Permanent Resident

When I got my New Zealand "resident" visa last year, I was bemused to find it meant I could live and work in New Zealand for the rest of my life, I just couldn't leave and come back. Seriously, once it expired (after one year), if I left New Zealand they wouldn't let me return.  In most countries, Immigration gets upset if you *stay* in the country; New Zealand gets upset if you leave! 

Since I would like to visit other countries, I applied for a "permanent resident" visa as soon as I was eligible, which I just received.  In addition to permission to return, it also allows me to vote and apply for public benefits and basically give me all the rights of a natural-born citizen.  In fact, there's absolutely no benefit for applying for New Zealand citizenship unless you're planning to move to Australia.

Since 1973, Australia and New Zealand have had a reciprocal agreement recognising each other's citizens.  If I decided to emigrate to Australia on my US or UK passports, I would have to apply for a temporary work permit and basically start from scratch.  If I had an NZ passport, however, I could just fly over and start work tomorrow.  (I wouldn't be able to vote or be eligible for public benefits in Australia.)

Since the reciprocal arrangement was implemented, many more people have emigrated from New Zealand to Australia, because the standard of living was generally higher.  However, in the past few years, as Australian mining has declined, many kiwis have been moving back to New Zealand.  This has resulted in a very heated property market.  Here is a chart from realtors Barfoot and Thomson, of median house prices and median rental value (per week) in Auckland between 1996 and 2015::

Since then, the median house price has gone over the $900,000 mark and the average property value over $1,000,000.  Auckland has been hit the worst but Wellington has not escaped.

When we moved from Kapiti to Wellington in 2015, we decided to rent for a year so we could get to know the area.  At the time, the average house price was $401,000; as of October it was $528,200.  That's a 31% jump in less than three years!

The new Labour government has implemented several measures to try and reduce house prices, including limiting migration, limiting investment by overseas buyers, and requiring more capital from speculators.  They are also looking at implementing measures to improve rental properties, such as requiring insulation and implementing a "warrant of fitness" checklist, which will reduce the demand for investment properties.

These efforts may, in time, result in lower house prices; however, by restricting the number of rental properties, they are having an immediate effect on rental prices! Today there was a news article that the number of available rentals in Wellington was down 71% from last year!  The law of supply and demand indicates that rental prices are going to soar.

Our lease is up in April, which is good for us because the vast majority of houses are rented in January and February, as people move before school starts; during the rest of the year the market is very quiet.  If our lease was up during that period, there would be very strong demand and the landlord would be tempted to significantly increase the rent.  I'm hoping in April he won't see that demand and will leave it alone.  In 2019, we'll have one child either in Israel or at University, and maybe by that time the property market will have cooled down a bit and we can look at downsizing into a 3-bedroom house.

Now, are you impressed how I went from "permanent resident" to "permanent residency"?

Recognition

One of these maps shows countries that recognise Palestine as a State. The other shows countries that recognise Israel as a state. Interesting, no?

Source: Wikipedia

MMP

Most democracies use a "first past the post" system -- that is, each constituency votes for their preferred candidate, and the one who gets the most votes represents that area. The party that gets the most representatives then is the "ruling" party. That seems quite reasonable; however, that "winner take all" approach means the elected representatives don't necessarily reflect the electorate.

In America, this is most clearly seen in the electoral college, but it can also be seen in Congressional races. For example, in the last US election, 45.2 million Americans voted for a Democratic senator while only 39.3 million Americans voted for a Republican senator, yet Republicans kept control of the Senate by focusing on where the votes were cast. Because each state gets two senators regardless of population, votes in small states are "worth" more than large states. Similarly, in "swing states" (where the election is close), votes are worth more than "safe states" because winning by one vote is the same as winning by a million votes. According to wallethub, a vote in New Hampshire is "worth" 84 times more than a vote in New York!

Of course, this isn't a recent phenomenon, and isn't limited to the US: In the last UK elections, Labour received 42.2% of the popular vote while the Conservates received 42.1%. However, Conservatives captured 318 seats (48.9%) while Labour only captured 262 (40.3%).

In 2011, the UK held a referendum to change the "first past the post" vote with what they called "alternative vote." It suffered a resounding defeat, although I believe it was because the Conservatives--who benefited most from the current system--ran a successful campaign of fear and doubt. Under "first past the post" a vote for a third party is effectively wasted because that candidate has no chance of winning. Alternative Vote would have allowed voters to cast multiple votes, specifying the order of preference, so voters could vote for a third party candidate followed by a major candidate, knowing their vote would count either way.

In the 1980s, New Zealand was suffering a similar situation but took a different approach. The first-past-the-post system had encouraged a two-horse race between National and Labour, and third parties were completely sidelined. In 1978, Social Credit won 16% of the vote but only one percent of the seats. In 1981 they won 21% of the vote but only 2% of the seats. At the same time, Labour received more votes than National, but National won more seats. When Labour won in 1984, the set up a Royal Commission to review the situation. The Royal Commission recommended an alternative that had been forced on Germany after World War 2.

In March 1933, the Nazi party won the German Federal election with 44 percent of the popular vote. This was enough to seize control, install its leader as a dictator and dissolve the Reichstag. All other parties were then banned. At the end of World War II, the Allies wanted to resume democracy but prevent one party from seizing control again.  They came up with a "party list" system to ensure proportional representation system, which worked like this: Each voter got to vote for a candidate and a party. They did not have to be the same. The candidate still won using the first-past-the-post system, but the party vote was then used to allocate additional seats to ensure the electorate reflected the national vote.

Using the US senate race as an example, imagine if voters from each state voted for one candidate and one party. 50 Senators would be chosen by direct ballot, but the other 50 would be allocated to based on the party vote.  If the Democrats received 53% of the votes but only 48% of the seats (as they did in the last election), they would be allocated 29 additional seats; whereas if the Republicans only received 46% of the votes but won 52% of the seats, they would be allocated 21 seats.  Thus, the Senate would have 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans to match the proportion of the party vote.

The idea in Germany was that by preventing one single party from dominating politics, they would be forced to form coalitions and work through compromise.  In the US 2016 election, third parties won nearly 5% of the vote; if that had been reflected in the results, neither the Democrats nor Republicans would have won an outright majority and would have had to form a coalition with one of the smaller parties.

In 1993, New Zealand formally adopted the system, calling is "Mixed Member Proportional" (or MMP) for reasons I do not understand.  There are 121 seats in Parliament; 71 are elected directly in regional elections and 49 are allocated from the party vote.  In the 2014 election, National and Labour still claimed the lion share (76% of the seats between them) but five other parties were represented, and National had to form a coalition with New Zealand First.

I mention all of this as a prelude to the 2017 election, being held in two weeks, which has been an absolute roller-coaster ride.  Unfortunately only permanent residents can vote, and I won't be eligible until December.  (I also want to talk about the saga of Kim Dotcom, an Internet millionaire who bought his way into New Zealand citizenship in 2009 and has been fighting US extradition on money laundering and racketeering charges since 2012, but in the meantime has bankrolled a new political party, called the Internet Party.)

One year later

OK, technically it's 11 months since my "Along came a spider" post, but well past time for an update.  The tumor turned out to be much larger than expected (10mm instead of 3-5mm) and it was found in the "sentinel node" (the lymph node closest to the tumour).  However, so little was found in the lymph node that they chose to treat her as if it hadn't been there.

She developed several infections after the surgery.  Unfortunately, because there were no external symptoms the surgeon dismissed her concerns, and only took it seriously when the infection got so bad her surgical scar burst open!  (Yeah, it was pretty disgusting.) We spent quite a few nights at the ER/A&E/ED (or whatever you call it).  Fortunately, we have friends who are ER doctors at Wellington hospital, so we were always well looked after.

The infections delayed the radiation treatment until January, because they needed the tissue to be stable.  By then, my partner had already resumed work, and every day after work she'd drive to the hospital for a five-minute dose of radiation, then drive home and immediately fall asleep.  She had almost no energy but after a month they pronounced her "clear" with a 1-2% chance of recurrence in the next ten years.

I said, "No more medical dramas" but of course she didn't listen to me (or perhaps did it to spite me).  I mentioned they accidentally found the tumour when they did a CT scan because she'd been having abdominal pains.  Those pains seemed to go away while she was dealing with the cancer, but came back with a vengeance in March.  She had several attacks where she was simply doubled-over in pain, unable to move.  Over the next two months we had several more visits to the GP and the hospital, and the consensus pointed to gallstones but she did not have the classic symptoms (such as pain after eating a fatty meal).  During one attack, they wanted to do an MRI to try and catch the gallstone in action, but it took the MRI team three days to fit her in, and by then the attack had stopped and -- not surprisingly -- they didn't find anything.  (An ultrasound had confirmed she had gallstones, but I later learned that most women over forty have gallstones; only a small percentage of them ever develop problems.)

By then we'd decided there really wasn't a down-side to removing her gallbladder--the surgery was routine, and the gallbladder is really a vestigial organ--so we might as well try it and see if it worked.  I know that sounds a bit callous, but she was in a lot of pain and nobody had a plan B.  For the second time in four months, we called her private health insurance company and they were just as amazing as last time: She was scheduled for surgery in less than four weeks, at the end of July.  Had she stayed in the public system, it could have taken a year or more.

It was an overnight procedure, and my partner was very leary of the general anaesthetic.  She is a real lightweight when it comes to drugs, and after the cancer op it took her almost 24 hours to recover.  The anesthetist was a sweetheart and he said he'd put her on the lightest medication possible, and she was alert an hour after the op.  She had no complications apart from a nagging pain in her ribs, which might have been a lingering issue from the radiation.

(She did have one bout of pain; her GP thought it was an internal bleed, and the surgeon thought it might be a small hernia.  Either way, they thought it would pass on its own and it did after about a week.)

So she is back to work (again) and slowly rebuilding her muscles after a year of medical traumas. (I called it, "Our year of living medically.")  She is walking home from work and swimming and looking great, although she still gets tired quite easily.  We have family visiting soon so she is taking five weeks off work to spend time with them; it will be interesting to see if the tiredness still plays a factor.

I'll end this with a photo of my partner, circa 1974. :-)