This page is dedicated to all those little things that we thought would be the same, but somehow aren’t.
Voting
Oh my goodness. As residents we are able to vote and there is a general election approaching. But I have no idea who to vote for… Firstly we have to get our heads round the MMP system. Here’s an extract from the government elections website on MMP:
There are 120 Members of Parliament (MPs). There are 70 electorates, including the Maori electorates. Each elects one MP, called an Electorate MP. The other 50 MPs are elected from political party lists and are called List MPs.
Each voter gets two votes.
The first vote is for the political party the voter chooses. This is called the party vote and largely decides the total number of seats each political party gets in Parliament.
The second vote is to choose the MP the voter wants to represent the electorate they live in. This is called theelectorate vote. The candidate who gets the most votes wins. They do not have to get more than half the votes.
Under current MMP rules, a political party that wins at least one electorate seat OR 5% of the party vote gets a share of the seats in Parliament that is about the same as its share of the party vote. For example, if a party gets 30% of the party vote it will get roughly 36 MPs in Parliament (being 30% of 120 seats). So if that party wins 20 electorate seats it will have 16 List MPs in addition to its 20 Electorate MPs.
So there you go. Clear? Well that’s for starters. During this election we’re also going to be asked to vote on whether we want to keep MMP and if not what should replace it. FPP, PV, STV or SM. Don’t worry I didn’t know what they all were until I read about them on this handy website: http://www.referendum.org.nz/votingsystems
Motorway Lane Discipline
The major difference between driving on the Motorway here and in the UK is that undertaking is allowed here. So that means you need eyes everywhere all the time. There’s not very much motorway here and what there is, is mostly in the middle of the city. This means there are lots of exits close together. The way the overhead signs are positioned really encourages you into the correct lane for your exit early. This means that if you are heading quite a number of junctions up it’s best to get in one of the right hand two lanes even if the inside lanes are free. This feels really weird coming from the UK, where basically you just stay as far to the left as you can unless passing. Also they have lots of exits where a lane disappears and the lane is completely dedicated to the exit – you really don’t want to find yourself in one of those. So again – you move right to get in the correct lane.
Beach Signs
In the UK the signs by the beach say things like ‘No Fires’ or show a car throwing itself off a cliff into water (presumably indicating no depressed cars allowed). The following sign is quite frequently seen on the beaches around here. Lordy!
Marmite
A passable yeast extract product
Same name, entirely different taste. Not unpleasant but not at all the same as its namesake. We’re getting used to it, in fact Stevie even prefers it.
According to a book in the bookshop, the UK Marmite was sold here once upon a time but then there was a B1 deficiency in troops in one of the wars so the NZ/Oz quota got diverted to the front line.
One of the founders of Kelloggs who ran the Sanitarium brand (set-up to provide healthy food) got permission to use the name Marmite because there was no longer a competing product in the market.
You can still get UK style Marmite here but it’s called ‘Our Mate’ and is massively expensive.
NZ Marmite is darker and more solid and has a distinctly more meaty taste. Stevie was always happy to eat any old own brand yeast extract in the UK, but I was a loyal follower of the one true mite.
Crossing the Road
You walk up to the spotty ground, press a button, lights change you walk across. Sounds the same…
The button is a big round silver button the size of a jam jar lid. It makes a satisfying thunk when you (or your 4 year old daughter – for it is her job) smashes it into the box in which it is housed. The lights are accompanied by a kind of tocking noise when on green. And you don’t get much green. About 4 seconds if you’re lucky then it goes back to flashing red. You can only start to cross on green but ok to saunter across on red.
On some of the big 4-way crossings in the city you can go diagonally! We do this whenever we can because it makes us feel special. Some of the fancy city lights also have animated green men and yellow countdowns to when the crossing window endeth.
Oh and traffic lights go straight from red to green. Poor old amber doesn’t get a look in unless it’s stopping you.
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