Who is this twat who won Eurovision?
I know the Finns were probably busy, but surely we could of lined up Dave Dobbyn to go over and represent NZ? Did NZ even have an entry?
As it happens, I watched Footrot Flats again last night. Almost remembered it line-for-line from my younger days.
Cheeky Hobson hasn’t aged well though, sadly.
Anyway, tell me this couldn’t sway the Eurovision judges.
The financial year for personal income tax finished on 31st of March in NZ. Not that’d you’d know it.
There are no payment summaries from employers, no group certificates, and really it just goes by unmentioned and unacknowledged.
Also, filing a personal income tax return is completely optional.
What is this? A ploy by the Inland Revenue Department to boost their tax taking due to people’s apathy and/or ignorance?
I don’t want to turn this into an Aus vs. NZ thing, because it’s not. I know other countries make it optional to file tax returns. But I’ve lived in Australia for my entire life minus two years, so it’s my only point of reference.
In Australia, come the end of the financial year (30th June), you will soon after receive a summary of your payments from each of your employers for the previous financial year. And then you must file a tax return. Everybody. Therefore you find out exactly where you stand, whether you are owed moned from the tax office, of whether you owe money.
It’s a pain, but it’s accurate.
But here in NZ, it seems like you take your chances.
Do I simply not file a tax return, thinking that I probably won’t get anything back? Or do I employ the services of an accountant, hoping to claw back some cash?
(Yes I know you can do the returns yourself, but compared the NZ forms, the Australian Taxation Office ones are a piece of piss.)
In a nutshell, I’m not sure I’m a fan of optional tax returns. They can’t be accurate. Hence the IRD needing to publish an annual list of people who are owed money. At least it’s something, I guess.
It’s a pain when life and work gets in the way of blogging, ay?
There’s been heaps of action here in NZ over the last few days:
Some suggestions (taken from a Guy Rundle article in one of last week’s Crikey emails):
- North Island: Nuth Island, South Island: Suth Island
- North Island: South Fiji, South Island: North Ice
- North Island: Dom, South Island: Femme
- North Island: East Bondi, South Island: South-east Bondi
- North Island: Landmass East of Australia No.1, South Island: Landmass East of Australia No.2
- North Island: Fush, South Island: Chups
- North Island: Bro’, South Island: Cuz
- North Island: League, South Island: Union
- North Island: Mordor, South Island: The Shire
Any other suggestions from you fine people? I also quite like ‘Jonah’ and ‘Lomu’.
As I’ve been away I haven’t had the chance to stick up a post regarding ANZAC Day. However, given the subject matter of this blog, it would be remiss of me to ignore it.
So, lest we forget the sacrifice made by those that have defended our countries, and also the tragic loss of life which is caused by war.
Just a quick note to inform everyone of the introduction of a new geographically-based visitor vetting policy at this blog.
Commencing immediately, nobody from Wainuiomata shall be allowed to visit this blog.
This is nothing to do with what some of Wainuiomata’s sports teams may or may not have done at a certain motel, or the quality of Wainuiomata visitors’ comments.
Rather, it is prompted by the fact that they are the people responsible for electing Trevor Mallard to parliament.
I mean, honestly, what were you all thinking?
The ban will stand until the next election, when hopefully Wainuiomata voters come to their senses and see to it that that simpleton is not re-elected.
Regards,
Fush ‘n’ Chups Admin
PS – There is currently no mechanism in place to actually enforce this ban, so for now we rely on an honesty policy. If you are from Wainuiomata, and are still reading, please close your tab/browser window immediately.
Firstly I just want to get something out of the way: the New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key, is a visionary and a genius.
(Australians: Yep that’s right, Helen Clark’s no longer the NZ PM. Yeah I know, we liked her, didn’t we? Especially whenever she sledged John Howard. But she was in office for a while, so voters over here decided to give a new bloke a go. And he’s pretty cool. He’s already mates with K-Rudd. Kevin signed the plaster cast on Key’s broken arm and everything. Rumour has it that Kevin wrote “Hey John, say fish and chips again! Haha!”. Key was so impressed he auctioned the cast online (once it was removed) and got $18,500 for it. True story.)
John Key is the type of guy who, if you put him alone in a room with a scrambled Rubik’s Cube, three minutes later he’d come out with it solved.
Apparently in his university days, he solve his professors’ unfinished equations, Will Hunting style.
I also have it on good authority that he is a man you do NOT want to play a game of Scrabble against.
Waiting for John to finish reading the newspaper so you can do the cryptic crossword? Sorry, you’re out of luck my friend. He will have already done it, with one eye on the sports section.
You get the idea.
What good would a NZ PM be without a herd of sheep?
As an example of John Key’s brilliance, consider his reponse to the global economic crisis which he had to deal with soon after taking office. With leaders around the world scurrying to introduce bail-outs, nationalise banks, and generally shitting themselves, what does Key do?
He announces that he’s going to build a bike track.
Just let that sink in for a minute.
How is that for some lateral thinking folks?
You couldn’t even say that was from left field. That’s some zen-like Yoda-style wisdom right there guys.
Rudd had to drop AU$42 billion on a national broadband network just to try to outdo the guy.
And so that brings me to the point of this post. One of Key’s stated aims at last year’s election was to stem the flow of Kiwis to Australia, and hopefully try to lure a few expats back to NZ as well.
However, since the election there hasn’t been a lot of talk about how this is going to be achieved. But that’s no big deal, election promises are made to be broken, right? Maybe it was a “non-core” promise, John Howard style.
If you thought this, then you would be wrong, way wrong. John Key’s already six steps ahead of everyone.
What is the one thing that Australia doesn’t have that could be attractive to some of NZ’s best and brightest?
Key announced a couple of months ago that his government was going to re-introduce the titular system that was previously abolished by Helen Clark’s mob when they were elected.
It might have seemed like Key was just some mad monarchist pining for the good ol’ days of British colonialism, but no, this bloke knows all about cause and effect and the like.
The thing is, when he said he wanted to lure back expat Kiwis, he didn’t say which ones. He doesn’t want the ones sitting on Bondi beach being sponsored by the Kevin Rudd surf team. No, he wants the high-fliers, the luminaries, the ones that have done New Zealand proud on the world stage. Think Peter Jackson, the guys from Flight of the Conchords, John Clarke, or anyone from the Finn family.
What could appeal to voters enrich the culture of New Zealand more than to have these high-achievers back living and working in NZ?
In a word: brilliant.
It also got me to thinking, this is a pretty small place, population-wise. Surely the odds of one getting tapped for one of these honours has to be better than just about anywhere else. Which means, if I hang around for another year or so, and become a citizen, I’ll be eligible. All that remains would be to do something vaguely notable.
Has a blogger ever been knighted?
Just to prove to the naysayers, these so-called “born and bred” Kiwis who had never heard of a shopping trolley being called a trundler before, irrefutable proof has been spotted at my local Countdown:
In case you need a closer look:
Honestly, next thing you lot will be telling me a New Zealander was the first to split the atom or something.
Only took him two weeks to formulate a comeback to some of the claims made on this blog. Which is strange for a man of such formidable intelligence (more on that soon).
He could of at least left a comment on here first. Pity.
I tell you one thing I love about New Zealand. They don’t get carried away with any of the holiday periods.
Take Easter for example. It’s a recognised public holiday time, same as most other places. There are a few stands with Easter eggs etc in the shops for the past month or so, and Easter Friday and Monday are public holidays. Like Australians, Kiwis love a good public holiday no matter what the reason, so many nick off to some other part of the country for a long weekend.
And that’s about it.
Kiwis are a laid-back bunch, as I said before. If some were any more laid back they’d be horizontal. That can be annoying sometimes (like when you have to wait FOREVER to get your furniture delivered when moving here and keep being told that “it’ll be there soon bro”).
It takes a fair bit to get the average New Zealander to get excited. Really, it’s only All Blacks matches, or the very rare occasion that NZ manages to beat the Aussies at something. Or an Australian blogger who says anything other than that NZ has the best scenery, the best lifestyle, the best rugby team, and is the best country on Earth.
But in the case of festive or holiday seasons, this laid-back approach is pretty refreshing.
Compare this to Easter in Australia. There are eggs in the supermarkets by early February. Leading up to Easter the catalogues for eggs and stuffed bunnies fill your letter box.
And then the ads on TV start. You know those ones on “the meaning of Easter”? The vox-pop style ones filmed in 1987 with the wonky-looking buck-tooth cross-eyed kids crapping on about how they can’t wait to scarf a bunch of chocolate eggs, and then the finger-wagging message to not forget it’s a Christian holiday?
There’s no escaping them, and they drive you up the wall, and this is from someone that doesn’t really even watch TV.
Not here though. It’s just Easter, big deal. Have a few days off, head away to the bach, and that’s about it.
And it’s the same for Xmas, Mother’s and Father’s Day, Valentines Day, and any other designated “Day” where you’re compelled to buy things for others.
So Happy Easter and all that, but really, just enjoy the holiday.
Thanks to your feedback, I’ve ended up with a pretty good list. This blog is going to provide potential Australian immigrants with some useful information if it kills me, and by golly, this is a small but significant step in bridging the language barrier.
A few entries are still marked as contentious, so will try to find evidence either for or against those asap.
But I swear my old New World had a trundler bay.
And I’ve heard the term click-clack. In a furniture store. And what noise do futons make when you fold them out?
Exactly.
The link’s up there at the top of the page.
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