What a sad day guys. I have never been more ashamed to be American than I am today.
Honestly? I’m still in complete shock and don’t have words to describe how upset I am. I really believed America was smart and strong enough to move forward. I was full of optimism and hope.
Instead we just elected a serial liar to the highest possible office who has no political experience and who says women should be punished for getting abortions, makes fun of people with disabilities, says Mexicans are rapists, wants to ban Muslims from America, jail anyone who disagrees with him, regularly incites violence among his followers and said “grab em by the p*ssy” INSTEAD of the first female candidate. The most qualified candidate in history versus a reality TV show star for the leader of the free world.
Good job us. Glad to see those glass ceilings are holding up strong.
But before I run away with my feelings and completely lose my shit, I want to take the opportunity to say a big whopping thank you to the government of New Zealand for granting me a long-term visa and saying that moving to New Zealand is an option so I don’t have to live in a world run by a misogynist, racist, narcissistic undemocratic fool of a human.
I want nothing to do with the America I saw tonight. I’m ashamed of them and bitterly disappointed. I’m so incredibly disheartened that fear, ignorance, and hate won, and that the majority of Americans want to live in a country of walls, bigotry and hate. I do not want to belong to such a place. I’m devastated.
Luckily I have a choice, and I chose New Zealand. Though to be fair, I chose New Zealand years ago, but now I definitely want to make moving to New Zealand permanent.
Sorry, New Zealand. You’re stuck with me. I’ll start accepting applications for kiwi husbands to get me a residency visa STAT. Please form an orderly queue below.
Since I turned 18, I’ve spent seven of those last ten years living abroad; when I wasn’t being an expat, I was traveling quite a bit. I’ve got about 50 countries worth of experience under my belt, and I know where I want to live. Don’t worry, you have a choice too! Even if our country wasn’t doomed, I’d still advocate living abroad at one point or another; it’s good for the soul.
For me, the first time I arrived in New Zealand, it felt like coming home. It still feels like that almost 4 years later. This is where I belong.
And lucky for us, if you have a real strong desire to live abroad and you have some kind of skill, moving to New Zealand isn’t that hard Right now anyways. Hopefully I am not jinxing it, but there are a hell of a lot of foreigners living and working down under, especially in Wanaka and Queenstown.
More thoughts about being an American expat in New Zealand here and here.
First things first, while New Zealand has a wonderful standard of living and often comes across as being a pure Eden, it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. Dairy farming is destroying the land at an almost laughable rate, the cost of living is insane, diversity isn’t its strong suit, and the current Prime Minister is a first-rate muppet, among many other things.
The average house cost in Queenstown and Wanaka is around one million dollars. THE AVERAGE! And sometimes avocados cost over $5 each. WTF.
But in spite of all that, I definitely prefer living here than back in the US. With a population of only four million people, you feel a strong community vibe here, most people are very friendly and welcoming and the crime rate is a joke compared to America. The healthcare is great and it’s an overall happy relaxed peaceful place. It’s easy to live here, and I love it. I could go on and on.
So in light of this shitshow of a crisis in America, I thought I’d go ahead and share some of the ways you can abandon ship too. If you’ve ever wanted to move to New Zealand, well, now’s your chance.
The emails and messages have already started pouring in from my fellow countrymen about moving to New Zealand so I thought I’d jump the ball and share how you escape too. Here are some of my tips and thoughts about immigrating to New Zealand as an American, which probably works for non-Americans too.
If you are under 30 and interested in moving to New Zealand, I definitely recommend coming here on a working holiday visa. Most youngsters come in that way, and that’s what I did back in 2013. You can apply online, and it’s super easy and straightforward. It’s open to any Americans under the age of 30 who have $4,200 NZD to their name and you can come and travel and work here for up to a year. If you’ve done agricultural work like working on a vineyard or a farm, you can extend your visa for an extra three months. Many of my friends came on working holidays, worked and traveled for a year and ended up with job offers that allowed them to stay longer.
If you want a gap year or a year to explore but also need to work at the same time, this is the visa for you. There is an abundance of hospitality work among other entry level jobs in New Zealand that you can work for in this category. If you don’t want to work, you can come in on a visitor visa for up to nine months. Remember you are NOT allowed to enter New Zealand on a holiday visa and work or look for work – though this is kind of a gray area – more on the immigration page here.
New Zealand’s Immigration website has gotten a swanky, easy to navigate update recently which I’m pleased to see. Normally immigration websites give me panic attacks. My experience living in Spain as an expat scarred me for life and instilled a palpable fear of anyone working in immigration within me. But like with many things in New Zealand, it’s pretty easy, and you can answer a lot of your own questions, though I’ve found Immigration always easy to reach by phone or email here too. There are so many visas available, you can dig through a full list here.
Here is their page for work options in New Zealand. The explore visa options tab is pretty awesome and here you can put in your current situation to see what options are available to you.
I’ll start by saying you’re in a really good position to move to New Zealand if your work falls under the Skills Shortage list. Many surprising jobs fall under that, like being a chef, a builder, baker, skydiver, snowboarding instructor, winemaker, farmer, ect. For example, you can find a lot of work rebuilding in Christchurch which was damaged by earthquakes a few years ago. For example a lot of people have immigrated over from Ireland to help with the rebuild there, and they have their own specific list of skilled shortages.
For most visas, you’ll need a job or job offer which is a bit of a catch 22 because you probably need to be in New Zealand to get a job offer. You can also hire immigration advisors to help you submit your applications, but make sure never to use Endeavour Immigration in Auckland to help with your visa. They took $1000 off me and then refused to help me with my visa application, which I ended up compiling and submitting on my own. Read more about my experience with them here. Bastards.
Most of my friends are either on partner visas or Skilled Migrant Residency Visas or a work to residency visa. In New Zealand partner is for your significant other, any kind really.
I’m not going to really write about the partner visa because it’s fairly straightforward and totally annoys me, mostly because I wish I could go down this route and cant. Alas, I am determined to sort my visas out all on my own and not rely on a man to help me (though let the record stand I would if I could and kiwi boyfriend applications are now open).
Most of these like the Skilled Migrant Visa which is for people who “have the skills to contribute to New Zealand’s economic growth.” It works off of a points indicator system which recently just changed along with requiring a higher level of English. After you send an expression of interest, and now you need 160 points to apply. Along the same lines is the Essential Skills Work Visa which is for if you’ve received a job offer and the employer can demonstrate that there are no kiwis that can do that job; it’s aimed for temporary stays.
There there is the Talent (Accredited Employer) Work Visa which is for people who have job offers by businesses in New Zealand that already are approved to hire skilled foreigners. After two years you can apply for residency.
I don’t have personal experience with this but I will say half my friends in Wanaka have been sponsored and they work in cafes so infer from that as you will. There two pages here and here offer a good explanation of the way visas work in New Zealand.
If you are between the ages of 20 and 35, you can enter a visa ballot to win a Silver Fern Visa which will allow you come to New Zealand and look for a job for up to 9 months. Spots fill up super fast and I think there are only 300 spots per year.
Now, I’m on a quite an obscure visa that is very difficult to get – the Talent (Arts, Culture, Sports) Work Visa. If you can demonstrate that you are exceptionally talented in arts, sports or culture, you can be granted this visa for up to 3o months. This will allow you work in that field and which will eventually allow you to apply for residency. You need an international reputation, and a New Zealand organization of national repute and a sponsor to back you up, and you need to demonstrate that you benefit New Zealand by being here.
In theory, it seems easy. The reality is very, very difficult. It took a long time and a lot of back and forth before mine was approved. I had over five years experience in my field an I am so well-known in New Zealand that I am stopped on the streets on a regular basis. I think only after it was the third or fourth time my case officer saw me on the news that they began to take me seriously.
For those of you who are entrepreneurs, investors or change-makers with a social bent, New Zealand has a brand new visa program that is generating a lot of excitement. The Global Impact Visa (GIVs) is a 3-year visa for entrepreneurs and investors who wish to build ventures in New Zealand that aim to solve complex, global challenges – like climate change, the changing nature of education and automation of work, how we are going to feed 9 billion people without wrecking the planet etc…
GIVs is only available to candidates who are accepted into the Edmund Hillary Fellowship, so that’s your first stop shop to find out more. Details on how to apply here.
The visa is incredibly open and flexible with no minimum day requirements or stipulations on what you can and can’t work on. It’s being heralded as the most entrepreneur friendly visa in the world, and the first to focus on impact. Because the visa is aimed at people who want to develop deep roots in New Zealand and build long-term world changing ventures, Fellows are eligible for permanent residency at the end of the 3 years.
Check out stories of Fellows on the EHF blog for inspiration on what kind of people they’re looking for.
Phew! How did I do?
I am distinctly aware that I just invited a bunch of my fellow Americans to the party when it is in fact, not my party. But please forgive me, New Zealand – I can’t help sharing how awesome it is to live here with others. And I can promise that the ones that are able to come are the good ones.
Now that America is doomed would you move overseas? Have you ever been an expat? Would you come and live in New Zealand given the chance? Are you an expat in New Zealand? How was your immigration process.
Disclosure – I am not an immigration advisor OBVIOUSLY, and I only have firsthand experience with my working holiday visa and with my current talent visa. I have done my best to try and explain some of the most common immigration questions above.
About the author
I’m one of those “Deplorables” who voted for Trump. Pretty disappointed to read some of your comments today. Usually, you seem so respectful and professional. I don’t mind that we have different views. We can do exceptionally better for our first woman president though.
Your blog is actually my inspiration for our move to NZ. I’m in the process of applying for the Skilled Migrant Visa.
Although it sounds like you’d decline a celebratory beer when I arrive.
Yeah don’t even bother to come .. Kiwis don’t need people so stupid as to vote for an outright bigot, fool, narcissist, and demagogue.
And that’s not over the top, just read what he says, read why Pence says, read what half the idiots in the Republican party say. My wife has just spent half and hour reading me harrowing stories of absolutely horrible acts of racism both in person and online that Korean Americans have experienced from the red-necks and alt-right since his election. At least the racists actually understand what he has been saying and communicating; they are not blindly ignorant enough to think he was “just an alternative to Hillary”
And fair enough if you didn’t like Hillary, you didn’t have to, and you didn’t have to vote for her (even if that would have helped defeat such a despicable candidate), you could have just abstained, you could have just sat it out .
Now you, and I mean you (take responsibility for your actions as an adult) and your fellow fools have opened pandora’s box. Gods only know if the intelligent among us in our lifetimes will be able to snatch western civilisation and global progress out of the fire you morons have just thrown it into.
So as a New Zealand citizen I beg you please don’t come! Stay in the hell-hole you have decided to create. We don’t want YOU and YOURS in our slice of paradise; our vast diaspora might need it as our last refuge when the rest of the world is falling around our ears.
STOP. Just stop. I don’t like Trump AT ALL but I’m so sick of people calling people stupid over who they voted for. I know plenty of intelligent, wonderful people who voted for Trump, although reluctantly so. In America, people are attacking each other over this. INSULTING PEOPLE OVER THIS IS NOT HELPING. I’m sorry for sounding harsh but I’m so SICK of this. We need to respect and support each other no matter what, not bring them down. I would say the same thing to Trump supporters who make fun of Hillary supporters. Do you think MLK would have said those kinds of things to those who hated him so? No, he still treated them with love. Obama himself defended a Trump supporter. I couldn’t support Trump or Hillary so I abstained, and my liberal sister is furious with me. The whole election was upsetting enough, the hate BOTH SIDES are spewing to each other is just making it so much worse.
No Katie, that is not how this works. There is no equivalency, none, between the two sides this time. People who voted for him were and are stupid, even if in other walks of their life they can be intelligent, they may have constructed a cognitive dissonance around their support for him, or just be bigots themselves. But there is no excuse
This was not an ordinary election, he was not and is not an ordinary candidate. He is an outspoken racist, bigot, sexist, bully, foreign policy illiterate, economic illiterate, an admirer of dictators and despots. He has surrounded himself with people even worse than him; he has embraced unjustified conspiracy theories about the first black president, individuals who oppose him, about racial justice movements, about the conduct of officials, about foreign friendly governments, about economics, and about the whole global community of scientists.
Voting this time was not a choice between Mccain and Obama, Romney and Obama, Carter and Regan, or Kennedy and Nixon. If it was I would agree everyone should try to accept the result and respect people who voted the other side. But nobody gets a pass for voting for Trump, all the nice conciliatory feelings some people are trying spread now will have vanished in smoke after four years of his and his parties rule. And good luck getting rid of them, you are about to see the biggest nationwide effort in minority and young voter disenfranchisement since Jim Crow.
On the domestic front can you even imagine the fear, the skin grabbing fear, the pain, the tears ready to burst at any moment, and the gut wrenching sickness that millions of Hispanics have been going through since Tuesday. Imagining soldiers, national guards, and police rounding up friends, family, and neighbours for deportation, how likely is it also that genuine citizens get swept up in that process as they did the 60 years again during “Operation Wetback” a scheme admired by Trump. The millions of black parents and young people who now have to fear a new existence where being ‘stopped and frisked’ is part of their everyday routine.
On the international front, we are now confronting the destruction of most of the institutions and norms that have held widespread peace and prosperity since the end of world war 2. I live in East Asia; my wife hails from the most isolated and vulnerable part of it, our first child in her belly is half Korean. There are good chances given all he has said and his basic temperament that the security and freedom of Korea, Taiwan, the nations bordering the South China Sea will be traded away to the Peoples Republic of China in return for some paper tiger of a trade deal. I can only the imagine the fear and dread of any Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians right now.
Often most of this would have been impossible for one man to effect in the American system because other branches of the government could have thwarted his efforts. But you now have a Trump presidency, an active Pence VP, a Republican Senate, and a nearly permanently Republican house (thanks to gerrymandering, a practice that is considered corruption in most other democracies). And the Republican Party has been purged of most of its moderates over the last 30 years, those even close to the centre of politics were amongst the most vocal opposition within their own party to Trump and therefore will hold no sway. And now you have a supreme court the has one opening, and possibly more in the next few years that will be filled by people who hold such biased partisan views they should be ashamed to call themselves judiciary.
Trump voters need to realise what they have done. Not be sheltered by kindness from the responsibility of their actions. Not given the excuse that they are just one side of a normal two sided coin. Not being made to understand that during the primary and general elections is at least partly to blame for them thinking their choice was legitimate.
And lastly, I am an NZ citizen, the last thing I want is these morons like Mia moving to my country. Let us rip away some of America’s most talented people to live in our paradise, but having voted for Trump should be a disqualifying for any residency visa candidate.
Look I understand your frustration. I honestly don’t understand how Trump even got the Republican nomination in the first place. But since you don’t actually live here, let me tell you: we are so divided as a country. It’s broken, and we can’t agree on anything. The two-party system isn’t working anymore because each side goes to extremes, and the moderates are forced to pick a side. George Washington himself was against it, and he was actually the first and only president to not have a political party. We’re so divided. That’s why I get upset about the insults. They do nothing and add fuel to the fire. Hillary didn’t call the people who voted for Trump morons; she pledged to try and work with him. I deeply respect that. My issue is not the frustration for people who dislike Trump, because I totally get that, it’s the insulting. It’s just making this situation worse. No amount of screaming and destruction of cities is going to change the results, so what we need to do is to nod our heads and try to deal with this situation and try the best we can to work together on this, not tear others down. We’re already in such a mess right now.
Why do you want to keep certain people out of your country but demand that America lets everyone in? Hypocritical much? Yes well you sound liberal so of course you are a hypocrite.
Katie, I understand it is not nice to live in a country divided amongst itself. But unless both sides are to blame for the bitterness relatively evenly then the way to solve it is not to apply false equivalency to the situation in order to comprimse to point where you can make statements like “because each side goes to extremes”.
One side of your politics has been migrating towards an extreme since Goldwater, and with Trump and Pence (Populist Demagogue plus Religious Conservative Extremist) an extreme has been reached that sensible people could see them going to but thought they would always stop short of reaching. The other side of your politics is not devoid of a few extreme crazy people, but they do not hold the reigns of power, they don’t occupy important positions in the party.
And you are correct violence is not the answer – again no major Democratic figures have advocated violence, the opposite in fact, but during the campaign, Trump advocated it often and loudly -. Protests are a good way to react, it is important that people have an outlet to show a person like Trump and the Republicans that they are not going to lie down and let their countries progress and institutions be destroyed,; and lets not kid ourselves during these 4 years your institution of democracy and the rule of law will be under attack from the “conservatives” (what an ironic label that is).
People in your country and around the world from all sensible points of view need to unite and resist for the next four years, resist loudly and strongly, not “work together” with the other-side, the other-side of rationality is unfathomable. But with no violence, as that will only hasten a slide into authoritarianism (look at Turkey since this year’s coup). And that includes denouncing those that voted for and continue to support Tump; there is no excuse, we live in the most connected and information-rich era of humanity, anyone supporting him knows what they are doing or has constructed their thinking to ignore it. That being said, anybody he denounces their previous support for him and his policies should be welcomed back to decency with open arms, they don’t have to change their side of politics, they just have to repudiate the worst extremes of it.
And FYI, in New Zealand I am to the right of centre, I am not a raging lefty, and luckily in NZ I get to have arguments against idiots in a small minority. The very small ‘conservative” party that is influenced by too many sleepless nights watching Fox News and the extremes of the greens who rail against vaccines, and science.
Do you understand how ironic that is considering how vile and insulting Trump is? He literally has insulted every race and minority in America and you want people to unite behind him? I do not respect someone who is endorsed by the KKK. I do not respect someone who says women should be punished and all the other hateful things he has said. I do not support a man who incites violence at his rallies. How can you even begin to compare how the republicans have behaved in this election with the democrats? Have you even been paying attention?
Yes I have. And honestly, what else are we going to do? Democrats and Republicans need to stop pointing middle fingers at each other and need to learn to work together. Our country is falling apart because of this. I’m tired of those Facebook pages that do nothing but make fun of liberals or conservatives and say how stupid they are. There’s nothing wrong with being liberal and nothing wrong with being conservative, there is something wrong with having a closed mind and thinking the other side is automatically bad. Our entire constitution is the way it is because of compromise. Look, I don’t like Trump. I really don’t. He’s disgusting and crude and I wish he never even ran. But the fact is, he was elected our president. No amount of screaming or hashtags or rioting will change that (UNLESS the electoral college decides otherwise). So what I’m saying is that we need to stop putting liberals or conservatives down for having a different view on how the country should be (And I AM NOT just talking about human rights-I know people who reluctantly voted for Trump not because they were racists or homophobes, but they generally agreed more with his fiscal policies. There’s more to voting and elections than social justice). This whole election was a mess. The candidates were bad enough, and the fighting is making it worse.
Katie, I think people (at least the normal people, so ignore Jim) are not saying there’s anything wrong with being liberal or being conservative. They’re saying there’s something wrong with Trump. He ran on a platform of bigotry and misogyny, and 60 million people pushed an “I’m cool with that” button, and that’s the problem.
Oh yeah, that is a problem-I totally agree with that. Actually, though, what’s more bewildering is how he even got the Republican nomination in the first place. I’m not quite that disturbed by people who voted for him in the final election, because everyone I know did it grudgingly, but I am definitely disturbed by people who’ve supported him since the beginning. But like I said, this election was bad enough. Everyone yelling at each other is just making it so much worse.
Quit telling people not to come to your country you bigot. You are a racist bigot hater who wants to shelter yourself away from people you don’t agree with but you demand that America a country you don’t even live in open its borders to anyone that wants to come in. You are a hypocrite bigoted racist demigod.
Jim , and you a good example of an American “Conservative”, you actually think calling someone’s views liberal is an insult. A person with a rounded education would think that liberal, conservative, and centrist viewpoints can all be valid and can be held by the same person about different issues. I mostly lean towards a centrist-liberal social view, liberal economic views (and look that up you dolt, because it isn’t what you think it is), and I have mixed liberal and conservative views on government and institutions – I am quite happy with the constitutional monarchy in NZ, hardly a liberal view there – .
Another thing that gives you away as someone who lacks a good deal of analytic and rational thinking is that you didn’t read my words, you read what you wanted to into my words. I never said that your country wasn’t allowed to set it’s own immigration rules, every sovereign entity has that right. And no one except the most extreme people think that any nation should have open borders in our world as it stands at present. But that doesn’t mean using hateful speech, making up lies about immigrant populations, and smearing whole races/countries/religions should be tolerated as acceptable speech when some candidate is trying to articulate their policy on immigration. Nor would it seem like a particularly smart idea to deport millions of people in your country that are part of its economy and social fabric, they may have reached their illegally, and you may want to stop that in the future, but a pragmatic humane approach to the problem is probably the best idea.
No modern multi-cultural democracy (and this especially applies to the former European colonies that were mostly gained their independence with a social pluralism already present) should seek to deny people’s immigration on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. But it should if it wishes (as New Zealand, Canada, and Australia do) use selection criteria that encourage the smart and successful and exclude the stupid, the bigoted, the racist, the religious zealots, and people who don’t believe in the basic tenants of democracy.
In that case, we should exclude Trump voters, why spread the problems to our country. Also given the nature of New Zealand’s democracy, social institutions, and culture it would seem an awfully strange place for an American Trump voter, or “Conservative” to want to migrate to, we stand in mostly united opposition to the ideas espoused by those groups.
No I read your words just fine Dennis. By the way I am responding using a different email because your liberal host is obviously intolerant of others views and decided to erase my post and block my email. You see I understand liberals perfectly well because they all act the same, and yes calling someone a liberal is an insult because conservatives know what type of people they are.
Did you notice every area that fills up with liberals slowly turns to shit and then the liberals move somewhere else where they repeat the process? Just like a virus. As far as nobody having a policy of open borders you couldn’t be more wrong. Thank you for confirming my belief that it is actually liberals that talk without thinking and like to believe in what they want instead of reality. Hillary Clinton is on tape giving a speech to big shot bankers where she point blank says she wants and believes in open borders, and she is not even a far left liberal. She is slightly liberal. Talk to Nancy Pelosi who was recorded on tape saying the same thing about open borders, and also said the constitution is wrong and needs to be amended to let all immigrants in no matter what. Please have a clue before responding to something you know nothing about.
Your excuses for attacking the policies of other countries while praising NZ, Canada, and Australia is the lamest attempt at self righteousness I have ever seen. There are articles all over the internet that anyone can see showing that those three countries have been cherry picking refugees. All of the ones that Canada accepted did not even come from camps. They didn’t even come from Syria. They were working class people that lived in countries around Syria that had apartments and homes. Why the UN labeled them as refugees is beyond anyones guess. Australia has been accused of cherry picking as well. Almost all of the refugees they accepted were Christians from Iraq. Why not muslims oh holy liberal?? No you just want the radicals to come to America but not in your precious Holy lands right? How about NZ who is going out on a limb to cherry pick the brightest and cleanest refugees who haven’t even seen any hard times and at the overwhelming rate of 700 per year. Wow way to go out on a limb NZ!!
You and all liberals are just phony baloney frauds that love to tear down decent societies and poison them with nasty liberal values. Then you perform like the true hypocrites you are by not even living up to your own professed standards.
Were you one of the bloody idiots that voted for the (as Liz called him, muppet?). Don’t remember you being selected to decide who should & shouldn’t be allowed to come to Aotearoa. It’s my place too, I’m tangata whenua, you’re not, I also have whanau in the US, they’ve been there for almost 50 years. You sound like a bigot that judges other’s intelligence based on who they voted/didn’t vote for? I think you should tug the beam out stuck in your eye.
Thats because liberals are the real intolerant people. They plead for tolerance only for their own values but despise other peoples values and want to oppress anyone that doesn’t think like them. They are the ultimate hypocrites.
@ Dennis. See I believe in gay marriage, equal rights for all, I believe transgender people should use whatever bathroom they want. But the Regressive left like you are equally as toxic and nasty as what you accuse the right of.
I think you and “Jim” (in the same postthread) are closer to each other than you like to pretend (since I believe the political “left” and “right” is a circle, rather than a spectrum). I do not like Trump, but I understand why a lot of working class voted for him (while some probably holding their nose while doing so).
Neither political parties (same in Australia and New Zealand and the UK) actually cares about the working class, what with the erosion of social safety nets and privatisation of national services all over the western world supported by both sides of politics. Most political parties (in the Anglophere at least), have abandoned any “leftist” economical policy.
Good luck fitting in here haha.
Great post , but umm on the “diversity isn’t its strong suit”? Maybe you live in the middle of the South Island (and who wouldn’t if they could for the environment there), but New Zealand’s large cities are quite diverse, Auckland is now only around 50 -55% European origin and that includes a fair number of people who have decades past mixed heritage. 25% of Auckland is Asian, and that is “Asian” as in the whole huge and diverse continent of Asia. My high school was 50% non-Pakeha, my parents generation of my family has three mixed couples in it, and that is not uncommon at all.
And even the diversity of the newer migrants who have arrived in the last 30 years seeps out into the small towns: I am a kiwi and on my Koreans wife’s first visit to Australia and New Zealand, In Australia she felt uncomfortable and often threatened, especially outside the inner city areas, and I even noticed some outright hostility in rural towns there. In Perth, someone tried to place their order with her in a cafe because it turned out the only Asians perhaps in the whole suburb were the owners of said cafe.
In New Zealand however, she found the small towns the most welcoming, people were interested and polite, asking where she was from and how we met, regaling her with cute stories of some Korean person they met or even did business with. She felt appreciated and welcome. It swelled me with pride; we met Korean New Zealand small holdings farmers at random in a supermarket on the outskirts of Nelson that shared similar experiences about their life in NZ.
All major political parties in NZ try and get votes from as many sectors and groups in the community as they can. This is not only because of the electoral system but because to openly exclude one group through your actions would be seen as toxic by their other supporters. I cannot fathom a major party in NZ (or most western democracies for that matter) thinly disguising attempts to disenfranchise large amounts of the electorate for their advantage.
New Zealand is not perfect; New Zealanders are not perfect. But at least most of us take pride in aspiring to be better human beings. I think any Americans who make it to New Zealand no matter their background or creed will find it a much gentler, more inclusive place than where they are from. I think New Zealand would be missing a massive chance if it didn’t look at changing its immigration rules and setting up business incubators etc. so that we could take advantage of the terribleness of Trump by welcoming in the best, brightest, and most entrepreneurial of Americans who want to leave.
great points. I was just referring to the fact that NZ is super white compared to America, and Wanaka especially.
Haha, Wanaka is Super White compared to fresh snow, but then so is anywhere in Maine or Vermont 😀 ..
Also to some of the people below complaining about housing costs and saying it is because of immigration, well that is just a bit simplistic.
Immigration is a factor in house prices of course, as it puts upward pressure on the demand curve, but the main problem in New Zealand (and Australia) is supply.
And the problem is when people start talking about supply they nearly always come to the wrong conclusions. With the physical size of our major cities now there is only minimal good that can be done by “opening up land to housing”, and doing that is mostly a bad. Creating yet more endless suburbs no matter how shiny and new when they start will only increase the number of second generation middle of nowhere hell holes.
Four things would help with supply, but they require the government at a few levels to make a central plan and manage it.
– If “new” land is opened up for suburbs, then those areas need sensible central planning.
— Built around transport and town hubs, with small shopping malls, markets and open air streets.
— Medium density (Sydney terraced housing comes to mind) directly around the transport hub
— Low density further out, and I mean low, not traditional ticky-tacky boxes shoved so close it is the worst of both worlds.
— Bike, Tram, Bus and Park’n’Ride facilities radiating out from the transport hub
– Increase the density in the inner cities, high density in the CBD, medium-high density on the edge of the CBD, and medium density outside of that.
— Minium standards for size, facilities, etc. to make apartments not only profitable for developers but great places for people to live in the long term.
— Again Bike, Tram, Bus facilities in those inner city areas to connect to the centre and transport hubs.
– Encourage/Demand new immigrants settle in smaller cities deemed “development” cities well outside of the major ones (not places to close that will eventually become part of a wider metro area or exhurbs) for the first ten years after migration.
— Connect those cities via good roads and high-speed rail to the current major cities.
— Plan those cities transport and housing patterns intensely.
— Place Institutes of higher-learning with a particular industry focus in those cities, therefore encouraging that industries spread there.
— Setup business incubators, sharing forums, etc. and help already existing business entrepreneurship mentorship programs to expand.
– Retro-fit some of these ideas to existing large cities while keeping their traditional characters. (for instance encouraging and expanding the Wellington tradition of having down stairs one-two bedroom “student flats” in people’s homes.
Central planning is not the way governments tend to work in the English-speaking world and hence there is a reluctance to think like this about housing supply, or to do some of these things in a half measured way.
And there is one more thing that needs to be fixed to help supply. Phase out all tax incentives and financial advantages to owning a second home to “rent to others”. These incentives create the world of have and have-nots we see now, it creates an influential older voting block who will never-ever back policies that see housing prices decline. Younger people lucky enough to have parents who have multiple houses will be able to inherit them, those who do not are left trying to struggle to save money to buy a house or having it all drained away by small time landlords trying to extract every cent from their investment.
And there you have it, I have written war and peace about bloody housing 😉
So great, thanks!
@ Dennis Hill. You are so right. I am a traffic modeller in Brisbane. The issue is that new townhubs are designed by private development companies with little thought put into public transport (even the government requirements for these give short shrift to public transport).
And these days any public transport infrastructure needed is something that keeps being kicked down the road to the next government. Brisbane has needed something done about their rail infrastructure in the city for over 10 years. Millions are spent on research and modelling to try and find the cheapest option for the minimum effect, then a new government is elected and decide to focus on their plans, so millions are spent on new research and modeling, then the old government gets voted back in next time, so millions are spent again on the old idea to be re-researched and re-modeled. With the final result of nothing having been done for the last 10 years.
If you want to move to NZ then consider Auckland, the city of sails, we have such an amazing environment here with plenty to do, great climate with no smog!
Auckland is a great place! Minus the traffic and million dollar real estate lol
I digress, Hillary spent eight years as first lady and four years as Secretary of State. A total of twelve years living and working in a classified environment and receiving numerous briefing on identifying, handling and protecting classified information. The FBI testified to congress her personnel unsecured server contained numerous classified documents. This is a flagrant disregard of national security – anyone without strong political connections would have lost their security clearance and jailed. I find Hillary’s national security breaches far more disturbing than Trump’s shortcomings. Talk about a serial liar that accurately describes both slick willy and Hillary.
Then there’s the Clinton Foundation investigation!
Well I think if the FBI decided not to do anything about it they know better than you. How do you know she’s lying? Fuck I hate it when people think they know everything. Are you in the FBI? Were you part of the investigation? DO you know everything? THen if not, keep your uninformed opinions to yourself!
FACT: The FBI did confirm she did have classified data on her computer. She stated she did not have any classified their, that’s a LIE. Case closed.
There not their. And if the FBI didn’t prosecute, I don’t believe you should think you know better. And I think it’s a little rich to even bring up the FBI about how terribly James Comey behaved right before the election.
The information was classified AFTER she received it on her server. This is clearly in the FBI’s report. And everyone always chooses to forget that previous Sec’ys of State ALSO had home servers, including Colin Powell and Condeleeza Rice.
Your entire post showed that you are someone that thinks she knows everything.