very, very serious: New Zealand was left off a world map at the Olympics closing ceremony. After the most successful Olympic Games New Zealand has ever had, literally everyone in New Zealand is asking, “How many medals does New Zealand have to win to be included on the map?!”
Okay, so not everyone is talking about this faux pas, but that may be only because we’re used to it: New Zealand is frequently left off world maps. The video up top is from the 100% Pure New Zealand YouTube Channel, a project of and New Zealand Tourism, and it features all sorts of videos promoting tourism in New Zealand. This video features NZ comedian Rhys Darby (who is probably best known for playing Murray Hewitt, the band manager of Flight of the Conchords in the television series of the same name as he tries to find out who’s behind the “conspiracy” to leave New Zealand off of maps. Also in the video is Jacinda Ardern, who was NZ Prime Minister at the time.
The video was released in May, 2018, which may explain why I never shared it here on the blog: That was the month that Leo came to live with us, so my focus was elsewhere. Insteadt, I only shared it on Facebook, writing:
So, New Zealand missing from a world map isn’t really an international incident, though the incident will likely inspire Kiwis’ to use their legendary sarcastic humour to mock the perpetrators, and that may be a bit too pointed for French sensibilities to hear—sacré bleu!—so maybe the international incident is still to come?
All joking aside, it would be nice if various folks stopped leaving New Zealand off the map. Many foreigners have trouble remembering where on the globe the country is, and leaving us off the map doesn’t help. Wait a minute: If we’re left off of maps, maybe the bad people in the world who might start a global war won’t know where we are so they won’t attack us. Hm…
On second thought, never mind.
Okay, so not everyone is talking about this faux pas, but that may be only because we’re used to it: New Zealand is frequently left off world maps. The video up top is from the 100% Pure New Zealand YouTube Channel, a project of and New Zealand Tourism, and it features all sorts of videos promoting tourism in New Zealand. This video features NZ comedian Rhys Darby (who is probably best known for playing Murray Hewitt, the band manager of Flight of the Conchords in the television series of the same name as he tries to find out who’s behind the “conspiracy” to leave New Zealand off of maps. Also in the video is Jacinda Ardern, who was NZ Prime Minister at the time.
The video was released in May, 2018, which may explain why I never shared it here on the blog: That was the month that Leo came to live with us, so my focus was elsewhere. Insteadt, I only shared it on Facebook, writing:
This is joking, BUT it’s something every New Zealander has noticed. First time I noticed it was nearly 20 years ago. We were visiting Universal Studios in California, and, yep, New Zealand was missing from the big globe.I thought that there was a photo of Nigel and me in front of the globe pointing to where New Zealand should be, but I I looked through the album, and don’t have a photo like that. It might be in the video Nigel shot, but I’m not certain where that is, and, anyway, it’s never been digitised and that may not even be viewable anymore: It was shot 25 years ago. To get the general idea, though, here’s a photo Nigel’s cousin took of us in front of the globe (I don’t think I was pointing, or whatever—she probably snapped the photo before I was totally ready). Australia is just above me at the top of the photo—but there’s no New Zealand!
On the other hand, I’ve read that New Zealanders have a superhuman ability to spot the letter “Z” within a full page of printed text without even trying. I’m certain there are studies proving this, but none by American researchers. They keep pronouncing it “zee” so they miss the proof entirely.
All joking aside, it would be nice if various folks stopped leaving New Zealand off the map. Many foreigners have trouble remembering where on the globe the country is, and leaving us off the map doesn’t help. Wait a minute: If we’re left off of maps, maybe the bad people in the world who might start a global war won’t know where we are so they won’t attack us. Hm…
On second thought, never mind.
Friday, June 21, 2024
Same page, not same seasons
Seasons are pretty obvious in temperate climates. For example, summer and winter can be quite different from each other. However, it turns out that when, precisely, people say seasons arrive can also be quite different, too. Sort of.
I’ve often talked about how seasons in this part of the world are said to begin on the guest of the relevant month, and not on a solstice or equinox. Some people who use the traditional dates (solstice or equinox) become kind of angry at those of us who don’t.
I think the crux is what’s being measured. Traditionalists use the position of the sun relative to the equator, much as our ancestors did in ancient times. The problem is that weather doesn’t neatly correspond to where the sun is. This is why some people prefer the first of the relevant month because it’s more closely identified with seasonal changes on weather. For example, this year we started having chilly autumn temperatures in late May, and some parts of the Northern Hemisphere were having quite warm temperatures around the same time, and all of that didn’t wait for the June Solstice some three weeks later.
Most people would acknowledge that this is a really unimportant disagreement. However, I do wish we could agree to refer to the solstices and equinoxes by month, not by the season. The seasons in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are complete opposites, so whenever people use the season to describe solstices and equinoxes, we have to stop to work out where the speaker actually is in order to know month they’re talking about. That’s not ideal.
In that spirt, the June Solstice arrived in New Zealand at 8.50am this morning. The temperature at my house at that moment was around 6C (42.8F), because winter arrived three weeks ago. For us, seasons and astronomical events definitely aren’t the same. But, you already knew all that. Of course.
Related: Today is the shortest day, but tonight won’t be the coldest night – Stuff
I’ve often talked about how seasons in this part of the world are said to begin on the guest of the relevant month, and not on a solstice or equinox. Some people who use the traditional dates (solstice or equinox) become kind of angry at those of us who don’t.
I think the crux is what’s being measured. Traditionalists use the position of the sun relative to the equator, much as our ancestors did in ancient times. The problem is that weather doesn’t neatly correspond to where the sun is. This is why some people prefer the first of the relevant month because it’s more closely identified with seasonal changes on weather. For example, this year we started having chilly autumn temperatures in late May, and some parts of the Northern Hemisphere were having quite warm temperatures around the same time, and all of that didn’t wait for the June Solstice some three weeks later.
Most people would acknowledge that this is a really unimportant disagreement. However, I do wish we could agree to refer to the solstices and equinoxes by month, not by the season. The seasons in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are complete opposites, so whenever people use the season to describe solstices and equinoxes, we have to stop to work out where the speaker actually is in order to know month they’re talking about. That’s not ideal.
In that spirt, the June Solstice arrived in New Zealand at 8.50am this morning. The temperature at my house at that moment was around 6C (42.8F), because winter arrived three weeks ago. For us, seasons and astronomical events definitely aren’t the same. But, you already knew all that. Of course.
Related: Today is the shortest day, but tonight won’t be the coldest night – Stuff
Sunday, December 31, 2023
Ask Arthur 2023, Part 5: Something about me
The first group of questions today is from AustininSeattle, and, as I did with Roger’s questions the other day, I decided to number them for clarity:
1. Are you currently working or are you retired?
2. If you're retired, are you financially comfortable? Is your house paid off? How does the pension in New Zealand work? Do you also receive the US Social Security money?
3. How often do you go back to the US to visit your relatives (siblings, cousins, nephews, and nieces)? Do you see yourself returning back to the US since it's your home country and you have relatives?
4. Are you planning to find a new partner after Nigel? If so, have you dated anyone?
1. “Are you currently working or are you retired?” Technically, neither—and both. The job I had for 16 years ended just before New Zealand went under the first Covid lockdown, which was pure coincidence. The publication I worked on part-time was sold, and the new owners were going to do all the work in house. I’m not opposed to getting a new job—I think about it all the time, actually—but I have no idea what I’d do at my age and with my skils, which were niche to begin with, no longer in demand.
However, I’m considered “employed” for tax reasons because I still own our house on Auckland’s North Shore, and that’s a rental. The income from that has to be reported to both countries (as I understand it, it’s kind of analogous to self-employment income in the USA). Fortunately, we’re not talking big money—basically enough to pay the loans and maintenance—so I only pay income tax to New Zealand.
This actually nicely segues to the next question:
2. “If you're retired, are you financially comfortable? Is your house paid off? How does the pension in New Zealand work? Do you also receive the US Social Security money?”
I’ll take the last part first: As a US citizen living overseas, I qualify for Social Security, though not Medicare (not that I need Medicare, of course). However, as a New Zealander who has lived and worked here for more than ten years, I also qualify for New Zealand Superannuation (government retirement benefit, usually called "Super"). Because New Zealand and the USA have a treaty dealing with this, New Zealand deducts the US Social Security payment from my New Zealand Superannuation, though I still get the same amount net as any other New Zealander, it’s just that some of it comes from the USA (it would be similar for a New Zealander living in the USA, and in a situation similar to mine, and who retired in the USA). There’s one other thing about this: NZ Super begins at age 65 (next month for me), but I don’t qualify for my full Social Security entitlement until I’m 66 and 10 months, which would be November 2025. I’m required by New Zealand to apply for Social Security at 65 or else I can’t collect NZ Super.
I’m in the process for applying for both right now, and I’ll talk about that when it’s done. The important thing to know is that applying for the NZ pension is incredibly easy, and applying for Social Security from overseas absolutely is not.
As for the rest, I own the house I live in freehold (without a mortgage), which helps keep my monthly outgoings as small as possible. The rental property has loans that the rent pays. I don't have a frame of reference for what financially comfortable would mean, for me or someone else, but I know that I'm in far better shape that far too many people, working people, even. But whether the gold of my golden years turn out to be lead that's painted gold is something I can't yet answer. In any case, I don't intend to stop working, in one sense or another, and regardless if it's for pay or not, until I'm no longer able, and that could affect my answer.
3. “How often do you go back to the US to visit your relatives (siblings, cousins, nephews, and nieces)? Do you see yourself returning back to the US since it's your home country and you have relatives?”
Since I moved to New Zealand 28 years ago, I’ve been back three times: In 1997 and 1999 (both times with Nigel, and his cousin joined us for the ‘99 trip). I went back alone from late December 2007 to early January 2008 to tidy up some loose ends. That’s it. Nigel and I planned several different times to go back, but life got in the way, and time passed. We talked loosely about going to Hawaii for our 25th anniversary together, but, of course, he didn’t live that long. I have no plans to visit in the foreseeable future.
By “returning” to the USA, I assume you mean to live, and no, that’s impossible. First, I left the USA 28 years ago, after living there for the first 36 years of my life—half of which was when I was legally a child. So, I’ve lived more of my adult life in New Zealand than I did in the USA (28 v. 18), and that means that in a very real sense, the country I left doesn’t exist anymore: Many of the people I knew—friends and colleagues alike—have died or scattered across the country. The places I knew so very well when I lived there—Chicago and Illinois—have changed dramatically since I left, so much so that neighbourhoods I could’ve walked blindfolded are totally unfamiliar to me now. In fact, if I was to move to the USA now, it’d be like moving to a foreign country, because so much has changed. Heck, I often see Americans talking about something going on in pop culture, and I have NO idea what they’re talking about.
On top of that, I’m used to national healthcare, not an insurance-driven system, and having to pay for health insurance—even with Medicare—would mean I’d have to live a very, very modest life. Here in New Zealand, I have a bit more flexibility. Having said all that, I wouldn’t mind going back for a visit before I get really old, but that possibility no doubt depends on what happens in the 2024 US elections, though it’s kind of moot at the moment, anyway: My US passport expired several years ago, and I don’t have anyone to look after Leo while I was on a long trip. All of which means I have completely accepted the fact that it’s possible I may never get back the USA again.
4. “Are you planning to find a new partner after Nigel? If so, have you dated anyone?”
I could be glib and say “no and no”, but, while true, that’s not the whole story. I have no plans to ever have another partner, and I’ve never considered dating. The reality is, and I know I’ve talked about this somewhere, I have absolutely NO idea how to be a single gay man in 2023/24. When I was last single, the Internet had barely begun, and guys mostly met in bars, through friends, in social groups, or they sought someone through newspaper classifieds. In many places, most of those things don’t happen anymore.
Around the time of the first Covid lockdown, or thereabouts, anyway, I thought about how nice it would be to have some gay friends to just hang out with. Apple promoted an App (maybe for Pride) that, it said, was for gay people to find friends and chat. I downloaded it, but realised pretty quickly it was actually a hook-up app (it wasn’t one of the well-known ones, which is why I tried it). Then I got an email from the company that talked about their App having “the hottest gay singles”, and I immediately closed my account and deleted the App. That was the absolute last thing I wanted.
My current mindset may not be forever—I understand all too well the extreme importance of never saying “never”—but it would have to be extraordinary circumstances for anything to change my mind for the foreseeable future. Still, that’s not actually a “no”, but more of a “probably not” or maybe, more vaguely, “possibly one day, maybe.” Time will tell, I guess, even though right now I think it’s highly improbable.
Next up, and staying on the same overall theme, is one from Roger Green, and it requires some background. Earlier this month, I published a post, ”A venture out”, in which I talked about some errands I ran that day. In it I mentioned that at one shop I went to I was helped by a nice-looking young man with “a North American accent”, and, I added, “I didn’t ask where he was from; didn’t want him to think I was flirting”. After saying I could use it for this series, Roger commented:
I'm not quite sure: 1) Why is asking about where someone is from would be considered flirting, and 2) why a perceived flirtation would be problematic.”
I was mostly joking, however, humour is often a way of expressing truth, so: I don’t actually think he’d have thought that merely asking him where he was from was me flirting (that’s the part I wasn’t serious about). However, I never want guys to think I’m flirting, and that needs some explanation.
I came of age at a time when flirting with a guy could lead to a violent reaction, and while that’s far less true than it’s been in many, many decades, the possibility is still seared into my brain—I think that’s probably just a generational thing. The bigger issue is that I’m shy and an introvert by nature, and I don’t want to impose on people, or, in this case, to impose myself, even when I think the guy is good looking. I know that flirting isn’t the same as trying to pick someone up—except when I was younger, when it pretty much was. These days, as I was saying above, I have no interest in picking anyone up, so in my behavioural brain, still frozen in 1995, I think there’s no point in flirting when there would be no follow-through. Plus, being shy and all.
So, no, I don’t think he’d have thought I was flirting if I asked where he was from, and if I had been flirting, it would have been innocent and not a problem. Having said all that, I’m almost always extremely nice and polite to all shopworkers, even those who aren’t attractive men. And if an attractive man wants to respond to my niceness by flirting with me, well, who am I to complain? Unfortunately, this has hardly ever happened, though.
Thanks to AustininSeattle and Roger Green for today’s questions, and for closing out this series! Personally, I think most of today’s questions could use more discussion, but possibly in posts of their own—or next year’s series?
Thanks to everyone for playing along with this year’s series!
All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-23”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.
Previously:
”Let the annual inquisition begin” – The first post in this year’s series.
”Ask Arthur 2023, Part 1: Get here from there”
”Ask Arthur 2023, Part 2: Measuring and measured”
”Ask Arthur 2023, Part 3: US political stuff”
”Ask Arthur 2023, Part 4: Saying no and being okay”
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2023
The video above was probably broadcast in New Zealand on Christmas Day, right after the 6pm news broadcast. I say “probably” because I was nowhere near a TV at the time. When I got home last night, I checked for the video on YouTube, but it wasn’t posted yet, which has happened before. I think they may try to post it after it airs in the UK. At any rate, I didn’t watch it until this evening.
I said last year that the in his first Christmas Broadcast, King Charles expressed some of the same overt religiosity as the late Queen did, and I added that “I also think he was pivoting.” I still think he’s doing that. To me, the use of the Christian Christmas Story seemed a bit forced at times, but I noticed that he constantly talked about the themes being relevant to all people, whatever religious beliefs, if any, they may have. I also noticed he talked subtly about climate change when he talked about looking after the world “for our children’s children”.
Overall, his delivery was quite good: He seemed more relaxed and at ease in front of the camera than his late mother did, and that may help him keep the monarchy somewhat more relevant than otherwise may have been the case. We’ll see, I suppose.
As I’ve mentioned in previous years, I used to want to watch the Queen’s message on TV every year (something that kind of amused Nigel and his family). But I never saw one of the messages until I moved to New Zealand, and I can’t remember if I even knew they were a thing before then—maybe? In any case, I’m still fascinated by them, as bits of contemporary history, and for 28 years, a bit of my own, too.
Previously:
The King’s first Christmas Broadcast – 2022
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
I said last year that the in his first Christmas Broadcast, King Charles expressed some of the same overt religiosity as the late Queen did, and I added that “I also think he was pivoting.” I still think he’s doing that. To me, the use of the Christian Christmas Story seemed a bit forced at times, but I noticed that he constantly talked about the themes being relevant to all people, whatever religious beliefs, if any, they may have. I also noticed he talked subtly about climate change when he talked about looking after the world “for our children’s children”.
Overall, his delivery was quite good: He seemed more relaxed and at ease in front of the camera than his late mother did, and that may help him keep the monarchy somewhat more relevant than otherwise may have been the case. We’ll see, I suppose.
As I’ve mentioned in previous years, I used to want to watch the Queen’s message on TV every year (something that kind of amused Nigel and his family). But I never saw one of the messages until I moved to New Zealand, and I can’t remember if I even knew they were a thing before then—maybe? In any case, I’m still fascinated by them, as bits of contemporary history, and for 28 years, a bit of my own, too.
Previously:
The King’s first Christmas Broadcast – 2022
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
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