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General
Information About New Zealand
The Country
New
Zealand is a self-governing member of the British
Commonwealth of Nations.
The
government is, generally, modelled on the British system
of parliamentary democracy with universal suffrage and a
multi party House of Representatives. The party with the
most members forms the government and its leader becomes
the Prime Minister.
The
Parliament is, unlike Britain, elected by a form of
proportional representation known as Mixed Member
Proportional where voters elect some members of
parliament directly as their local representative, and
some MPs are chosen from lists prepared by the various
parties. The overall number of seats held by each party
is directly proportional to the number of votes it
receives.
You can
get more info on the electoral system from the Electoral
Commission site.
The last
election, in 2008, resulted in four Parties, National, Act, United
Future and the Maori Party, forming
a government. The Prime Minister is John Key, leader of the National
Party.
Like
Britain, NZ is a constitutional monarchy. The Head of
State - Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second - is
represented in the country by a resident Governor
General.
Tourist
Information
In all
centres there is a local visitor information office, part
of the i-Site network. They provide
excellent assistance and should be an automatic stop for
all travellers.
Overseas,
offices of the Tourism New Zealand can send you
information.
Banking
and Currency
Banks are
open Monday to Friday (except public holidays) 9.30am to
4.30pm. In some
centres there are banks that open Saturdays. The Bank of
New Zealand Airport Branch in Auckland is open seven days
a week from first flight to last flight.
For
currency exchange there are also a number of other options such as
bureaux de change and currency exchange machines. Hotels
will also change money, but like their counterparts
anywhere in the world the rate is not sweet. Trading banks usually offer
the best exchange rates.
All major
credit cards are widely accepted.
The unit of currency is
the NZ dollar divided, like every other dollar, into 100
cents. For current exchange rates go the the
Westpac Bank site.
Water
Supply
Tap
(faucet) water is fresh and safe to drink anywhere in the
country. Bottled water is available but a recent test
showed that common ordinary tap water was as good or
better quality than expensive bottled stuff. In fact
there are several bottlers who do no more than bottle the
local tap supply!!
Goods
and Service Tax (GST).
There are
only two certainties in life - death and taxes. Our
version of the latter is GST, a value added tax that is
levied on everything. Like I mean everything.
Goods purchased at souvenir shops are free of GST if
posted directly to your home. Duty Free goods
are also free of GST. To be quite honest it's about all
you do save on most stuff in the duty free shops with the
exception of grog and fags. Sorry, liquor and tobacco
products. Few other products have "duty"
imposed on them - mostly clothes and footwear. The rate of GST is 15%.
Electrical
Appliances
Electric
current is 230v at 50 hertz. This is Alternating Current
(AC) and not suitable for Direct Current (DC) appliances
or appliances operating on a different voltage, although
most hotels and motels provide 110v AC sockets (rated at
20 watts) for electric razors only. Power sockets accept
three-pin flat plugs, although many appliances only use
the top two pins.
Adapters can be bought at
most home appliance shops or at eletronics shops such as Dick Smith, a
chain that has shops nearly everywhere.
Telephone
Services
Telephone
calls can be made from call boxes which accept telephone cards. Cards can be purchased from many outlets, which display a
"Cardphone cards sold here" signs. But beware
of the roadside robbers, Credit Card phone boxes. There
is a huge minimum charge applicable. Check out the costs
very carefully before you use them. Instructions on using
the telephone system can be found in the front of every
phone book.
The other
option, which is becoming very popular, is to hire a
mobile phone for the time here. One of the major
cell-phone provides, Vodafone, has counters at Auckland and Christchurch
airports where you can hire a phone there and then.
If you
have a sim-card type mobile you can buy a card here for
about $NZ35. Get them from the Vodafone counter at the
airport, or from any of the Dick Smith Electronics chain
of stores. A new service provider, 2 Degrees, is offering SIM cards for
$5. Get more info
here . . .
Driving
In this
country the left side is the right side and the right
side is the wrong side. Right? And it's often the second
day behind the wheel that is the most dangerous. By then
you think you've got this left-side-of-the-road jazz
sussed - and you switch your brain off. The next thing
you'll be blithely tootling along oblivious to the
oncoming lunatic on the "wrong" side of the
road.
Indeed,
even after weeks of being on the left of the dotted line
you can still inadvertently wander back to your old ways.
One thing
that helps is if the passenger or passengers also
take responsibility for staying on the right side - the
left side - of the road. The driver should have the white
dots, and the passenger should have the green grass.
Highways
NZ
highways are, for the most part, of a high standard. Most
main roads are sealed and offer no difficulty to overseas motorists even
though for long stretches they are two lanes wide, i.e. one in each
direction. Many back country roads are, however, gravel
surfaced and should be driven with caution. Go whooping
around a gravel-surfaced corner and all those little
loose pebbles turn into ball-bearings that will spin your
car into the wall - or worse, over the edge - so fast you
can't catch the slide in time.
Petrol
(Gasoline)
There are
two grades of petrol on general sale - super unleaded and 91 unleaded (which is
about 5c cheaper). At some sites you can buy 98 octane - but that's
go-fast gas for boy racers who think their souped-up heaps need higher
octane.
Some vehicles
run on diesel which is, unlike many places in the world, cheaper than petrol because it is
not taxed at the pump. Instead you have to pay Road User Charges, a tax of about
$55 per
1000km for motor cars. Registration charges - the annual
tax on vehicles - is also higher on diesel-powered
vehicles.
For up to date prices of
fuel go to the Pricewatch
website.
Climate
The
climate is described technically as "oceanic
temperate". Which means that temperatures don't vary
widely from summer to winter. But taken from north to
south, Northland is sub-tropical in summer while the deep
south is sub-antarctic in winter. Being a long narrow
string of islands, the night/day summer/winter
differences are not as fierce as in the middle of a
continental landmass. Be ready for all kinds of weather
at any time of year. The lush greenness you're coming to
see doesn't grow without a continuous and liberal dosage
of water. It rains all year round so always have a
raincoat near at hand. In the evenings carry a jacket or
sweater. I've always reckoned on summer starting on the
longest day of the year (Dec 22) and ending about
mid-March. Winter, conversely, starts on the shortest
day, June 22.
What is
the best time to visit? Any time, really. Even in winter
- yeah, yeah there's a bit more rain but there are a lot
fewer tourists and prices for accommodation and transport
are a lot sharper. If you really want my advice - come
here in late March and April. The weather is settled and
warm and the crowds have thinned out. Not that there are
really "crowds", even in high season.
Get today's weather
forecasts from the Met
Service.
Medical
Services
Hospitals
and the medical professionals are world class. Doctors
must meet rigorous international standards before being
allowed to practice. Hotels and motels have medical
assistance on call. There are public medical clinics
widely available. They will charge you $NZ50-65 for a
standard consultation.
If you have an accident you are
automatically covered by a Government-decreed accident
compensation scheme which will pay your medical expenses
and compensate you for injuries. It also statute bars you
from suing anyone who caused the injury. But be warned,
the payouts are lousy. Worse, they are a criminal
injustice forced upon us by an authoritarian state. Take
heaps of personal injury insurance as a back-stop.
The
US State
Department's New Zealand website page is also quite a handy source
of information.
A New Zealand Travel Guide is
written by David Morris and published by
New-Zealand-travel-guide.com
148 Hillsborough Rd, Hillsborough,
Auckland 1042,
New Zealand.
Phone (Country code 64, area code 9) 625-6469
Email: drm@visitnz.co.nz
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