Talk:New Zealand

Because of their length, the previous discussions on this page have been archived. If further archiving is needed, see Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.

Previous discussions:

• Archive 1 (12 November, 2004 to June 1, 2005):

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Ranked area

According to List of countries by area, New Zealand is 73rd. Evil Monkey∴Hello 23:39, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Cool. Do you want to amend the page? I reverted it from 73th. Note the th instead of rd. Moriori 23:53, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

I've changed the page. I had seen the change and looked at the list and decided it was alright -- not seeing the th instead of the rd :-) Evil Monkey∴Hello 23:56, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

"Average" minimum/maximum temperature

Hello. I was just reading the Geography section of the article, which says:

"In Wellington the average minimum temperature in winter is 5.9°C and the average maximum temperature in summer is 20.3°C."

Is there a source to confirm what's meant by "average minumum" and "average maximum" temperature? Maybe I'm being too nitpicky, but to me simply stating it doesn't seem very useful without also stating how it's been measured, and indicating whether the word "average" mean "mean", "median", or "mode" (most common). At worst it might be misleading depending on what's going through the mind of a reader, especially if they're not used to hearing about minimum and maximum temperatures every day as we do in New Zealand.

The article probably means the mean of daily min/max temperatures, but it could vary a lot if it's measured differently. eg. If someone only took the min/max temperatures every week, or every month, or every year, the "averages" would likely be much more extreme than if they were taken every day, or every hour, or every minute. Izogi 9 July 2005 09:53 (UTC)

questions

• just a question to you knowledgable new zealanders, the article here was a little brief on why new zealand "lost interest in joining Australia in a federation" and also, the relationship between the two countries. i don't know about you but most people in Australia didn't know new zealand was almost an Australian state. I had put the question to a new zealender "would you like New Zealand to become a state of Australia" they we're quite adament that it remain independant, almost like such an event would mean the end of the world.
• i also read (from another source) that new zealanders think Australians are "loud and opinionated" is this the general consensus in New Zealand? are you all (like my friend) adament that you be as distinct from Australia as possible?

Opinions vary on whether NZ should be closer to Australia. I think the clear majority quite strongly dislike the thought. It's most likely because Australia is so much more populous than NZ, and we'd lose our identity if we became a state.

I've looked for online opinion polls but could only find Australian ones, eg 1964 1968 1979. There was a three-part documentary series on TVNZ in 2003 entitled "2050 What If", dealing with different futures for NZ; one was effective merger with Australia, with the spectre of our children learning about aboriginal history rather than Maori culture in schools. The other scenarios were a Maori dominated NZ, and a Green dominated one.

These might be useful to you: States of Mind: Australia and New Zealand or Australia and New Zealand: Turning Shared Pasts into a shared history, or google for "Why New Zealanders are not Australians", a paper by Keith Sinclair which doesn't appear to be online, but is quoted by anything which is relevant.-gadfium 22:47, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

There's also a website entitled simply Why New Zealand did not become an Australian state. -- Vardion 23:40, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

reply: amazingly concise and well researched response to a fairly unworthy question :) i thank you. by i have to say, we don't learn about aboriginal history in schools, the odd book by an aboriginal has been studied, but were not as focused on aboriginals as New Zealand seem to be about the maori. I have to say, that a 'merger' would probably be pretty controversial in Australia too, i can see many economic benifits in being the one country, but perhaps CER will be enough.

• one of the articles, that you linked me to, mentioned: "contemplation of, and public support for a new common currency" between Australia and New Zealand, this is the first i've heard of such a thing.

A related question, which someone here may be able to answer - I believe that when Australia federated, it wasn't just New Zealand that wasn't 100% behind the move. I've heard various sources claim that (1) WA only joined the confederation by a very slim majority, and (2) there was serious consideration given in Tasmania to joining with New Zealand. Anyone know whether there's any truth in either of these claims? Grutness...wha? 12:42, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Since time escapes me, I'll make this short and sweet (that's the saying right?). Yes, New Zealand was not alone in its hesitation. All the small colonies (that is, all bar NSW and VIC) at some point or another voiced serious concern of the potential dominance of NSW and VIC; this is the reason, in large part, we have a Senate (yes, this is a simplistic example and forgets the fact the Senate isn't a States' House, but it's extremely common). Firstly, let's clarify, Australia isn't a confederation - it is a federation. Both WA and QLD were very cautious and both were very late in holding referendums. In WA the referendum on federation was finally (and successfully) held nearly a month after the Constitution Act had been passed in the Imperial Parliament. I can't recall by what margin the referendum passed, but I believe it was wide enough to aviod being called narrow or slim. Many remained recalitrant in the West, however, and in 1933 a referendum of succession was even held there in which 68% voted in favour (it was the Great Depression, people were peeved!). This was ultimately pointless given the federation is indissoluble (and Britain told them off). The TAS/NZ federation thing is complete hogswash. --Cyberjunkie | Talk 18:08, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Re common currency: See this interview with the NZ Prime Minister in 2000 [1], and her views in 2004 [2]. This might represent the Australian Government's view: [3]. This is an opinion survey from 2004 on what NZers think of political union, a common currency, and various other measures: [4]-gadfium 02:48, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Date format

I've reverted the change of the years to point to the timeline of New Zealand history. This is because doing this screws up the date formats that people have set in their user preferences. Evil Monkey∴Hello 00:54, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I have moved this discussion to: Talk:Timeline_of_New_Zealand_history

NevilleDNZ 04:51, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Judicary

So does New Zealand have a High Court, or is the current Supreme Court the highest court in New Zealand? The article is not clear.--nixie 01:52, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land, above the Court of Appeal which is in turn above the High Court. Evil Monkey∴Hello 01:57, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

See Supreme Court of New Zealand. Xtra 01:58, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

True, but nixie makes a good point, because the paragraph he refers to is ambiguous.Moriori 02:05, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

I've edited the pargraph with info from the Ministry of Justice. An article on court heirachy in New Zealand would be good.--nixie 02:14, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

New 'economy' comments

I view the comments recently added by Kiwimhm regarding the market crash leading to low economic growth as entirely spurious at worst, debateable at best. Actually, that entire economy section is politicised and non-neutral. This needs to be fixed to discuss only widely accepted views of the New Zealand economy, not blatantly anti-reform sentiment.--Voicey 09:10, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Population

At the beginning of the page it says the population is 4.092 million but then lower in the article it's 4.2 million. What's it gonna be then people? 4 or 4.2 ?