Two Americans emigrate to New Zealand from Colorado,
USA.
We share our Kiwi immigration story and talk about
our new life in Nelson, New Zealand
October 2008 | Blog home | December 2008
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Once kiwis have voted (see part 1 on how to vote in the general election), then we have to form a government. That's where one must do some math to understand how the parliamentary election here works toward forming a government for the next three years.
As we learned last time, class, each voter has two votes, a party vote and an candidate/electorate vote. The party vote helps decide how many seats each party gets in parliament. Every voter in every general has the same selection of parties to choose from. The government will be formed by one or more parties with the support of enough seats to win important votes in parliament.
Parliament is currently made up of 62 general and 7 Māori electorate seats, plus 51 seats allocated from party lists, giving a total of 120 seats. The electorate votes for Members of Parliament, or MPs, to make up the 62 general electorate seats. In these seats, the candidates from each electorate who get the most votes win that seat. Māori receive their 7 electorate seats, as I understand it.
The 51 seats allocated from party lists is arrived at by a percentage: parties get a share of seats in parliament close to their share of overall party votes. A party's share of seats is filled first by any of its candidates who win electorate seats and then by taking other candidates from the party list. The party develops this list on its own, and occasionally we hear stories about so-and-so making it up to #20 on the party list - this means if the party gets 20 or more party seats, the first 20 on the list make it in.
For example, if the Labour Party doesn't win as many general electorate seats but receives a high percentage of party votes (remember, every voter has 2 votes: candidate AND party), then it will be allocated a larger portion of those 51 seats so that the overall percentage of the 120-seat parliament is generally reflective of the national vote. Sometimes this means a reduction in party seats - or no seats allocated at all - because the overall percentage may be 10% for a particular party, but the party reach more than 10% with just its general electorate seats, so that party won't get any of the 51 party seats.
One caveat: the party has to reach a threshold where a party will get seats in parliament based on its party vote if it wins:
Party votes cast for parties that don't cross the threshold are disregarded in the allocation process (which uses a mathematical formula and not percentages to share out the seats) and they are not reallocated to the other parties. A party vote cast for a party that does not cross threshold has no impact on the number of seats other parties will receive. In this sense it has the same impact as a non-vote - exactly none - except that the voter's electorate vote will have helped decide that particular contest.
Many times it is unclear who may lead the country because parties may not win the leadership position outright by getting more than 60 seats (and therefore 60 votes); they may have to form a coalition. This is what happened last election where Labour (Helen Clark) won the most seats, but not enough to lead outright. She took several weeks to form a coalition with minor parties, and of course she promises leadership positions to these minor party leaders in exchange for their vote, their agreement, their allegiance.
That's what happened with Winston Peters, and now we all live with THAT decision. An inside joke.
Anyway, FINGERS CROSSED TODAY for 4 November in States ... fingers crossed.
Those of you who know Don and I know how we feel about this election. For those of you who don't, see the home page for a brief, but to the point statement. We did not move to New Zealand to escape the Bush government, and we won't be moving back now that Obama has been elected. But we are very, very, very, very glad. To say the very least.
But enough of us, what did New Zealand think? The New York Times had an article yesterday about the reaction around the world and it went to Asia and Israel and talked with people who were thrilled with America's choice. In New Zealand, the major television stations that I watched talked for about the first 20 minutes of the election. Kiwis were interviewed, all of them happy about Obama.
The newspapers in the three biggest cities - Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington - all featured the story covering the entire front page. See Wellington's Dominion Post from Thursday to the right.
Change has come to 
America. Yes we can. Barack Obama is America's future (see New Zealand Herald front page to the left). How do you think this country feels? Obama is change, the other guy was more of the same. Sound familiar?
The Christchurch Press (below) also covered its entire front page with Obama, and our little 'ol Nelson Mail covered 2/3 of the front page (below).
People came up to me all day on Thursday asking if I was happy and saying that kiwis paid far more attention to the American election than they are paying to their own - coming up this Saturday (see the right side of the Dominion Post, "That 'other' election"). Everyone I talked to without exception was happy, some even elated. We all felt the same: this was a win for the world, this is a move in the right direction for the world.
Kiwis recognised the historical nature of America electing an African 
American and themselves looked beyond Obama's race. To my surprise, however, after congratulations were spoken, nearly everyone said they were worried about his safety. The plexiglass set up on the stage for his acceptance speech did not go unnoticed, and even I looked at it with some trepidation. I didn't want to be fearful, but the reality has obviously crossed the minds of the secret service AND the kiwis. I didn't (want to) give it a second thought, and won't for awhile as I'm just too freakin happy.
I'll try to update this a bit tomorrow with more info ... and also we have election day in New Zealand tomorrow. It's looking like a National government has the lead going into polling day - a more conservative outlook but still far more liberal than the US conservative party.
Yesterday was our first general election in New Zealand and both Don and I voted in it. There's me on the right with my easy vote card - ha ha yes I CAN ... vote in two countries. You might be 
surprised to hear, after all my highly vocal political rants and obvious leanings, that I was undecided even as I was sitting in the booth with pen in hand. In a parliamentary system things are more complicated because you elect parties and there are coalitions and the elected party may end up not ruling parliament because it cannot form a working coalition to meet the minimum number of seats to get anything done, etc etc.
My mind was still mush after last Weds (Tuesday in US, election day) and I hadn't really focussed on politics much (aside from the Palin mudslinging which has been real fun!). 
I should have thought more on the walk down, but the steep slope of Citrus Lane always has me thinking about my knees first, the rest second.
After we arrived at the local school and waited about 5 minutes (see that long line in pic below), I was in a booth without knowing what to do. I couldn't stand there all day - 
after all, it's not like voting in Colorado where you have president then senator then representative THEN ballot issues and amendments and schools and judges and on and on. It's literally 2 ticks (checks in boxes), that's the election slogan even, 'Two Ticks.'
Now I know why the election lines are SOOOOOOOOOOO long in America - TOO MANY ISSUES on the ballot, it takes for freakin' ever to fill out a ballot!! Here, two ticks, DONE. Super fast.
In the cute cardboard cutout voting booth, I finally managed to tick something, there's me coming out with my "I voted" sticker.
I think I did the right thing for me, but it doesn't matter as National was voted in pretty handily and is looking to form a coalition with the Act party, which is right wing. Some commentators are saying that Act won't have much authority in the coalition as they have so few players (less than 5) and so National are going to have to rule from the moderate center - which is good for us as we've had enough conservative regimes in politics!!!!!!!!!! Others are saying this election is 'a big jump to the right.'
The National Leader John Key had already cut deals before the election to form a coalition with Act and United Future parties and after last night, the three parties, together, had won 65 seats - enough to give them a majority in a 122-seat Parliament. Ouch.
Still, as I've said many times, National's brand of conservatism is more liberal than the American Republican Party, so I'm not too worried overall, yet. I think. Who knows??? One of my friends told me that once the party is in it will be for two terms (6 total years) as kiwis don't tend to vote anyone out after one term.
One sad note: Helen Clark resigned as leader of her party, having lost the election. She is standing down and I've no idea right now what that means for Labour - although there is a second in command for the Party and maybe he will be the new leader. Times are a changing here ... Let's hope for good stuff and some pressure from the left in making sound, moderate decisions for all kiwis.
Anyhoo, back to the campaign - as you may have read in prior blogs, the campaign lasts only a few weeks. The picture to the right pretty much shows the extent of what we saw, in combination with a few televised debates between the two primary leaders - signs on the road. There is no campaigning allowed on election day, so these signs and all signs had to come down the day before the election.
You may notice the catchy campaign (in my opinion) of the Green Party, with the sign to the far left that is cut off. It is a picture of the planet and the sign says "Vote for me." Below is another one that they used, very clever campaign in my opinion. Unfortunately it seems right now the Greens are a one issue party, although they take a 
stance on many other issues, but I see them more as enhancing the Labour Party. If Labour was a shoo in for victory this election, I would have voted Green straight down the ticket (all two ticks, that is). But this election was not favouring Labour, so I felt I had to give my support to them because they really needed it. Still, the Greens have added two, maybe three seats and I am very glad for that.
I'd love to hear what, if ANYTHING, anyone in America heard about OUR election ... drop me a line please and let me know!
Yesterday my friend Annie married her long time partner of some 10 years, Dan, and we were lucky enough to go to their wedding at the lovely, local Fairfield House. On Annie's invitation she wrote a poem that I'm putting here cuz I thought it was so darn clever!!
Our garage looms with tools & string,
the kitchen drawers heave with handy things.
Our towel sets, if laid from toe to head,
Would wrap around the house and shed.
But our newly painted walls are bare,
Our shelves are sparse from far to near.
ART, we thought would be just great,
If you want to participate.
Pen us a love song or poetic comment,
Share an old photo as a new print.
Play-dough, plasticine or pottery-pot
Things to delight in are what we want.
So free your creative side for a while,
Finger paint fantasies that make us smile.
Loom a throw or be-dazzle a duvet,
Or find some random objets trouvés
As ART like love brings JOY to life;
And marks this day, Dan takes his wife.
She is such a renaissance woman, my friend Annie! She cooks, she writes poetry, she works in human resources, just so impressive. I aspire to none of that stuff, and am fine with it! LOL
The weather was looking ominous most of the day in Nelson, but seemed to clear up right at 4pm when the ceremony was to start. See Fairfield House to the left, its a historic home representative of some time in the 1800s I'm sure, I really don't know the history, terrible! It is often used for events, parties, and weddings.
Below you can see in one of the pictures the view of the gardens.
Then Annie and Dan came down from the upper garden and exchanged their vows.
It is quite common in New Zealand to wear a coloured wedding dress, both Annie and my friend Sharon have both worn colours. White and ivory are also still worn, but there aren't so many 'rules' here about weddings as there seem to be in the States, from what I'm used to.
Obviously Annie and Dan are walking together to the ceremony as you can see in the picture to the right, so the 'father giving away the bride' rule is also not hard and fast. I think relaxing those rules is a good thing, it makes the weddings have more variety. But they are probably only relaxed compared to my perspective, here it's just the way kiwis do things!
Below is the view of the wedding party, L to R: Celebrant Jim, bridesmaid Kerry, Annie, Dan, best man Tom.
Here's a wider view of the garden and the pretty brick patio, with the wedding party.
And down below there's me talking to Annie, I got another wear in of my red dress that I wore to Jade's wedding. It's a 
good wedding dress, but it was starting to get chilly so I am glad I brought my wrap. Plus there were sandflies and they LOOOVVVE me. Others were applying bug spray too, so it's not just foreign blood they love.
One of the treats I was soooo looking forward to was my first taste of whitebait. I have been putting off tasting this Nelson (kiwi?) favourite for some reason, but Annie mentioned she would be having whitebait patties as appetisers so I readied my tastebuds for a bite. Whitebait is this tiny little white fish that is eaten whole, eyes and bones and all. People fish for it all the time, finding it in the rivers here. Don tells me that it's mostly a West Coast thing on the South Island, that you can fish for it here but mostly it is found on the West Coast.
If you visit the Saturday market they make full sandwiches (usually how its served) for sale. I haven't had 
the guts yet to try it, although mostly I just hadn't gotten around to it! It's mixed up in an egg batter and fried like eggs into a sandwich.
Here you can see, there are two of the fish 'swimming' out from the bottom of the sandwich, you can see the eyes of one, and you eat it whole, so it's a bit crunchy. Of course these ones aren't alive, they just look it.
I thought the whitebait was just fine, wasn't offensive and was quite good! Not sure it'll be part of my regular eating, however.
And yes, there's my cleavage in the background! I tried to hide it in that red dress, can you tell??!! :)
21 November: Drive out to the Buller Gorge and Westport
In recent months Don and I have been sticking a bit close to home, not venturing out for any day trips or weekenders. His parents visited in June, winter was then upon us, and then we moved house. It took us more than half the year to get into gear and start planning to get out of dodge again. The spring weather has been sporadic, lots of rain and wind which has been heavy all through the winter also. So needless to say, we had an itch to get away! We have plans to do more in the coming months, so stay tuned.
Over Labour Weekend, a three day holiday weekend, we woke up, looked at each other, looked out the window, saw blue sky, and headed out on a road trip. The map gives you the route we took - and all in one day there and back - with the red line highlighting the road and the green circle I drew highlighting the Buller Gorge part of the trip, the most picturesque. Sorry about the blur, I wanted to enlarge the map for easy viewing.
So we headed out after packing up the truck (more on that in a later blog - we have a new car!) and we got to our halfway point, Murchison, in about 90 minutes. We'd been here many times, well, everyone who drives south of Nelson goes through Murchison. Quickly. But they do have great public toilets, we always stop there (see above).
Outside of Murchison one turns west to head to ... Westport. Odd, no?
Quickly we came across the famous swingbridge, apparently the longest one ever, or maybe in New Zealand, or perhaps the southern hemisphere. I'm not so sure, but no matter I wasn't going across it.
Another hour or so down the road, we were making our way through the gorge before landing in Westport. Enjoy the pictures.
same funny rock overhang, either side of the road
Once you get out of the gorge, you can see the ocean and then a right turn takes you to Westport which fed us rather well for lunch but wasn't much for pictures, at least none worth sharing too much. (Picture on left is us going away from Westport back into the gorge.)
It's flat, and hot, and flat, and has bugs. If you're really keen on seeing Westport proper, the destinations section of the site has a photo or two of the town.
After we fed ourselves and filled our bellies, we headed out about 20 kms south to Cape Foulwind, which didn't smell at all but was windy as all heck!! We went for a walk on the edge of the tall cliffs looking right down onto the west coast.
You can see from the picture to the lower right the path along the cliffs that we took, covered in clothing to 
protect from the cold, foul wind. But the scenery was beautiful and the bush totally west coast. We walked for about an hour and then turned around to see the amazing scenery in reverse. We then hopped in the car and headed home, seeing the trek back also from the opposite angle.
Here's one final picture from a cliff at Cape Foulwind.
I’m pleased to announce the arrival of our new 1997 Isuzu Bighorn. Yes, we have decided to part ways with our little station wagon and replace her with a SUV more in line with what Americans should be driving all over the planet. Actually we were looking at a nice hybrid when oil was at $150/ barrel and there seemed to be no end in sight to the high gas prices. However, we were pleased to see the prices started to drop so we figured forget the little hybrid, everything must be fine and oil must be plentiful again. Guess someone must have tapped those reserves up there in that great state of Alaska – you betcha’.
But seriously, we both decided we wanted something a bit bigger, more comfortable, and a bit higher off the ground. I also wanted to get something with a diesel engine as they are a bit more fuel efficient and, on average, last longer than a petrol engine.
Diesel gas is cheaper here (NZ$1.20 vs 1.43/ litre right now) and the fuel economy is better (typically 25-35%) so even though we upgraded to a larger car we’ll get approximately the same miles/ gallon (or litres/100km as they measure here). On the last fill up we averaged about 20mpg in the city. I’ve even heard you can put Hoki oil in it – who knows, we might just experiment with a bio-fuel.
Also, the diesel engines supposedly emit less CO2 provided you keep them maintained. The engine is a bit louder and the whole car shakes when you start it up but it makes the car sound more powerful (at least that's how Angela rationalises it).
And while I can agree a SUV isn’t the most environmentally friendly vehicle, we’ve done our fair share to counter its use. You have to remember we are a one car family and in the two-plus years since we have been here we only put on a total of 14,000kms (just over 8,600 miles). I did have a company car for about eight of those months, but still. Plus we are able to carpool to work every day so continue to do our part for the environment.
Plus Angela has been a vegetarian for nearly 13 years. What does that have to do with it you ask? Well I’ll tell you. A recent study I read about in New Scientist says eating a steak is equivalent to driving a 4x4 30kms. The study pointed out that our diet accounts for up to 2x more carbon emissions than driving – mostly tied to cattle farming for beef or dairy products. It also stated that switching from an average American diet to a vegetarian one would cut carbon emissions by 1.5 tonnes of CO2eq per person. Doing a quick calculation, assume Angela would have a steak 6x/week like your average person and you get about 112,320kms to present. Not bad.
One down side is that since diesel isn’t taxed at the pump, we have to purchase road user charges (RUCs). Not a big deal since they translate into about .04/ km. Just a bit annoying that it is another thing we have to remember to purchase and can get ticketed for allowing to expire.
Well we’ve had the car for a couple months now and we are both pleased with it. Our recent road trip to Westport was much more comfortable than the couple longer drives we did in the wagon. We're planning a longer road trip for early next year and think it will work well. It’s been much easier for hauling the bikes around as well. But best of all, now we can once again see over the other cars on the road.
