Comparing life across the Tasman

January 15, 2010

I’m back at the keyboard after a few weeks pre-occupied with family stuff. And not much has happened that I feel strongly enough to write about.

I must admit to a degree of satisfaction (hopefully not edging too far toward smugness) that New Zealand’s government has decided to change direction on Fiji. Loud, angry chest-thumping and finger-pointing have, as I (and others) predicted in an earlier blog, led nowhere. Nor should it: Fiji’s governance is Fiji’s concern, not ours.

To begin my writing this year I want to go back a month or so to the report by Don Brash’s taskforce on how to “catch up” to Australia. My opinions are somewhat longer formed on this issue than many others, as I lived my first 25 years in Australia and have chosen to live since then in New Zealand.

For those non-downunder readers of this blog (happily, the number of such is growing), many New Zealanders – ranging from leading politicians down to my own daughters – have been angsting for the past couple of decades about how much more money Kiwis can make in Australia, how the shopping is so much better and how the lifestyle is richer and more affluent.

So leading right-winger Don Brash was tasked with drawing up a plan that would enable us to catch up, to earn more and be able to spend more. Although one of the expressed motivations for setting this goal is to encourage more young Kiwis to stay here, I suspect this is only a minor goal for most business leaders, well behind simply making more money and buying more stuff.

There’s also the aspirational (or envy?) factor. Pacific Islanders worry about their citizens coming to New Zealand as they aspire to live our lifestyle. Kiwis similarly aspire to be more like their big cousins over the Tasman Sea and worry when our kids fly off there. But then Australians aspire to match the earnings and influence of Americans (or English) and do their own big OEs.

On this issue, very few people have been asking the question: Do we really want New Zealand to be more like Australia? Especially if that means we also have to accommodate a larger population in much larger cities, and be spread that much further apart. Is the extra money that can be earned in Oz worth the loss in lifestyle? And anyhow, will young Kiwis travel and work overseas regardless of how much money they can make at either end?

Back when we were both working employees in Melbourne and Christchurch respectively, my brother, still living over there, would have earned more than I. But he would have spent a hunk of the difference on petrol commuting from the outer suburbs (plus loss of time while driving a couple of hours a day), as well as on servicing a mortgage on a more expensive house. (For the record, we were never in such comparable positions so this comparison is incorrect in detail, but reasonable in principle.)

He pays significantly more in several State and Federal taxes and for items such as car registration and insurance. It’s further to travel for him to see other members of his family (myself notwithstanding).

It is just too simplistic to compare the two countries in terms of money in the wage packet. So many specific factors can enter the equation for any one person or comparison.

So it comes back to balancing all the advantages and disadvantages between the two countries, not just the relative material wealth. I actually chose (and continue to choose, despite being apart from my dear siblings all living still in Australia) to live in New Zealand. For me, the complete picture included being able to earn enough money to live comfortably, alongside the simpler, more sustainable lifestyle and diversity of culture here. With all these factors in the equation, my decision was to live here.

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Posted by David Armstrong

Let’s hear it for the weather forecasters

December 31, 2009

Tis the season for generosity and, for media, handing out bouquets and brickbats (whatever brickbats are!). So it’s my turn to say something nice, but this time I’m offering my praise and thanks to an unusual recipient – New Zealand’s weather forecasters.

In those surveys about the most trusted jobs or professions – you know, nurses and firemen at the top and journalists and politicians waaaay down at the bottom – I don’t think I’ve ever seen weather forecasters even offered as a choice. But I do know that they are one of the most frequently lampooned and put-down of all.

“They said that today would be sunny but look, the drizzle’s setting in.”

“Rain clearing, they said; and it hasn’t even started yet!”

“They just look at their computers in Wellington and guess, whereas I look at the sky and can work out that the wind will change from experience.”

This is exacerbated by the fact that the weather is one of the most common topics of small talk in social settings, especially when you don’t know what to say next; and that particular conversation is always more fun when you grouch about the weather forecast rather than say how accurate it may have been.

Disrespect for forecasters is also fostered by the words used by television weather presenters, who tend to say “Wellington will be raining but with sunny breaks later” rather than the more appropriate “In Wellington it’s predicted (expected? most probable?) that rain will fall this morning and ease this afternoon”. We the public don’t like to talk in terms of probability and uncertainty; we want it in black and white and get picky when other shades eventuate.

Several times over the past month, here in the Tasman district, we’ve been given longer range forecasts (like, 3 days away) that have said things like “Wednesday, a cool change about midday”, and they’ve actually happened as predicted to within an hour of midday. Three days away! Now I happen to think that that’s impressive. And even if it’s a day out, its waaaay better than I could have guessed on Sunday.

True, many people, and particularly people of the land who have farmed in a particular place for decades, do have a good feel for the weather patterns expected locally for up to a day, and can even guess details correctly for a couple of days. But on average I observe that the scientific forecasters, with the satellite and other tools available to them, are almost always far closer to the mark.

When I hear the forecasters castigated for getting it wrong a few days out, I would like to do an experiment with the critic: give me their 3-day forecasts every day for the next two weeks, without consulting the published forecasts, and see if their predictions can come at all close to those of the professionals when it comes to viewing the actual results. I can confidently say, not a chance!

So my Xmas praise goes to the weather boys and girls. Keep up the good work, don’t let the critics get to you, and be aware that I for one am prepared to take your forecasts as predicted probabilities.

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Posted by David Armstrong

Holocaust mockers are just kids being silly

October 30, 2009

I’ve been feeling a bit sorry for the Auckland Grammar students who have been psychologically hammered and publically shamed and humiliated to the point of tears for their thoughtless tomfoolery in mocking the Auckland Museum’s Nazi display.

On countless occasions through my life, and of course especially in my teenage and early adult life, I’ve been unable to resist poking fun at the good and bad, the silly and the serious, and just acting the goat among friends. I love satire. Without trying, it seems, I look at the funny or quirky side of any issue as well as its serious facet. Age hasn’t dulled my instinct to think satirically (even about some things I think are quite important) although perhaps it has given me wisdom to choose time and place a little better.

If on every occasion I’d been hauled up in front of stern Keepers of Morals and others who believe “serious things should only be taken seriously”, I would have had all enjoyment of the complexities and ironies of life well and truly beaten out of me by now, and I’d like to think society would have been the poorer for it.

Sure, those schoolboys acted in poor taste. Certainly they should have kept the photos of their mock adulation of the swastika off the internet. Likewise for the Lincoln University students at their bad-taste Nazi party. But they were not seriously trying to make a point about German Nazism or the Holocaust. They were having fun, as teenagers will and do, and just going a step too far by publicising it.

In good time, today’s and tomorrow’s young people will learn about the horrors of that part of World War 2, which for them now is a generations-past event, the same way that the Boer War was for me when I was young. They will learn and absorb it in a more holistic fashion through normal educational events and adult social activities.

They do NOT need the public humiliation and shame visited upon them by those of my WW2-remembering generation who have a limited sense of humour and lack generosity of spirit.

The Holocaust was a blight on the 20th Century, one of several (including Rwanda and Vietnam) which showed the absolute worst our “civilised” humanity is capable of. But I believe that if we’re ever to move totally past it (and I hazard to suggest that we absolutely must sooner or later) we must stop demonising and shaming people who offer any sort of light-hearted take on it. Especially ebullient young people who are yet to understand all the subtleties underlying such issues.

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Posted by David Armstrong

How much time will automated passport processing really save?

August 21, 2009

I may have been just plain lucky in the past but . . . . I can’t see what the fuss is about re making the trans-Tasman border faster and easier to cross.

I appreciate that, just as electronic ticketing has sped up most check-in procedures, so the inevitable move to electronic passport scanning will save a few minutes each trip. But will it produce huge efficiencies? I don’t see it.

Instead of having to queue at the immigration booth when arriving on each side of the Tasman, we’ll queue for our turn at a passport scanning machine, try to work out how to use it, and then perhaps queue again in the “manual system” if you’re unlucky enough (as I was recently) to see the machine complain about something in your passport.

Those cheerleading the automation of border crossings talk enthusiastically of saving huge amounts of time in queues. One local newspaper columnist I read recently embellished his tale of a tiring trip to Melbourne with groans about struggling through countless arrival queues. Ahem …. there are two of them, unless you count the duty-free shop checkout (not compulsory) or are unlucky enough to get a full luggage frisking.

As I said, perhaps I’ve just been lucky. But I do an Australian trip on average once a year, and I did three return trips within as many months on family matters around the start of this year. That’s six queuing adventures – and not one of them took more than 15 minutes total from arriving in the immigration lounge to leaving the terminal building. In general, most of that time was spent waiting for luggage to emerge – which passport machines will not help.

And it’s been several years since I’ve had to wait longer than five minutes to move from the public departure area through immigration and security to the departure gate lounge. Is this a good reason in itself to pay millions for automated border processes? Yes, the move to this type of technology is inevitable, but please don’t over-egg it by assuring us that huge hunks of time will be saved for travellers.

One really good result of this advance, however, could be that the ridiculous rules about checking in at least two hours before departure can be significantly relaxed. A 6am departure for Brisbane is painful enough, but having to check in before 4am is irritatingly absurd. We can all easily manage half-hour check-ins for domestic flights, and I’m positive that one hour for international flights will be easy for everyone.

I’ll become a fan of automated passport clearance if the two-hour check-in rule is halved.

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Posted by David Armstrong