Congratulations, New Zealand! You’re better than Kuwait!
Now, to be fair, I really like New Zealand, but, as an Australian, I’m more-or-less duty-bound to poke fun at you any chance I get. Sometimes, New Zealand gets bowled one that just goes straight through to the keeper.
New Zealand has been ranked second-worst place in the world to move by immigrants, according to a survey.
So much for all those American leftists and Australian journalists wailing that they’re going to move to New Zealand as soon as they can. Somehow, just like all the slebs who promised to move to Canada, it just never happens.
Which is probably good for both of you.
Kiwis would only get lobbed with a whole lot of whining Yank snowflakes, and the new arrivals would be in for an awful shock. Instead of hugs and hobbits, they’d find themselves stuck with staggering cost of living and suffocating bureaucracy.
The expatriate networking organisation InterNations surveyed nearly 12,000 respondents of 177 different nationalities, living in 181 countries. Respondents were asked how their new homes performed on factors including quality of life, cost of living, safety, financial outlook, bureuacracy and ease of fitting in.
Consequently, “Aotearoa New Zealand” ranks 51 out of 52 countries, fighting Kuwait for the wooden spoon. (Australia was ranked 9th, hem-hem.)
Guardian journalists are shocked – shocked! – that Jacindaland isn’t quite all they’ve cracked it up to be, from afar.
The country’s poor showing was attributed to lower wages and high cost of living. New Zealand was the worst-performing country in the survey’s personal finance measure: 49 per cent of respondents said their disposable household income was not enough to lead a comfortable life, compared with 28 per cent globally. For general cost of living, 75 per cent rated the country negatively, compared with 35 per cent globally.
New Zealand also ranked below global averages for respondents feeling fairly paid for their work, seeing a purpose in their work or liking their working hours. “The cost of living is too high here in comparison to the salaries,” one survey respondent from Botswana said. An expat from India was concerned about the “growing divide between the rich and poor”.
That, and that there’s more people crapping in the streets of South Auckland than in Bombay.
It’s not all bad news, though.
Its strongest suit was the outdoors – environment and climate was the only metric on which New Zealand ranked in the top half of countries. Its natural environment was loved by 95 per cent of those arriving, compare with 83 per cent globally – and on opportunities for recreational sports it ranked 84 per cent, versus 75 per cent elsewhere.
The Guardian
Gloating aside, as a Tasmanian, I feel your pain, New Zealand.
Tasmania is likewise a place of outstanding natural beauty, but the trade-off is economic opportunity. Greens and bureaucrats, particularly from the safe distance of the Mainland, want to keep the place as their personal national park, where they can swan in for a holiday now and then.
They just don’t want to pay for it, or loosen the stranglehold of green tape that continually holds back development.
