Speaker by Various Artists

I have just finished my Masters in Applied Cognitive Psychology and I am looking to do my PhD overseas, and once over there I am sure I may never come back.

The number one reason? Student loans ... I know, it's a oldie but a goodie. My student loan is around 40ish grand - I am really not sure anymore as a little while back it reached such a high number that it almost seems to have lost meaning apart from it being this huge thing that is ever so often brought up.

I go into the bank, and they ask me to full out one of those asset/liabilities forms and in other liabilities I enter my student loan amount, and you should see the looks on the faces of the bank employees! "What is this $40,000?" they ask with shocked expressions ... just a student loan I say ... that seems to calm them down some, but its still there ... nagging ... growing ...

Many of my friends, especially at the post-grad level have the same feelings as I, but I have found that there is some reluctance to talk about it. It's an old issue. Just something that students always complain about, the drunk buggers...

Of course the student loan also has knock-on effects. As you say, NZ isn't really the place to gain wealth, but that also means it isn't the place to be paying off loans in a hurry. Oh, and then there is the dating scene. You try this one out "hey baby, want to get close to me and my $40,000 debt?" and see how much luck you have! Or even better "how about me and you come together and owe the country $80,000 between us...".

On another note, last time I read the student loan form I was signing, I noted that it was the Queen that was leaning me the money. I hear she has heaps, perhaps if I write her she will forget about my trifling sum?
Ben Lewis Evans

If the Herald is only going to print the opinions of those engaged in the IT- and software-related industries (bar one headhunter), then what's the point? I would imagine that there's just as many English teachers flung around Asia who swear by the NCEA and its emphasis on critical thinking and freedom of expression.

If there's anywhere that the NZ education system falls short, it's in languages. Where the rest of world strives to be bilingual/trilingual, most NZers can barely recognize Maori, let alone converse in Chinese, French or Spanish. If NZ's becoming "increasingly diverse," in a cultural sense, it's going to rely on a lot more than "let's all get along" pleas and lunch at the noodle bar.
Jim Cathcart

I'm currently looking for full-time employment, but as yet have been unsuccessful. One of the main reasons why I haven't been successful is my lack of direct commercial experience. Now how am I supposed to have experience when no one will give me the opportunity to gain experience? This is a problem that many people I have spoken to have. Now, I'm just an ordinary guy - there's nothing extreme about me that could concern a potential employer - so why is it so hard to get a job?

I want to work; I want to do something to benefit NZ; in the end, I want to do something for the good of all people; and I know I'm capable of doing all this, but when no one will give you the chance, what are you to do? In the meantime, I'll keep trying different methods to get the job I want, but if it doesn't work out I see myself going overseas. Although I may face the same problems overseas, I reckon it's better to do a crap job overseas than be under-utilised at a crap job at home. I just wish the Government would do something to help get people into the right jobs instead of just thinking about it in terms of monetary value. I think I've said enough. If you've read this far, thanks.
Andrew Zen

While I wasn't actually born in NZ, having been brought here as a 10-yr-old from Scotland, I identify first & foremost as a New Zealander. I was fortunate enough to be schooled up to graduate level before tertiary fees were a major concern. In those days a bursary & boarding allowance covered most expenses, fees were pretty much all paid by the government and students generally got holiday jobs to put some money away for 'discretionary spending' (read 'buying booze') in the next varsity term. I was certainly blessed by the timing of my father's decision to emigrate here.

I have been back to the UK on a number of occasions - OE, love-sick, job seeking - but always regard a return to NZ as coming home. Most recently I spent 3 years based in England earning comparatively big money in computing, basically to pay off our mortgage as quickly as possible. But by the end of 3 years I was gagging to get back to NZ. I found England to be very negative & backward looking and, despite having some very good friends there, I would be quite happy never to return there. I might miss a couple of the good beers, but that is another story.

Sure, we don't earn as much money here in NZ as might be available overseas, but the overall quality of my life is immeasurably better living on a bush block in the Waitakeres than if I had stayed where the gravy runs deep in the trough. (It is the only time I am likely to agree with self-styled 'bishop' Tamaki when I say that, as far as the earning overseas is concerned, 'enough is enough'.)

If the expats who so casually deride the place from a distance, while lining their pockets, can shed some of their prejudices & see NZ for what it offers in terms of lifestyle and all-round happiness they will be happier to return if & when they choose. I feel that many kiwis don't really appreciate this country because they have no external frame of reference - no claw setting, as it were, to enhance the jewel that is Aotearoa. Some people get it after living away for a short while, others will take longer, but I fervently hope that they will all come to realise what a treasure it is to have a kiwi passport & right of abode here.

I know the place isn't perfect - we've got some dodgy political scenarios, dodgy business dealings & some very bigoted attitudes amongst all our diversity, and a media that is so frantic to chase ratings that I am moved to answer back to the vacuous ramblings I often hear on tv. But that is all just context to the fact that we live somewhere really special.

We have plenty to be ashamed of, like most plaes, but we also have more than our share of things to be proud of. I may not have been born here, but I am abso-fucking-lutely proud to be a New Zealander. And I hope all your readers will be, too.
Stewart MacGibbon

Thanks Russell for putting all this brain drain thing in context. My young family are about to depart for England, where (thanks to Grandad) I'll work and together we will explore the history, culture and sights of Europe. This is simply a good time for us, the kids are small, we are not hung up on home ownership and lots of our friends are there already doing more or less the same thing. One side of the family thinks it's a great idea, the other half think we are nuts. We know the weather will be crap sometimes (it is further North than Invercargill is South) and sharing with 65 million others is bound to be a squeeze at times. But to live in a house that predates the discovery of our country, to walk through so much history, to be a part of what is - for all the dreary stereotyping - an incredibly vibrant multicultural society, that's well worth a risk.
Mike Stead

I am currently living and working in London, 3 years now and likely to be a few more before my return to NZ.

Couldn't agree more with your comments - there is no way I could do some of the work and earn comparative money back home. Having said that I have every intention of returning - there is no place like home. We do have an un-rivalled quality of life and I can't even imagine raising kids in a place like London.

In the meantime I plan to enjoy the rich culture that Europe has on offer and to save hard in order to get a foothold in the Auckland property market!
Ben Norrie

As I'm sure countless others are also writing to tell you, not all expats feel as negatively towards their homeland as those quoted in your latest post. In fact, experiencing a London winter while family and friends at home are in the midst of a glorious NZ summer - enjoying Pasifika festival, WOMAD, bbqed green-lipped mussels etc - is guaranteed to make you homesick.

I have been amazed by the sheer numbers of expat New Zealanders in London- I can go to a NZ event and bump into several people from my high school. But most people I meet regard this as a temporary adventure away from their homes in nz. Young people move here for the same reasons provincial nzers move to Auckland- more jobs, more pay, more excitement, more like-minded people of all descriptions. New Zealand is merely a victim of its small size when it comes to attracting young people.

Whatever opposing politicial parties might say about each others' policies it is nonsensical to talk as if Labour's latest minor adjustment to taxation policy is the reason for a mass exodus in the age group (I'm guessing here) least likely to understand or care about such things. New Zealand's small population is also the reason for its high standard of living and comparatively clean, unspoiled environment. What has shocked me more than the number of nzers overseas is the number of overseas people who have travelled around our country- and they all tell us how beautiful it is. Don't we know it. I believe the vast majority of my peers will be back, no less valuable to the nz economy and culture for our overseas experience.
Eloise Gibson (25)

I am an Aucklander living in London (for some reason I don't like the word "expat") that reads your columns for a roundup of the issues at home. I am a NZ qualified solicitor working at the Office of Fair Trading (similar to NZ's Commerce Commission) I was rather surprised at the Herald newspaper's slant on Kiwis overseas. I enjoy London and the opportunities provided, but look forward to coming back to New Zealand one day (although currently faced with the difficult prospect of convincing my Aussie girlfriend). I get quite homesick when the Kiwi summer rolls around.

One of the main draws is being back with my family, but I agree with you that Auckland (as the example I know best) is a vibrant, ethnically diverse city that has a lot going for it and is a place where I would enjoy living again. Good food, good wine, and It's also small enough to have a bit of a community feel.

In my experience some Kiwis abroad do have a slightly slanted view, either because of the length of time they have been away, the (sometimes) negativity of the media, or because they left New Zealand before they had the opportunity to experience living with disposable income (and the opportunities this provides).

As with any unsolicited survey, I think that the Herald's request for feedback is more likely to encourage the disgruntled than the positive (I didn't respond) and that kind of feedback makes better headlines I suppose.

Complaints about taxes, student loans and racial issues all seem a bit hollow to me. All these issues are equally (if not more) an issue in the UK.

Without wanting to sound to much like a superior Jafa, perhaps those that come from smaller cities with less diversity and opportunity could have a different view (i.e. if they have obtained the type of skills that require them to live in a big city, I would imagine that moving back to Auckland/Wellington for them would be no different than moving to Sydney/Melbourne).
Anonymous

Today, again, I swam in the Upper Harbour on the flood tide, which was a whopper. The beach is about two minutes stroll across a little park. I had the beach to myself. This in the largest city in New Zealand.
The OECD seem to leave out The Cultural part of their name and only measure the Economic bit, sad. I certainly would not want to swim in the Seine or the Thames even though I might be on my own.
John Shears

I am glad that you have commented on the Herald's Brain Drain article. I was staggered at the overwhelming negativity of many of the comments, which left me wondering what country they were talking about.

I came to New Zealand in 1993 to follow the last Lions tour and when the plane landed at Auckland I burst into tears. I don't know why that was so but I did and I concluded that I was meant to be here even though my family has no previous connection with the country. I've lived here ever since and am married to a fifth generation New Zealander. (In case you're wondering I'll be backing the All Blacks this time.) Anyway one of the odd things I've noticed about New Zealanders is that they are too often ready to castigate the country or people for what they are not and too readily ignore the positives. Judging by the comments of the expats that habit isn't left behind on departure.

New Zealand is not Sydney, New York or London, nor should it pretend to be and those who lament it for what it isn't seem to be missing the point hugely. FWIW I have a better standard of living now, with better food, better weather and a very peaceful environment (I was born in Northern Ireland which I left as an 11 year old in 1971 because of the Troubles). Yes, opportunities are more limited because of the smaller size of the economy and I don't know how that can be easily fixed.

I also know that the ties of family are strong and it is difficult to be on the other side of the world so I suspect that many of the same expats will come back, particularly when they have young children. The advantages of a safe country with a good education system will soon be a large factor in their thinking.
Terry Baucher

I think the end of your post summed up the attraction of life in New Zealand for me - space and time. Space to live and breathe, and time to get things done at your own pace.

After three years in the UK, I realise this is what I miss the most about New Zealand and in particular Auckland.

On first arrival to the UK I was able to compensate for the loss of some things - the purchase of a Gaggia Classic so I could have a half decent short black, cable TV for the Tri-Nations, and the Herald on-line, but nothing can get you away from the crowds and queues on this side of the world.

I have watched people queue out the door onto the footpath at our local post office, have had to stand ten deep to buy paper and milk Sunday morning at 9.00am and the choked footpaths are a nightmare.

You mentioned plenty of room to play - I long for this room.

This is what will bring me home.
David Voisin

I spent 4 years in Germany in the mid-90s and am living in Kuwait now, both times courtesy of my wife, who's a scientist (I'm a librarian, not much international headhunting of those going on so far as I'm aware).

Both times I moved overseas I ended up making a lot more money than I would have been able to make in NZ (right now I'm getting paid about double what I was getting in my last job at Massey University Library, for a job that's simpler and has less responsibility), but that wasn't really what prompted me to agree to go, it was more like an added bonus.

When I'm living in NZ, much as I love the place I can't shake the nagging feeling that I'm at the arse end of the world and everybody else is thinking of us as some kind of international Hooterville Junction (particularly the Aussies, but what the hell, they need something to feel good about).

Most of the people I met in Germany were astounded that people from paradise, their dream emigration destination, would sign up to move to crowded, freezing, rat race Deutschland. It was kind of hard to explain that Hamburg, with the red light district, the anarchist slum projects, the rival ethnic criminal gangs, the smuggled Russian military supplies, the tours by bizarre old dinosaurs like Jethro Tull etc, etc was an amazingly interesting and exciting place in comparison to that "paradise" Palmerston North. I finally met one who said the German equivalent of "New Zealand - shit, that'd be a bit of a dead end, wouldn't it?" and I felt like saying "Thank you for your perception and insight!" (but didn't, because it would only have sounded sarcastic).

Judging from things I've read, I'm not the only one to feel that way. But of course, once I'm outside NZ I start to really appreciate all the things I took for granted there, so getting back to the arse end of the world again is always the end point.

You're right about the lifestyle - despite the extra money we were making in Germany we could never have bought a house and garden like the one we have in PN, and certainly never one designed for the sun with decks and terraces and big windows, for that kind of thing you have to be seriously rich over there. Also, I can't decide whether there's a remarkable lack of social regulation (not sure how to describe it, a lack of formality or general uptightness) in NZ or whether I'm just comfortable with the familiar, but NZers seem to me a much more relaxed bunch than anyone else. I think we care a lot less about what other people might think than most cultures, which makes it always nice to come home.

I loved Germany but loathe Kuwait. I started out with fond ideas about introducing the kids to foreign cultures, learning new languages, seeing a part of the world we'd never seen before etc, but now I just think of the money! And most definitely, I won't hear a word against NZ schools after putting my kids into an expensive school teaching the UK curriculum here. We are good at education, and anyone who thinks otherwise is as you put it, talking through his expatriate arse.
Tim Darlington

I'm over here in London (does London even count in all of this?) working in the voluntary sector for a major (as in huge and attitudinally corporate) charity. My employer is sponsoring me to stay for as long as I wish. Nice work if you can get it. I still love the access that London provides me but even now, after only two years, all I am doing is desperately stuffing the pounds into my pocket so I can see some more countries before coming home to buy my own piece of land and feel as though I belong. To feel as though I matter in the scheme of things. For someone working in a charity, I've never felt more like a number and less like a member of the human race. And I worked in banking back in NZ.

Or maybe it is just logistics. Most countries are shutting down our visas by 30. Even if they aren't it is the time we generally tend to grow up, stop the traipsing around with a too-heavy backpack, quit sleeping in dodgy hostels and think about having a family. Few hippies amongst us brave the more sordid travellers' trails with a baby on our back.

We still don't have the view that the world is easily accessible for us. It's a long-term choice, not a weekend break. The general feeling seems to be that when we go home, we are going home for good. So we better do it now and we better do it properly.
Gemma

I moved from New Zealand to Perth for various reasons, one of which was to go somewhere else for my postgraduate degree. No reflection on Auckland Uni, it's just unhealthy to spend 10 years in a single academic culture.

I won't stay in Perth - I'll take my Australian government funded PhD and sod off to the States or Europe - or even back to Auckland. At least I can go to the bloody supermarket on Sunday in New Zealand.
Matthew Leigh

Currently I am studying for my MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. I defend my thesis this Friday. You mentioned in your last blog that you wanted to hear from some people overseas and I thought I would throw my two cents in.

I live in Alabama. And, jokes aside, this state is fairly backward. I wish it weren't that way. In some respects racism is less present than I would have ever thought but driving through the South it doesn't take long to see that highways, interstates, etc were often constructed following desegregation. Tuscaloosa can be easily divided by I-69: Black Tuscaloosa and White Tuscaloosa (the side the university is on). And school boards and counties are giant bureaucracies designed to stymie development.

Recently, at the national election, Amendment 2, which would remove racist language from the state constitution and also the phrase (and I paraphrase) "that NOT all children are entitled to an equal education" from the state constitution failed. That is, rather than say all children in Alabama are entitled by right to an equal education the state voters instead decided to keep the old phrase which said they are not.

Now you might think several racists sponsored this. Not so. Roy Moore, of the 10 commandments in the state court house fame, and also preacher, said that this law change should not pass because the state should not be required to give everyone an equal education. And this is a man who says God wanted him to put the 10 commandments in the court house.

Thus segregation-era laws remain.

I remember my time living in Wellington in 2000 when I would be down by the Beehive and pass Nandor on a skateboard or Ron Donaldson on a bike. I also remember a small function in which I met Helen Clark and her minders were well out of sight. That doesn't happen here, as you know. New Zealand is a real democracy because our degrees of separation from power are relatively short. In New Zealand I truly feel that I can make a difference or leave a mark. I can't say that about America.

Also, recently a local state senator, Gerald Allen, has sponsored a bill in the Alabama legislature that would ban any books that promote, contain or a written by homosexuals. I might point out that this would ban such books by luminaries like Shakespeare, Marlowe, Alice Walker (who visits campus this week), Oscar Wilde, etc. It's ridiculous. Allen literally wants to remove these books and have them destroyed. What's crazy is not that there is someone whom I consider crazy saying this ... it's that this bill might actually pass.

Finally, to critics on the NCEA system, come teach freshman composition at the University of Alabama and tell me that New Zealand's system is broken. Without a uniform system here there is such a disparate group of people entering university: some that can't even write a sentence. The SAT, until this year, and ACT exam systems don't require any essay and little written work. I know in New Zealand that despite the failings of this year's exams, the system can be re-configured to work. Alabama's system, on the other hand, is in dire straits and no one wants to even try and fix it.

I know New Zealand has its problems, and its fanatics too, but nothing like here. I came here for an experience and there are some good things here too, but sometimes I find myself saying "Thank goodness I'm from New Zealand."
Tim Croft

I'd just like to say that leaving NZ as a young professional was almost done with NZ in mind. I had begun a professional career and wanted to a) progress it, as any motivated 24 year-old wants to and b) couple that with sampling other cultures etc.

I'm now doing that, having lived in Ireland, and now London for the past 20 months.

My career has advanced quite nicely thank you, and at the same time I've done some wonderful things in places 'you only read about'.

And when I feel the time is right and I would like to 'nest' where do you think I'll be? Yep, NZ.

I think the point I would like to drive home, specifically to the annoying Singapore based web-technician-chap, when you think NZ you have to re-evaluate what floats your boat in life.

I was sitting with a friend in my spanking South London flat last night (as I was plotting my upcoming three week holiday to NZ in fact!), discussing why NZ was so damn ace. We decided that what we have in NZ simply is not replicated anywhere else in the world.

Sure you may not get paid the biggest cheque in the world, but where else can you roll out of bed and get to work in a nanosecond, see the sights we have - let's face it, even the bad ones are great - and thrive in amongst such free-spirited, talented caring people? Noo Bloody Ziiland. It rocks. Quite simply.

The people are great. Kiwis work hard, don't moan, are honest and even work mates can be great mates. That's not the case everywhere.

So SS that's Singapore Sling ) if you're interested in lotsamoney and not much else, then go for it. Stay there. Bring your kids up in Singapore. Go on, dare you.

I know I'll be having a great time in New Zealand while you're raking it in and bemoaning the education system in your old, tatty, tired little native-town.
Joanna

There is a certain kind of ex-pat who will always find a reason to not return to NZ. The current hot topic is the NCEA furore, last year it was the race debate stirred up by Brash, any year it could be about lower wages.

The truth is NZ is a brilliant place to live and it's a place that I will return to (when the time's right) to settle down and raise a family. As much fun as London is, from a lifestyle point of view, it will never be home.

The point is that many young NZers want to see the world before they 'grow up'. It's no disrespect to NZ to do this; not only is it part of the kiwi psyche, it's also a fantastic way to enrich our country's knowledge base. When we travelling kiwis do fly home, we return with a greater wealth of knowledge than when we left; knowledge that will help NZ compete even more effectively on a global scale.

As sad as it is to have some ex-pats bad-mouthing NZ, we're better off without them.
Sarah Newcombe

You are absolutely right about the comments re. NZ's education system. We have lived abroad since 1994 apart from 2 years spent back in NZ. During those 2 years our eldest started school, and we found the school system absolutely fabulous. In comparison, in Ontario Canada, the primary school curriculum and set-up leaves a lot to be desired. It was really hard on our daughter when we first arrived here as she was way ahead of her classmates and completely bored silly.

We are expats because we are academics, and the University system in NZ is in really really bad shape. But that is another story. It was really hard to leave NZ after returning, because we thought we were returning for good. But the experience was so unpleasnat (for a variety of reasons) that we had no other option than to leave. This has literally cost of thousands of dollars because we have had to repay our relocation costs to the University for whom my partner worked. We are still, nonetheless, financially much better off here in Canada, and much better off professionally.
Anne Lyden

Interesting what you say about leaving London due to a baby - exactly my experience, a year ago. I would have loved to have stayed longer but didn't have a job paying enough, whereas I could get enough to get by here (Wgtn).

However, one really big reason I would have loved to have stayed in London, assuming I was actually an accountant or banker or lawyer rather than just scraping by as I did, is the way I, and many others of my age (32), got shafted with student loans.

It isn't so much a sense of greed that propels this feeling of wanting to take the high end money, it is just that if you are consistently told that education has a primarily private benefit and you must pay for it, it doesn't engender much of a sense of obligation to come and contribute to the workforce here in NZ.

Instead, you stay where the money is best to get rid of the monkey round your neck (and considering that when I was at Varsity, 1991-1995, was the depths of the depression and there were next to no in-or-out-of-term jobs to be had, that monkey is more like a gorilla!).

Anyway, there are lots of other reasons my friends are still away - travel opportunities, partners who don't want to relocate to NZ, lack of football (!), too much rugby back here ... but actually I think the loans thing is probably just one piece of evidence for a case that I think can be made for NZ becoming, contrary to its view of itself as generous and open (and on a personal level this is still true), quite a mean-spirited place at times.

Lack of willingness to invest public money in proper infrastructure projects (Auckland and national public transport eg. state highway 1, is a joke), ongoing Treaty- and beneficiary-bashing, are other things that depress me just a bit about being back. Plus the fact that the home ownership and beach lifestyle dream is rather a fading one for those who missed out through bad luck, timing or simple inability to stump up the cash (student loans again?).

Well, just some thoughts there. Generally, it's good to be back, but I do think that it is sometimes underestimated that there's an underlying low-level resentment towards NZ because of some of what happened in the 1990s, financially speaking.
Ed Siddle

I spent 5 years in Melbourne a few years after graduating from Auckland Uni. My reasons for moving were opportunities and adventure.

The opportunties flowed, I was paid well to work in ozzie despite my tax bill being 47.5% income tax, 2% medicare levy, 10% GST, 7% super, plus all the taxes that are not easily seen, like trade barriers to cheap cars. But I never grudged the taxes because quality of life there was high, probably as a result of massive infrastructure spending.

As for adventure, that was by far the biggest factor for me. Exploring a whole new continent, facing the trials of starting a new life, meeting thousands of interesting people, marrying one of them, etc etc etc.

I think the simple desire for adventure in kiwis is left out of the discussions of people's reasons for leaving. And there's nothing wrong with it - I see it as an admirable quality in us, and all the more poignantly because it was so much less common in our closest foreign ally, the ozzies.

People talk up the brain drain like it's the only facet to our unusuallly large expat community. They fail to see that going out and exploring the world, then coming home a more worldly person actually increases NZ's potential, making it less inward looking, and providing it with skills that simply can't be fostered here as easily.

And people that never return are still valuable assets too. They provide bases for other people's adventures, they are continual ambassadors of NZ abroad, and they provide us with perspectives that we can't make ourselves. And if they simply hated NZ, then it's probably best they've gone somewhere that suits them better.

Despite thinking Oz is a great place, and having a lot more time for ozzies than I used to prior to leaving, I eventually returned to NZ. As you pointed out, it's also a great place, and for me, it's home. My family and old friends are here (despite almost all of them having had extended OEs at one time or another).

The lifestyle is wonderful in its own way. Beaches on your doorstep, affordable real estate, less of a rat race. Cheap muscle cars, nice climate, racial tolerance, the list goes on. My wife also loves it. For her NZ is the OE! She particularly enjoys not spending 2 hours a day commuting and just laughs at our whining about Auckland's traffic problems.

I have always found the whole brain drain worry pathetic. NZ still has more than enough brains. Every person here has a brain that vastly outstrips the next creature down the evolutionary brain chain, and it's an affected arrogance that says the tertiary educated have more brains. They simply have different uses for their brains, and one of those uses is often to explore the world.

Sure, there's a tendency for the tertiary educated to travel, but perhaps the tendency was innate anyway. As my favourite philosopher Bertrand Russell noted (I summarise): The two things that expand our minds the most are education and travel.

So my conclusion is that people who want to expand their minds have a natural tendency to both, and this is actually one of the things that NZ kicks arse in - maximizing the education and worldliness of those who have a tendency towards it. The lost taxes for a few years are a small price to pay, especially when you remember that people abroad are also not using any NZ resources.

The hostility towards the OEers is simply provincial small-mindedness. I felt quite moved by the ending of Jackson's Return of the King where the hobbits who had conquered evil, saved the world, and been honoured by the kings of Middle Earth, giving their tiny country and people great renown, returned to the Shire and were met with scowls. They sit in their old town bar and clash glasses, remembering their adventures, and saying nothing. That was a comment on NZ if I ever saw one. It didn't mean the hobbits hated the Shire, far from it. Their adventures were as much for the Shire as for themselves, however little the Shirefolk knew or cared about it.

In conclusion, brain drain be damned! NZ's tradition of worldly exploration is one of its greatest strengths and a defining point. Only the some of the much beloved but frustratingly shortsighted stick-at-homes, and the disaffected permanent expats fail to see this.
Ben Wilson

In the 20 years since 1985 I've been away for 13 of them, 5 in England, 6 in Sydney, 2 in assorted countries, I've been back in NZ for almost 3 years. Based on my experiences and those of my ex-pat friends (three who have returned and nine who are still away) I feel I can categorised their various reasoning for returning or staying away. (You may note that none of them include specious bullshit like the NCEA or political correctness - this guy isn't the same prick who took that ad out in the Herald some years ago is he?)

Reasons for staying away:
Work experiences:

- Niche - If you're a rocket scientist or a nuclear physicist (one is at Nasa the other at Rutherford Labs in Oxford), you're just not going to find equivalent work in New Zealand.

- Opportunity - one of my friends has a software start-up in San Jose that I would doubt he would have got off the ground in NZ. The availability of a large market, readily available expertise and venture capital makes for incredible opportunity.

- Family - You've either married a native of the country you live in (who has strong family ties) or you have a child from a relationship in that country. Interestingly enough family in New Zealand can also keep folk away (difficult mothers-in-law seem to be a common theme...)

- Culture and other undefinable things - Some people thrive on the availability of gigs and other arty shows in places like London (some, usually those without children, even go to these things).

There's something to be said about the feeling of being in the centre of things that you get in Europe or England, where you can see trends and fashions forming before your eyes.

There's also something about being in an industry hotspot. For instance as a computer geek whenever I am in Silicon Valley I get an enormous buzz from being surrounded by famous names (companies and individuals) and by a common drive to make "insanely great products" or at least a whole bunch of money ... So much so that I'm interviewing before I realise that I'll have to move the family and live in George Bush's America.

Reasons for returning:

- Family - Children arriving who you don't want exposed to concrete playgrounds or junkie needles when they hit school. Giving parents and grand parents the opportunity to see the grand kids grow up. Health concerns for the aforementioned parents and grand parents. My mother died suddenly last year, surrounded by her family. Even living in Sydney I wouldn't have had the chance to get back in time.

- Lifestyle - When my son gets to Standard 4 or whatever it is called now (Year 7,8?) he gets to go sailing in an Optimist as part of the primary school's phys-ed program - how cool is that?

- Sense of belonging - When I was away I came back to NZ on holiday at every opportunity, silly really as I had Europe on my doorstep for a great deal of the time. But as soon as Northland hove into view outside the plane window a massive feeling of relief would sweep over me that I was finally home.
Chris McKay

I figured I'd get plenty of responses when I invited comment on the Herald's expat story and the issues it raised - but I don't think I expected responses in such length and depth. It's a pleasure to share this, the first tranche of emails, in the order they arrived. They are only lightly edited and this post runs to more than 7000 words. There will be two or three more of these in the coming week. Cheers, RB.

---

From a letter written (last week) in response to a Melbourne-based friend who has become seriously estranged from his Canterbury, salt of the earth, National voting, Maori-bashing brethren. As a result, he has never returned even to visit, and sees NZ in 20 year-old terms - snap-frozen on Muldoon:

Since moving back to NZ late last year after a long time away, I have been asked by more than a few expat friends what we think of life back in Godzone. This has been my usual response:

New Zealand has changed a lot since we last lived here (15 years ago). Most of the changes in my eyes are cultural - there is now a much stronger emphasis on multi-culturalism (or multi-nationalism), which I think is a good and inevitable thing (even though the blue rinse brigade or conservative rural masses would prefer we still live in the 1950's).

At schools kids learn heaps about Maori culture, they sing the national anthem in Maori and English, newsreaders pronounce Maori names correctly and formally. NZ seems to be trying hard to overcome its isolation and 'plug' into the global culture - technology wise NZ has one of the highest take-ups of new technology in the world, and is used as a 'test' market by most of the big technology providers. There is an explosion of blogs in NZ - literally thousands.

Economically things are relatively sound - the painful market reforms of the 1980's from both National and Labour have largely paid off, and in many ways NZ is quite leading edge and innovative - there is obviously much less emphasis on the export of traditional industry such as agriculture and dairy products, and much more emphasis on information, innovation, creativity, and tourism. Interest rates are still higher than most other western countries, and most people still have way too much personal debt on the back of a property boom, but things are OK. Like Australia there is a major shift from the bush to the city and coast, and some smaller towns are dying.

People like Peter Jackson have taken the traditional kiwi character traits of 'give it a go' and shown that they can be as business oriented, uncompromising, inventive, ruthless and successful as anyone in the world without leaving home - to me this has had a huge impact on NZ.

But don't get me wrong. Its far from paradise, and there are more than their fair share of red-necks, bludgers, hypocrites, crooks, crims, liars, shonks, fantasists, wankers, crap reality show knock-offs, lazy journalists, dullards, and ignoramuses here in Godzone.

It's just that it's OUR fool's paradise, not anyone else's, and compared to Australia, it has fewer illusions about its place in the world. For want of a better generalisation, some of the old Presbyterian, conservative, puritanical, whiskey drinking, pessimistic and glum character traits of our forbearers still ring true along with the new Polynesian dynamic, but there is a recognition of national identity that it is far more preferable to be aware of who we are and celebrate our uniqueness than to be a cheap deputy sheriff USA knock-off, particularly when distance and common sense suggest that there are madmen on the loose in Washington (as well as the hills of Afghanistan).

Whilst we loved our 12 years in Australia (truly the lucky country in so many respects) I couldn't stand the cheap and immoral opportunism of Howard and his bloody 'wedge' politics. The Iraq fiasco aside, the one incident that really brought it home for me was a couple of years ago when the UN issued a report harshly critical of Australia for its detention of refugee children. Howard let that smirking buffoon Alexander Downer off his leash and he hit back at the UN basically claiming they were 'irrelevant' (except in those cases when their position supported Australians interests). Nelson Mandela then stepped in to support the UN as an institution. Downer then attacked Nelson Mandela - basically accusing him of being a UN lapdog and having no understanding of the issue, and also being 'irrelevant'.

The sheer irony and gall of a red cheeked, privileged, private school twat like Downer publicly lecturing Nelson Mandela on human rights, and no Australian media batting an eye, made me feel like a stranger in a strange land.

One of the favourite whipping boys of the rednecks is the Maori trust. NZ has made some serious and genuine efforts to reconcile the Waitangi Treaty with modern NZ, and one of the outcomes of that process (I think) has been the development of Maori trusts. In essence my understanding is the government has said that Maori can look after and have ownership of their own destiny and have funded the setting up of trusts for each Maori tribe for independent management of their funds and assets.

Some of those assets have been traditional crown assets such as land, fishing rights etc etc which are related to the original treaty and ownership. This has been problematic for many white kiwis that can't understand why ownership of land or title or rights has been transferred from the crown to Maori trusts. In most cases absolutely nothing changes except the nature of the public ownership, but there are irrational fears amongst the white middle class that they will one day be told that they cannot go to or use what has been traditionally been considered 'their' public land or assets, like the local beach, because its owned by one of the tribes. So far there has been zero cases of this actually happening, (and who was to say that the Crown wouldn't have one day done the same) but that doesn't seem to stop the fear factor.

In fact there is clear evidence that the Maori trusts have become in many ways a key part of the new engine of the NZ economy ? OK granted there are examples of financial mismanagement just like all businesses and public departments - with an explosion of innovative and multi-cultural business ideas pouring out of the trusts.

On more prosaic matters - the weather ain't as nice, the beer is much much better (hundred of little boutique breweries as a result of easier licensing), the seafood isn't as varied, the wine is just as good, the petrol is more expensive, property is almost as expensive, TV is not as good (but not too far off it), media is just as good if not better, radio is much better, and Auckland has most of the social benefits of Sydney in terms of nightlife and entertainment, if a rather inflated opinion of itself in terms of its place in the country (much like Sydney) - a little too much style over substance. I love the fact that we can strike out in any direction and find a beautiful and remote weekend retreat.

It's interesting that the 'no-nukes' position of NZ is now more firmly entrenched than ever before - on all sides of the political and social spectrum it is seen as a vital celebration of our independence in the big bad world. The shame is that nuclear energy is now becoming more viable compared to other alternatives, and it will be decades before NZ attitudes to that change.

As an aside, I read some fascinating stuff about how the World Bank is basically raping third-word economies through massive interest repayments on their forced debt. For example, the billions of dollars that represents aid given by the western world to the Tsunami hit areas, only covers about 3 months worth of forced debt repayments from those very same countries - the western governments can afford to be so generous because the money will be coming straight back! Dunno how true that is.

On the political scene Helen rules with an iron fist with a centre-left government that steals all the best ideas from the minority parties.

MMP (proportional representation) has neutered the opposition more than the incumbents, because Labour (being more pragmatic, experienced and just better political managers at the moment) know how to negotiate, compromise and barter with the minority parties they need to govern, and the opposition doesn't.

Head of opposition is a neophyte politician (former reserve bank governor) who is a policy wonk that has some policy ideas (stolen from John Howard) that strike a nerve with red-necks the country over - such as attacking special funding for Maori issues (ignoring that Maori - like aboriginal - still die younger, earn less, and have less opportunity than white man, and that most civilised societies usually attempt to address societal imbalance amongst minorities - if they took out the word 'Maori' and replaced it with 'WW1 veteran' or 'disabled children' or even 'unhealthiest 10% of population' then most rednecks then wouldn't have a problem with special funding).

Similarly Brash has also tried to bash social welfare beneficiaries in a now infamous speech referred to as "the solo-mum speech" in which he floated a new policy that would refuse government aid to solo-mums who continue to have children. Unfortunately for Don he didn't actually clear the policy with his cabinet or even his Minister for Social Welfare, who promptly resigned on principle saying that you can't pick on the kids for the 'sins' of the parent, thus blowing a dirty big hole in the side of the Brash armada. He hasn't learnt the Clark (and Howard) political skill of keeping your cabinet in line.

Meanwhile, the Labour response is usually to wait and see the public reaction, and quietly patch up any policy holes exposed by the opposition while leaving the opposition to air their dirty laundry in public. In many ways Clark seems to socially align herself with Scandinavian countries - there is a little bit of social engineering going on, particularly in the education sector.

Making it worse for Brash is that, even though he is loved by the red-necks (for not being female, for not being Labour, for giving a voice to their propensity to moan about the status quo, and for shamelessly playing to their fears), he is a shite debater so he gets mauled by the government head-kickers every time he stands up in parliament. So he seems a bit desperate to me. All that said, NZ is ripe for a quality conservative politician to come through the ranks, it just hasn't happened yet.
Richard Llewellyn

By way of introduction, I'm a kiwi, married to an American living in Virginia. I'm just about to hit 30 and plan kids in the near future. The thing that I am finding most interesting at the moment is many many of my friends who have lived overseas for a decent period of time are essentially 'going home to breed'. This sounds a bit funny I guess, but on a recent three week trip home I was amazed at the number, all tertiary educated, who decided that's where they wanted to raise their children. I paid close attention to Helen Clark's comments about subsidized child care, something that is non existent in this part of the world, and will probably be an influencing factor if and when we move back.

I know there are a lot of factors keeping people overseas but I still see this as a big draw to go home, contrary to what that guy said about the path to mediocrity. I don't think the American education system is all that crash hot and I really, really hate the competitiveness to get into the "right" college. Absolutely reasons to come home. Even my husband who considered the lower wages in NZ a reason not to head back quite so soon, has not been able to stop raving about things like the better conditions for employees, the lifestyle and the climate since he has been back.
Bronwen

Expat? Used to be. Did 5 years in Australia. Never again. There's more to life than money, really. Yes, maybe some of those bleating expats are better off overseas. They seem to be unable to look past the tangibles (money) and see the intangibles (spirit, well being, freedom) that this country has in bucketloads.

On the morning that I returned, I remember driving back from the airport in my brother's Falcon ute. There was a small patch of moss on the inside corner of the windscreen. There were ferns growing out of the cracks on his driveway. The local indian dairy was selling taro. I don't think unique is a stong enough word. It's just ... ??
Darren

I think I fit the reverse expat role. I'm a foreigner that spends at least 6 months working away from NZ (I consult for UN, EU and ADB on Fisheries issues), and the rest of the time here doing research for government and industry. I've live here since 1995 and I love it.

Yes I agree, you'll never get rich by working for somebody in NZ, which is the main reason for me to spend time away from family and friends doing work overseas. But I believe is not a high price to pay for the benefits of living here. I see it as fair trade off, it is a good place to live.

Diverse, relaxed, fair. I have worked/lived in over 20 countries over many years in the Pacific, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. And I'm always happy to come back home and keep my family here. Is one of the few countries where as long as you do your work, and do not do stupid things you go ahead in life.

I arrived here in a fishing boat with $300, a degree without knowing anyone in this country … and managed to build up a life without political connections, or knowing influential people to get ahead. I'm sure I could not have achieved that nowhere else I lived.

I managed to create myself a very cool group of people, get qualifications, teach at university, play music at bFM (hermano paco), KFM, learn to surf, get involved in Maori culture, have kids - name it. if you want to do so something, NZ is one the places where just can go and do it - there is no many people in between you, and what you want to do? that is priceless?

Yes, there are problems, some of them are the problems that you'll find anywhere else, but in much milder form and with a 20 year delay? so that give us an opportunity to learn by not repeating other countries mistakes. Other problems are completely self made and unique to NZ - and is our job to deal with them in our own way, after all this country was born by the consensus of two VERY different people, who still argue - so there are ways forward

We in NZ are very good at complaining - let's turn that one into a positive, by changing things, we don't like. As you said "I want to be part of the story here. The scale of things means it's possible to do that, to actually make a difference".
Francisco Blaha

As a disclaimer, many of my nearest and dearest are currently expatting it, but. ..

Those expat comments in yr post remind me of a nagging suspicion I've had since the whole Richard Poole/Brain Drain business a few years back ... a suspicion that, of the 24.something percent overseas, most are a) dicks; and b) young Nat/ACT types with a chip on their shoulder regarding "PC-ness", taxes, and anything that doesn't support their status- and money- driven world view.

They're cut from the same cloth as the Herald letter writers who threaten to emigrate to Australia because of the (yawn) Helengrad regime.

And National and ACT wonder why their support base has eroded ... it's because all their "bright young things" are overseas getting rich, dodging their student loan repayments and whining about home.

Maybe like Sargeson and Mason and co, if they don't like where New Zealand's headed, they should stay home and try and fix it.

As for me, instead of grumbling, I'm knuckling down, building a career at home and paying off the old student loan. It started at $42K - four times the median - yet I'm chipping away at it at a decent rate. I'm about to buy a house (note to scaremongers: Banks really don't care about student loans), and I've even started an education fund for my 1 year old. Can't find that much to whinge about really.
Mark Easterbrook

As a NZ boatbuilder I have worked for 2 different Americas Cup Challengers in the last 2 Cups. The comments about NZ schools from foreign parents working for these syndicates were overwhelmingly positive. Quite a few of these people have based themselves here now.
Paul Brown

Hah, I was in Singapore for 10 years, pulled out to Aus because the Singaporean education system was destroying my kids.

Singapore wants to teach kids how to think in a very precise way with very precise methods - you can not do it that way.

Roll on the Australasian education system - you can't teach kids how to think with very precise questions and answers on paper. Where are the real challenges beyond rote for the little minds?
Robert den Hartog

I wish I'd seen the questions! I started writing a response in here, but it got too long, so I blogged about it instead. The full response lives here: http://thirtynotout.blogspot.com/2005/03/one-in-four.html

But in summary, some of us don't come home, or haven't come home because we have just got settled, and have found a community that allow us to make our own difference.

The world is a better place because folk like you and Graham plum for my town. Some day I'll be there too, cheering it on. At the moment, I'm afraid you'll have to settle for admiration from afar.
Richard Body

I'm an expatriate Australian living in Wellington and I find the whole media thing about expats not coming back to NZ, or NZers leaving NZ because of 'pc' and other policies of the current government ludicrous.

The vocal expats tend to be earning a lot more overseas and are often politically motivated (eg: the guy who went on Holmes) - typical right wing whingers. I think the majority of NZers have gone overseas to experience something they can't in NZ or just to try and pay off their student loans. The policies of the previous National government have far more to do with the diaspora than the current government's policies.

I'm still not quite sure why I'm still in NZ - its certainly not to do with wages or quality of life in normal terms (eg space etc) - but there are certainly a lot of things that I get from living in Wellington that I couldn't get anywhere else in the world.
Matthew

In academia, as Che Tibby is living demonstration, you can't , or at least shouldn't, do the whole undergrad, post-grad, post-doc experience here. It's just too small.

But many of us who did go overseas to study or post-doc, do come back.

There's a lot of hysteria about people leaving, but check back in 10 years, and many of them while be back in NZ.
Anne Midwinter

I'm a teacher in Hong Kong and read your entry on the Herald's expat survey. Although I haven't read the Herald piece, the tone you relate from it is consistent with the generally expat frame of mind - that 'we' are so much better off and so much the wiser for having had the gumption and ability to leave NZ. This is tempered, of course, with recollections of barbecues, lawn mowers and scrum-wide supermarket aisles.

It's part of living away from NZ, though, that you have to have justification for doing so. Like conscientious objectors and soccer players, expats feel the need to explain themselves. That pay packets in the places kiwis leave for are large provides a good deal of that justification.

I'd like to remove myself from this shallow picture of rationalising venality, but as a teacher, the benefits for me of leaving NZ were compelling enough, just like everyone else who leaves.

And the fellow you quote first in your article, Jamie someone, is probably attacking NZ's education system all the more because he is forced to endure the rationalisations of his colleagues/mates who are paying $1500 NZ a month for international schooling.
Jonny Ellis

GREAT COLUMN!!! Thank you very much, I was furious when I read the Herald piece, so much bloody negativity and just plain nonsense (your man and the 3rd world schooling!) that I agree with you, they can come back if they leave the chips behind - excellent response - be very keen to see how your expat readers react. FYI - We live in a house 15 minutes walk from the Wellington waterfront, dead centre of town and all affordable on double incomes - not the case if it was London, New York or even Sydney.
Jeremy Seed

I can add a little bit to the arguments as I am a recently returned ex-pat (well to be honest I've been back for 3 years now, so not so recent).

Firstly with regard to tax rates. Things are often not as they seem. I had the good fortune to work for over a year in Dubai, which is tax free. While I admit that this was financially rewarding for myself and my partner, I did notice that the absence of income tax did not mean the absence of revenue gathering on the part of the Dubai government.

The most obvious revenue gathering schemes involved the prices charged for essential utility services, which are all government owned. For example, our water and power bill for a mid-sized three bedroom house, came in at NZ $3000 per month! (local Emiraties are subsidised and pay only a fraction of that amount). Admittedly, in New Zealand you don't have to run an air conditioner the size of a pool table, but boy that's still expensive.

Countries with lower tax rates lack the very things provided for by our taxes. In Dubai there would be no free education for our children (if we had had our wee Charlotte while we were there). There are no free hospitals, no unemployment benefit (indeed if you have no job, as a foreigner you are required to leave the country within two months - no such thing as unemployment in Dubai!) and of course no superannuation etc. So all the Dubai government really needs to fork out for is police, defence and roading.

Basically, as a nation, we have decided to put aside a portion of what we earn for education, health and social welfare, and equally as a nation we could decide not to, and thus pay less in tax. I would imagine that most of us don't wish to forgo these publicly provided services, so all we can really do, is collect and disburse tax as efficiently as possible, and concentrate on getting the biggest bang for our hard earned tax dollar. So until we decide to cut back on what our taxes provide, we'll need to keep gathering tax revenue at a similar rate (ignoring current government surpluses). Of course we'll tinker with who pays what (i.e. tax brackets/rates), but the money has to come from somewhere.

Education now; you can bet your last dollar that I'd not have got my nice job in Dubai if it weren't for my Bachelors degree in Engineering from Auckland University - paid for by the New Zealand tax payer. How thankful am I! I would urge expatriates bemoaning New Zealand's education system to be mindful that their successes overseas owe everything to the level of free education provided to all New Zealanders. As my child has only just started walking, I have no knowledge of NCEA so I have nothing (knowledgeable) to add here on that over-reported subject. But my overall faith in the NZ education system remains.

So, although my OE did me very well, I am also pleased to be back in New Zealand, and I am gladly paying tax, mindful of the opportunities it provides for the next batch of Kiwis.
Ian Shores

I am an expat living in St. Louis, MO, USA. If I could transport my job and my daughter's school to Auckland I would move in a heartbeat. I am a US business school professor. However, it is not clear to me that not having me is a great loss either.

Let me explain why my job isn't in NZ. First, there's pay (isn't there always?). US universities pay very differently between the fields. I therefore make at least three times what someone of my rank in history (say) at my university makes. At last calculation taking the exchange rate into account (which isn't quite fair) I would divide my salary by about five to move to NZ. This is one reason I'm not sure I'm a great loss to NZ - that would be a relatively big expenditure. Also, does is make sense to pay differently among the different fields, is it "fair"? I don't have the answers.

However, I try to convince myself its not really only about the money and there is definitely an argument on job quality loss. I am at a research university where research is highly valued, teaching loads are kept manageable, and there are plenty of resources (Ph.D. students, conference travel money, etc.) to make sure I am research productive. I have colleagues to work with who have the same research values and interests that I have. It is not clear that I would get similar in NZ. However, is NZ big enough to support a top tier research university (as opposed to a solid one) - its not so clear.

Finally, there's my daughter's school. She is in a Montessori school - NZ has no Monetessori primary schools as far as I can tell. One reason we chose this type of school is that students work at their own pace. My daughter is clearly "gifted" (as my husband and I both have Ph.D.s from Stanford this is not a big surprise). Montessori is not targeted for the gifted but works well across abilities. (Australia by the way has a number of Montessori schools.)

Further, I fear my daughter is "profoundly gifted". Why do I say fear? Because I am not of the opinion that brighter is always better - I want my daughter to have a happy life and excess intelligence does seem to complicate this. I would count myself on the border line between gifted and profoundly gifted and I was profoundly bored in NZ schools - I also learned to "play dumb." Hopefully things have improved but I have seen little evidence. Further, if someone is profoundly gifted then I think mainstreaming is very unlikely to work - it doesn't seem like NZ education has realized this. See:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/education/
story/497133D15B86D6C486256FB80018CF9D?OpenDocument

For a local (to me) story on this issue. What I want for my daughter is that she not be frequently bored, not lose her love of learning, and not be teased for her intelligence. I believe that Montessori eduation has the highest chance of this of any currently available to us. I would want clear proof of something comparible before I moved her.
Anonymous

I can't help but think the Herald only published the worst of its ex-pat survey respondents. Where were the responses that reflect my experience of a few years ago and those of virtually everyone I know who has spent some time living overseas?

That experience being a pleasant and rewarding time enjoying a different lifestyle and culture, while gaining a lot of useful knowledge not available here. All the time knowing that ultimately we would probably return, put that experience to good use and raise a family in a more familiar and secure environment. And, yes, we pay less tax here and enjoy an excellent education system.

Now I work with several ex-pats here; American, Australian and English. No doubt most of them will also return to their home countries eventually, but at the moment they are all enjoying what New Zealand has to offer. Not only a great lifestyle, but also a smaller, more nimble business environment which allows them to see their ideas through to fruition without the cumbersome management hierarchy that is prevalent in those big overseas markets.

Obviously there are some people (and I very nearly became one) who have found living overseas so much to their taste that they have decided to make it permanent. But it is sad to see some of them believing all this media hysteria about New Zealand and quoting it to justify their decision.
Martin Hermans

So the "brain drain" story has been brought out for circulation again? I saw the story online in the Herald on Saturday too. I have been an expat for more than six and a half years and so I thought I might respond to your invitation with my own story.

After leaving school I worked in Welly at Radio NZ?s Broadcasting House, which was a job I loved but after a couple of years I just needed to go to varsity and do some more learning. I began my tertiary education at the age of 21 and stayed for 5 years, racking up a small student loan.

Even back then I felt that I would have to do something unconventional to "catch up" with the money making; working at RNZ hadn't been well-paid, and I had indulged my interests at both varsity and polytech (politics and electronics ? go figure!), so by the time I was ready to start full-time work again I had few possessions to my name.

Luckily I got into the cellular telecommunications business at the right time and this eventually gave me my passport to expat employment. After four years work in NZ I got a job in Beijing, China, and moved there in mid 1998; my partner followed me 6 months later and we ended up staying there for five and a half years. About this time last year we transferred to Taipei, Taiwan.

I don't want to simplify the reasons why I became an expat nor why we have stayed away so long. There was always a financial incentive, but my partner and I also always wanted to travel. Furthermore, we wanted our travel to consist of living somewhere and not just passing through for a few weeks or months. I never chose China - it was the first place that offered me a job. We ended up staying there for such a long time because it was such an interesting place to live - a real challenge and a place that is changing so rapidly. I know other friends who ended up working in Western Europe and they all went home much sooner - life in Europe wasn't that different to life in NZ.

Being expats has meant we haven't had to worry much about money, though with the declining US dollar my salary is probably little different to what I would now be paid in NZ (when I first began in China I was probably being paid twice what I could get at home).

It is still attractive to be here because we have no accommodation nor utilities costs. We have been able to start a family over the last 4 years and my partner has been able to stay at home full time, which is something that she wanted to do. Returning to NZ will be a bit problematic because I'm not sure I will be able to do the same type of work. We hope we can stay out long enough to accumulate enough cash to give us options when we eventually return home. Secondary education for our boys will probably set the limit on our time abroad - we want our boys to grow up with a Kiwi cultural identity.

You won't find us slagging NZ, though from time to time we do come across expat NZers who do - race relations seems to be a common theme, but then I generally find such types to be ill-informed. We miss NZ - friends, family and Kiwi humour (we have just started watching Bro Town) - but not desperately.

We get back about every two years, and though not a lot changes, the food is damn good, as is the wine, etc, etc. We get to see Super 12 and the Tri Nations rugby on TV here and George and bFM are always available to stream. Actually, that is one thing that would put me off a return to NZ right now - since our time in Beijing we have had access to pretty cheap, limitless, broadband. We'll stream NZ radio all day long without a thought of how much data we are downloading. We pay a fixed monthly fee and that's all. It seems that kind of broadband access isn't really available yet in NZ.

Living in Asia may be interesting, but one day we get to go home, and whether or not we are fooling ourselves, we do feel rather smug about that.
Simon Josey

Thanks for making me feel more guilty! I grew up in Taranaki, and have a B.Sc (Hons), in Geology from VUW. I currently live in Raleigh, NC, USA, with my husband and two daughters, born in Colorado. I did not ever plan to live here, but am happy currently. We are constantly debating whether or not to return to New Zealand. The main reason that we haven't yet is that all of my husband's family are here, and less able to travel than my own. My parents reside in the Bay of Islands, and between our three visits to NZ, and their visits here, we've seen each other almost once a year in the 12 years that I've lived here.
(logistics such as taxes etc. would also be a nightmare.)

I have no doubt that our children would receive a fine education in NZ. I believe that parental involvement is key to success. I am Secretary of our elementary/primary school PTA here, and would expect to be involved to some extent if we were to move to NZ.
Income, of course, is a factor, and mine is certainly more than I would earn in NZ, if I could even find a similar job. I work as a Geographic Information Systems Analyst for an Engineering Consulting firm.

I do not want my children to grow up with only a US view of the world, and am doing my best to educate them with a wider world view.
I did not leave with the intention of working here. I have friends that left and returned. This has been more difficult for some than others.
I feel guilty for not being in NZ, but find it hard to leave here, strange as that may sound!
Kilmeny Stephens

NZ: the countries great, the big problem is some of the people, and because it is small its hard to escape them.

I was working in the TV industry. And wanted to move up the ladder.
Problems

1 The ladder doesnt really exist. Its more a wall of pidgeon holes and you stay where you are put.

2 There is a log jam of dead wood upstream.
Andrew

As an English person who chose to come to NZ 11 years ago I totally agree with your view of NZ, but don't find the attitudes of some of the (moaning) expats you quoted from the Herald surprising (more on this below).

I work in the CompSci dept at Waikato (which is where I came when I moved here, from the University of London) and, being still (having to be, for work) very internationally connected (and travelling back to Europe very frequently) I know just how badly paid we are (even relative to living costs)---and the lifestyle is becoming increasingly like it was in Europe, so the feeling we've traded income for a quieter life is becoming harder to sustain. However, it's certainly true that you can make a mark here which almost none of us would do "back home"---it's just too big, and climbing to a place where you can make an impression takes too long unless you're already some way "up" there.

The people quoted are suffering from "justification" syndrome---a set of attitudes which one takes on to justify to oneself (and others) leaving your home country. Partly guilt and partly wanting to convince yourself you've made the right decision in totally turning your life upside down---so don't be too hard on them. Imagine if the only way you found out about a country was through a largely useless and biased media! Not much chance of talking through any orifice but your arse (along with that very media!) then, I think :-)
Steve Reeves

We're on the way home after 5 years in Berlin, where, with fellow NZer Ken Gorbey, I led the development of the Jewish Museum Berlin. I was offered a permanent position here, but we're NZers - have never thought of ourselves as anything but, and we just got too homesick. Yes, I'm being very well paid here and it may be tricky to re-establish ourselves, but in the end it'll work out. The problem with living here is, you're not really here - can't vote, don't really belong. The Germans are perfectly welcoming, but you're a curiosity, a guest; you don't really count. In the end it's a superficial life.
Nigel Cox

I'm living in Sydney at the moment, having expatted myself to do a PhD somewhere with more choice and funding, and I think you're quite right about the wage issue. I was getting more money lifting bricks on a building site here last summer than I did writing scientific reports in NZ. I've talked to a couple of Kiwi students who came over here just for the summer to work.

This isn't going to stop me coming back to NZ in a couple of years though. I think perhaps it's easier for some expats (especially those with established jobs, houses, family etc) to talk down their country of birth than admit anything wrong with their adopted country. The Maori guy who thinks he'd be in prison in NZ should look at what happens to Aboriginal people in Oz...
Chris Longson

It is with interest that I read yesterdays post. The previous evening I was sitting and talking to an established and respected academic, who asked with some (mildly inebriated) puzzlement "what the hell are you here for? You come from one the most progressive and liberal democratic countries in the world", followed by the common refrain "and the most beautiful".

He was referring to why I had left New Zealand to study in Australia and the answer I gave was straight to the point. I explained that I was in studying in Australia for a couple of reasons, one being that as a PhD student I don't have to pay student fees and the employment prospects being what they are I can enjoy a high standard of living while I study. In addition I seem to be surrounded by a community of active and formidable minds. I attribute this community to the difficulty of achieving higher standards than others. Competition it seems is the primary attracting factor that influenced my decision to come to Australia, and this is attributable to one reason, population. The lifestyle, learning, and employment opportunities (especially for someone with an interest in a somewhat niche field) seem to be greater when there is a greater population present.

Consequently I expect that once I have finished studying here I will move on again, most likely to Europe or Asia, where again the population is greater. The chance to excel in niche fields is greater and at the same time more of a challenge due to the competition.

If some people read that last paragraph and thought, "well, he thinks he is pretty good". Perhaps that is indicative of the comments of Leslie Lipson about creating a conscious "restraint on talent".

While writing this, on my desktop I have a picture of the Coromandel that I took last Christmas. The sky is grey, and the clouds are threatening, the land has hunks gashed from its surface. On the left is a lone pohutukawa tree, it has been twisted and knotted by age and wind.

New Zealand has gifted me with an education second to none, an understanding and respect of cultures that drives away the fear of the unknown, and a sense of adventure that enables move comfortably in unfamiliar environments. Sounds cheesy I know, but I know a few expat Kiwis and they tend agree. While some of the expats I know may never return to New Zealand they eagerly keep up to date with the NZ news and still think of the long days hanging around their various bachess shaded by the pohutukawas.

The jingoism that surrounds New Zealanders recurrent fear of their young leaving their shores is ill founded and speaks more of New Zealanders sense of inferiority in the world. I often wonder when NZ will stop worrying about the 'exodus' and start embracing the bright and talented immigrants that arrive each day to NZ's shores. If those who leave are as smart and talented that everyone says they are then they will venture out into the world learn, develop, and possibly return. If they don't and they/we are as wonderful as the Herald suggested (NZ's brightest) then New Zealand stands to gain a great deal of attention and respect on the world stage as a country that produces young people of talent and ability.

I hope to return one day, and return with what skills I gained from my travels, then not only I but the community I live in may be the better for it. Although I did not see the New Zealand Herald article I was not surprised that NZ Herald would consider this news worthy. Get over it New Zealand, and get on with what you are, one of the most open, progressive and liberal democracies on the face of this shrinking planet. Be proud that as a country you can send talented and adventurous young people out into the world and know that their doing so is a benefit and a credit to the country.
Eamon Merrick

You know you're in Auckland when it's opening week of AK05 and the front page of the weekly freebie trumpets "Super 12 Kicks Off!" And they say the only culture in Auckland is in the yoghurt section of Pak 'n' Save! No wonder, with that kind of support. AK05 will be all over in a couple of weeks. Please, get out there and suck it up. You've got no excuses ... for one thing, heaps of it is free (yeah yeah spot the new parent).

So the weekend got away to a magnificent start with John Adams's TheDeath Of Klinghoffer. He's not the only person making interesting opera at the moment, but he's probably one of the few successfully presenting itto anything resembling a mainstream opera crowd, if there is such a thing. Having previously blown the blue-rinse set out of the building with Nixonin China, Adams does to opera in the 21st century what Michelangelo did to painting in the 15th: he rips the best out of his artistic lineage to tell the stories and the issues of his time. Perhaps the historical paintings of Goya are a better example.

Klinghoffer, it turns out, was a Jewish passenger on the passenger liner Achille Lauro, and was shot by Palestinian hijackers off the coast of Egypt in 1985. Terrorism - I hate that word - is good operatic source material .For one thing, it's often hard to get good images of terrorists (or in this case, the Palestine Liberation Front) in action. The composer and librettist's efforts in representing such events help us to understand them. Secondly, the violent events carried out as a result of Palestinian frustrations are - to understate it - very influential on global politics, and opera is at its best when dealing with Very Important Things.

Of course, you have to deal with the Very Important Things in Very Interesting Ways, which means somehow making an utterly repulsive act look and sound seductive and interesting. The fact that Adams and librettist Alice Goodman succeed so brilliantly in this is perhaps due in some part to their long standing collaboration with NY theatre director Peter Sellars, director of Nixon in China and numerous works by Goodman and Adams since. Talking to The Drama Review some years ago, Sellars talked about the liberation he found in opera

... to open up characters, to explore their secret worlds. In drama, when you try to do that, actors say things like 'uh, he's my uncle, right?' You can't do it. But in opera, the music creates such a level of abstraction, you can achieve it. And when you explore someone's secret world, you can really start getting somewhere, that's when you start to take risks ...

And whose secret world could be better to unlock than that of the political assassin, his innocent victim and their immediate witnesses, right there, in that silent moment-of-eternity between squeezing the trigger and watching the body fall. It is not possible to impart a fraction of the power in Goodman's poetry in abbreviation, but I've snatched a few lines below in the hope of indicating the violence, elegance and power with which it shifts its expositional focus from the narrative to the psyche to philosophy, from the theological to the emotional and beyond.

Here is Goodman's rendering of the contents of some heads:

Molqi
I think of those above us, not only in Tartus ... who gave the order: 'When this is read, let it be destroyed'/ How much, O God, is each man told?/ We have killed no-one, but soon people will die/ Then Syria will show her hand/Every sound you hear is a passenger afraid for his life/ The sea is stiff with men who died unafraid

The Captain
There's nothing/ No reply/ Tartus is not replying/ I propose we move outtowards the open sea, say a kilometre or so outside territorial waters

Mamoud
Now we will kill you all

Leon Klinghoffer
I've never been a violent man; ask anyone/ I'm a person who'd just as soonavoid trouble, but someone's got to tell you the truth/ ... We give gladly, receive gratefully, love, and take pleasure in small things, suffer, and comfort each other/ We're human/ ... You don't give a shit/ You just want to see people die

Rambo
You are always complaining of your suffering but wherever poor men are gathered you can find Jews getting fat.

It doesn't matter which side of the argument you fall behind, the tragedy here belongs to the human race. As with the best of tragedy, there are no winners, just victims. Perhaps all victims, in the end, are victims of history. Perhaps history makes victims of us all.

Goodman's poetry is rendered with exquisite beauty in Adams's music, a polyrhythmic imbroglio of classical and modern influences. None of your elite atonalism, the opening Chorus of Exiled Palestinians knocked be back in my seat with its searing, plunging melodies, relentlessly focusing 'in my mind's eye/ a crescent moon.' This being a concert performance rather than a full-blown stage production, it was a treat to see the Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus relieved of its normal extras-in-period-dress m.o. and up on the bleaches with the best view and having the sing of their lives.

The NZSO, one of my favourite bands, were also in fine form under the baton of Mark Stringer, who assured us that this piece is one mutha of a technicality to achieve. On reflection, I believe him. Did I mention the polyrhythmic imbroglio? He cites Bach as one particularly obvious source, which I could only associate through the devotional tone of voice the opera has as a whole, and also the romantic operas Simone Boccanegra andRigoletto alongside Negro spirituals. To my uncouth ear, it was big, generous symphonic and choral movements juxtaposed with quirky electronica. Who could resist?

If you want a new genre to go with the new idea, call it operamentary.

While Klinghoffer raged for a single night in the Town Hall (please, Opera NZ, do something gutsy, mount a full production: you can do it!), over in the Aotea's Herald Theatre two very different cultures collided in a very different way. Strata is the first play by Kirk Torrance, who you remember as the bad guy in the leather jacket and the pony tail inStickmen. This was borne in the stable of Wellington's Taki Rua, the only theatre company in the country serious about drawing equally on Maori and Pakeha cultural norms.

Back in the early 90s writers like Hone Kouka and Apirana Taylor found away to combine the protocols of the marae and western theatre to articulate Maori and Pakeha issues in a way that was sophisticated, gutsy and politically savvy: they called it marae theatre, because it so effectively combined the two. Back then, the combination actually took place in a physical venue in Wellington's theatre precinct just off Oxford Terrace, where it attained marae status in its own right. In the late 90s however, the company liberated itself from the obligations of a performance venue, and focussed instead on what it considered to be most important: commissioning, producing and touring original New Zealand work. Strata is the latest in a long line of plays that deal innovatively and provocatively with nothing more or less than the Aotearoan condition. It succeeds such legendary pieces as Woman Far Walking, Nga Tangata Toa, Mother Hundred Eater, Purapurawhetu and Sons.

Torrance has an ambitious, single setting for Strata: 'Two brothers, two Maoris, one day in a cave. It's dark, and there ain't much lights' he tells me on the phone. He's not kidding. I've never seen such a dark play, ever. With highly original use of screens, including some falling between audience and players lit behind, the minimal set effectively traps audience with characters onstage. Considering the Herald is a converted rehearsal room with the most ludicrously steep auditorium imaginable, the relationship is intensely intimate.

The setting also supports the play's themes of vision, salvation and escape. As the brothers dig, and dig, and dig, their vision opens up in unexpected ways. The closer they get to salvation, the more they're damned. Snapping between ugly violence and fraternal mateship, their relationship slowly cracks, but through the cracks, more profound schisms are observed: between the brothers, between the brothers and the mine company, between the mining company and the tribal land, and between the land itself and the sky that once smothered it: Rangi and Papa.

At the same time, the gap between the living, the dead and the never-born palpably shrinks a little. It's eerie, although there are moments - not many - when the good flesh hangs off a bony plot. It doesn't matter. One of the things this kind of play does best is invoke spirits, past, present, and future, in the here and now of the theatre.

All the plays of Taki Rua have done as much as any historian or documentary maker - and more than most - to illustrate life in NZ as something beyond a middle class tea party shot through with rehearsed sarcasm. In fact, I count them among the clearest, most illuminated and positive examples of pakeha and Maori crossovers I've ever encountered.Strata is well deserving of its place amongst them, and of the gongs it earned Torrance and first time director Tim Spite at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards, Wellington theatre's big night out.

Looking forward to Clockwork Orange, and the three concerts ofKevin Maynor look fairly irresistible too. Maynor is an Afro-American operatic bass here to sing three interesting looking pieces on successive evenings: Ghandi, King: Aspects of Aggression/ The Repertoire of Paul Robeson/ and Malcolm X: A Commentary. The Wintergarden looks worth dropping into every night after 9 pm to catch a wide variety of tunes and laffs, and there are a heap of free exhibitions and events, including a surprise appearance of Stalker, which was a highly accomplished avant garde stilt theatre troupe about 20 years ago. Is it still?

I've been asked so often I've written a handout: Dear Signature Collector; Thank you for asking me to sign your petition regarding changing the New Zealand flag. I am genuinely impressed that you are taking action about which you obviously care deeply.

The fact you are dedicating so much of your time to something that delivers no material reward indicates you feel it is the most important thing on New Zealand's agenda at the moment; more important than wars, the environment, poverty and civil liberties (or you would be collecting signatures, and possibly money, for the likes of Greenpeace, Amnesty or World Vision).

In response, I would like to explain why I will not be signing the petition, and ask whether there is another issue that would benefit from your passion.

Flags are important symbols that arose from the need to identify your "team" during battle. They are symbolic of one's membership of a system of civil society. Having said that, they are still not generally of great importance except when invoked during times of crisis. For example, most national sports teams do not display their flag prominently on their uniforms.

During a crisis that demands unity, flags are still used as a rallying point. The emergence of the United States flag following 9/11 as a symbol of unity under adversity is a classic example. There are many examples of flags being used in a similar way. The Nazi party in Germany stole a peace symbol and used it as a rallying point. There is now a debate in many European countries whether the swastika should be banned.

As a great man once said, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Personally I am rather pleased that we have an innocuous flag that would be hard to turn into a symbol of aggressive patriotism; I think it reflects the nature of New Zealanders.

The second area that I believe makes a change unnecessary at this time is the view of the flag as a brand. As I have mentioned, few national teams rely on a flag in the arena. I suspect one of the arguments for a change is to make the flag distinguishable, something that reflects brand New Zealand.

Flags are not a brand. You can't brand nationhood. It is a product of everyday interaction between us, no a symbol. It manifests every time you wait for the green man, run an amber light, complain about the humidity in Auckland or scream yourself hoarse at the rugby.

PureNZ is a brand - it is a way to gain recognition overseas. Coca Cola is a brand - it is a way to connect a lifestyle to a can of sugary water. Brands must be able to change fairly easily with the mood of society, and with their target market. A flag cannot do this. [It would be cynical to point out that a silver fern on a black background is subject to control under copyright/trademarks, whereas a flag is only limited by statute (no royalties are payable). Such cynicism would unfortunately be reinforced were I to find that the change-the-flag campaign were started by middle aged white marketing/design professionals.]

You may note that I said "at this time". I believe the flag should, like many others, change in the future.

Flags are often redesigned to reflect a momentous event of significance to the nature of the State. For example, the (British) Union Flag (Union Jack means that it is hanging from a boat) symbolised the momentous unification of England, Scotland and Wales. The United States flag symbolises unification following their Civil War. Canada is almost unique in waking up one morning and deciding to change its flag, but that is the example we are being fed.

I think New Zealand has a way to go before it is going to encounter a change that warrants a new flag, but there is a candidate coming up. Sometime in the next 25 years or so we are going to have to address the matter of becoming a republic. Surely that would be a more prescient time, and until then, surely there is something more important going on that warrants your energy and attention at this time?

Regards

Adam Hunt.

A lot has been said in the last week to rekindle the debate on referenda and the Civil Union Bill after a welcome Christmas truce. Colin James published a deliberative piece on the merits of more referenda and the Supreme Court Bill and Civil Union Bill. Don Brash let loose with a dishonest piece hinting at referenda as the gold standard solution to all manner of controversial issues. And Tim Barnett began the response.

Colin James asserts some reasons why a referendum was not held on Civil Union Bill and goes as far as to suggest, "fear that scaremongers would commandeer talkback radio and tilt the vote lay behind a refusal of a referendum on the Civil Union Bill by its proponents".

On the balance of the evidence, I think the Civil Union Bill would have passed a referendum. However, even if I didn't think that, I wouldn't be afraid. A vote is just a vote.

If, as Brash argues, we have seen all manner of controversial legislation put forth in this term of Government and controversial issues should be put to a referendum, the logical conclusion is a proliferation of votes on all manner of things.

What does scare me is to think is how divisive this kind of regime could be with referenda campaigns spilling over into workplaces, families and community.

A debate on whether there should have been a referendum on the Supreme Court Bill is entirely rational, although I'm not an advocate for one. It's a fair question whether that was a constitutional change requiring the consent of the people.

However, the idea that all New Zealanders somehow have a right to deliberate on my right, as a gay man, to justice and equality before the law is one that I find deeply offensive.

Many identifiable groups of New Zealanders have accepted benefits from the principles of justice, equality and the rights framework within which the Civil Union Bill fits. I see no moral case for me to beg permission from them to do the same.

I opposed a referendum on the Civil Union Bill not, as Colin James suggests, out of fear that it might loose but because I didn't want to spend another year with all my unpaid waking hours taken up reading, contemplating and responding to the hatred and irrational bile that spewed forth from the bunch of extremists who think that it's their business to inflict their version of morality on me. There's a diminishing return as far as the quality of public debate goes. This debate was well roasted by Christmas.

I opposed a referendum on the Civil Union Bill because I didn't want lesbian, gay, bisexual or just plain questioning teenagers to have to put up with another year of stories tantamount to "God hates fags" spread across the front page of national newspapers and feel how that feels when you're young, vulnerable and isolated.

I opposed a referendum on the Civil Union Bill because I believe in people's right to freedom of their private beliefs. I believe in religious pluralism and a secular state. The Debate on Homosexuality (and let's not kid ourselves the debate on civil unions wasn't proxy for a debate on homosexuality - if it wasn't, we'd all have talked a lot more about the status of de facto couples before the law) was a strike to place some people's version of God's law amongst New Zealand law.

I opposed a referendum on the Civil Union Bill because I believe that New Zealand's law, which we are all bound to abide by, should be internally consistent and fair to all New Zealanders.

The extremists told us again and again civil unions were a step down the "slippery slope". Well, what about referenda? After civil unions, there could be MMP, The Treaty, abortion, immigration, nuclear free status, superannuation, Maori television, smoking in bars, and marijuana. And then why not a referendum about sex before Marriage, sex after 65 and, my favourite, should Asians be allowed to drive?

Should we have a referendum on tax cuts? What about hospital waiting lists? And then what do we do when we decide by an overwhelming majority to cut both? Have a referendum on the budget deficit? Or the exchange rate?

It's a slippery slope, you see, unless it's just homosexuals we want to subject to the tyranny of the majority. A referendum can obtain the consent of the people for Parliament's actions but it is no kind of a way to make decisions and should not be used to attack the consistency of and due process in the law.

Whilst offensive, the politicians' "debate" on referenda looks more like posturing for political points than any genuine desire to better serve the will of the people. Don Brash, a list MP, is advocating getting rid of list MPs. Tariana Turia supported a referendum on the Civil Union Bill but, presumably, wouldn't be so keen on one about Maori ownership of foreshore and seabed or abolishing the Maori seats. Wayne Mapp claimed to have answered Parliament's call on his judgement over the Civil Union Bill with a random sample poll of his electorate but there's a strong rumour circulating that his poll actually asked constituents a question about gay marriage. Most other polls show a substantial difference in responses to the two questions.

Don Brash and his contemporaries have been deeply dishonest in presenting the Civil Union Bill as an issue for which, "the Government and the Parliament can legitimately claim no mandate". Brash says, "The legalisation of prostitution and the institutionalising of civil unions are not matters on which the Government or, indeed, any political party campaigned at the last election."

Well, let the people decide but let them do it on the basis of all the evidence. Labour and the Greens both supported relationship law reform at the last election. Labour and the Greens, combined, won a majority of the Parliament at the last election. The Rainbow Issues section of Labour's manifesto and Labour's campaign pamphlet on gay and lesbian issues both say, "Labour is committed to introducing legislation for civil unions to give recognition to same-sex (and different sex) relationships and to provide rights equivalent to those of marriage."

What greater accountability is there is in a democracy than putting out a manifesto, getting elected, enacting it and then seeking re-election?

I opposed a referendum on the Civil Union Bill because I believe that law should be made on the basis of informed, diligent and rational debate. Many MPs and most journalists couldn't argue the detail of the Relationships Bill and are complete novices when it comes to the intricacies of homosexuality so how would we propose to educate and inform every eligible voter on that? And wouldn't we be better spending those resources replacing old hips and teaching kids to read?

The Select Committee hearing the Civil Union Bill received a record number of submissions and every person who wanted to appear before the Select Committee was given an opportunity to do so. The point - and the Select Committee addressed this with its recommendation in favour of the Bill - is that submitters stand on the merits of their arguments and evidence, not their numbers.

I opposed a referendum on the Civil Union Bill because I believe in a system of representative democracy. Apparently, taking an active interest in politics makes me rare amongst young people. I am more informed on political issues than many other people. Yet, I consider myself not nearly so well qualified to make decisions in my own interest as the Members of Parliament to whom I trust my vote.

It's not that I think Members of Parliament are a special breed. If there is any wisdom in politics, I don't think it is to be found inherent in the "wise MP". I think an MP's behaviour is determined by the influences upon them - their background, constituents and the ideology of the political company they keep.

I think I would soon know if the MP and party I support were acting generally against my interest. But many people don't go to more than the slightest effort to understand what any given politician stands for or does. Yet there seems to be a movement to make open to these people all and sundry decisions of great consequence to the country.

At the end of the electoral term, it's our choice who stays and who goes from Parliament. As electors, our decision doesn't have to be rational, nor consistent nor do we have to offer up any explanation for it. It's our unimpeded right. So long as the things Parliament does are no impediment to that right, I don't see what benefit we get from doing for ourselves what we so adequately pay for to be done by professionals.

Law is a package deal. Politicians are a package deal. You can't just pick the bits you like - social services without taxes, rights for yourself without rights for others, liberty without constraint.

Make no mistake. There will be a referendum on the Civil Union Act and every other Act this year. And if you believe in the will of the people, and polls as some approximation of that, it would seem that in December things were going the Government's way.

Michael Wallmansberger is chair of Campaign for Civil Unions (Auckland) Inc