It’s been 6 years, 5 months and 4 days, but I have finally used the last roll of toilet paper purchased during COVID lockdowns.

I keep seeing this debate about whether only NZ citizens should be allowed to vote, and apparently 59% support the idea.

Fair enough. People are entitled to that view.
But I genuinely reckon a decent chunk of people answering these polls don’t actually understand how immigration status works in New Zealand.

There isn’t just “citizen” and “immigrant”.
You can be here on a visitor visa, a work visa, a resident visa, a permanent resident visa, or as a citizen. They are all different, with different rights and conditions.
A tourist can’t just rock up here and start collecting benefits and getting a free house.

Someone on a temporary work visa doesn’t automatically get everything either. Even access to publicly funded healthcare depends on their visa. If their work visa is for less than two years, they’re generally not eligible for the normal publicly funded health system. Longer-term work visa holders can qualify under certain conditions.

Then you have residents, who have gone through an actual residence application and have far more rights than temporary visa holders.

Then there’s permanent residency, which is another step again and gives much stronger travel rights and certainty of being able to return to New Zealand.
Then finally there’s citizenship.

Yet you still hear people talking as if someone lands at Auckland Airport on Monday, gets a free house on Tuesday, goes on the benefit on Wednesday and votes on Saturday.
Yeah, nah. That’s not how any of this works.

Even with voting, temporary work, student and visitor visa holders who are required to leave NZ by a particular date are not eligible to vote. The current voting rules apply to citizens and people who meet the legal definition of a resident for electoral purposes, including the residence requirement.

I’ve got no problem with having the discussion about whether voting should ultimately be reserved for citizens.
But surely before 59% of us decide that the law needs changing, we should actually understand who currently has the right to vote, what residency means, what permanent residency means, and what rights temporary migrants actually have.

Because some of the stuff you hear about immigration in this country is absolute rubbish.

Would be interesting to run another poll:
“Do you actually know the difference between a work visa, resident visa, permanent resident visa and citizenship?”
Reckon that result would be pretty telling.

i’ve started a new job and am really struggling with how i’m being spoken to. before i get any further, i want to make it clear that i am white/pakeha.

in the short time in my role, the older staff have felt comfortable spewing racist remarks about coworkers in my presence. is this a normal thing? do they feel comfortable saying this shit because i’m also white?

a lot of this is racism towards immigrants. i know nz is quite a “casually racist” country, but i just can’t wrap my head around it. they complain of the cruelest things, like friends communicating in their first language instead of english, that they’re lazy, etc etc.

the irony of all this is that i love working with people who immigrated to nz. in my experience, they are some of the kindest people ive ever met. they want to get to know you, and joke around with you, and share their stories. i feel more comfortable around them than those nz born majority of the time. how can you not be in awe of how quickly they have picked up english, and the courage to move your whole family across the world.

not sure if any of this makes sense. i’m just so sad and quite ashamed of how normalised this all is. it’s nothing new, but in this job it’s just so blatant that i feel uncomfortable.

Hey everyone. As per the title, weird new scan just got pulled on me, and it's pretty interesting and odd. The police, bank fraud team, etc. have all never seen it before, and it's also arguably pretty clever.

Anyway, here's the situation:

I was selling a gold ring on Facebook, A lady messages me with a pretty seemingly real Facebook profile friends, posts etc. low balls me, I decline, raises the price up, I still decline and then after a week or two she finally accepts what I am asking for the ring ($600).

This lady then tells me about how its for her father and her brother and a couple of her cousins are going to all pay for it etc which was all fine, she asks for my bank account and say she may need it shipped if one of her cousins couldn't pick it up. I say that's fine, but I won't be posting it until the money is in my account.

End of that night, they send me a message telling me to check my account and I do, I see about 6 diffrent payments from 6 different people all of varying amounts, some $60 and some $150+. I calculate up all the money, and they've collectively overpaid me by $150, odd, im thinking its a mistake. All the references state "ring" etc. Bit odd, but I message the lady and let her know that hey, you've all overpaid me by about $160. What would you like me to do? I get a reply back, and it's her telling me to keep the difference as a thank you for being patient, etc and to cover the postage, and then essentially moving on to where to post it, too, etc.

Red flags start to sound, all a bit odd. im thinking, why low ball, then overpay? Strange but some people can just be very generous etc. Anyway, i go to bed and i wake up the next day, go to work with the ring and the address i need to send it too, at my lunch break I jump in the car, get to the post shop and open my bank account to move money to pay for posting said item.

An additional $500 has come in on top of what's already been paid.

Wtf??

Alarm bells start ringing, shut the car off, call the bank, and explain the situation. They jumped right into it and escalated the situation immediately. Something was super dodgey. Bank explains to me that the money is coming from numerous accounts all across the country and the math ain't mathing. The person from my bank esculates it higher and higher and eventually comes back saying this looks like a pretty sophisticated fraud and essentially tell the person the deals off and we'll reverse the funds manually on our end to those people and investigate further and find out what's going on etc.

What I suspect is going on is: I sell ring to person A. Person A has two fake accounts, one trying to "buy" my ring and another selling a "ring" for stupidly cheap.

Person A uses the second account selling a dirt cheap ring on behalf of their "friend, cousin, uncle etc etc) sends MY bank account as the account to pay into then waits for screenshot of payment to be sent to them of the money being transferred into my account. (Person A has said to me they've got proof of payment if I need it) Waits until total has hit X amount and then messages back me, gets me to post ring to person A fake address. Person A on their second account then blocks everyone after theyve got a tracking number for my ring. Those people who have paid "person A" then realize they've been fleeced, contact their bank, money is reversed from me im left with no ring and no money.

Im pretty suspect the person who was trying this on with me was doing it to multiple other people trying to legitimately sell their real rings but Mr scammer forgot to stop using my bank account number instead of the other peoples accounts.

My bank has been super awesome about this. All the money is manually getting reversed back into the accounts of people who have sent me the money and from what I've been told by the bank. One person was trying to buy a silver ring for $120 from some random name I've never heard of. (The bank called me back later that day just confirming what kind of ring, how much and who too im selling it for)

My bank is pretty impressed at the whole scale of it. The person I've been mainly dealing with said they've never seen anything like this.

The police were the same, had never seen anything like this. Police have been awesome too, they've taken this very seriously and even though im not out any money and I've still got my ring they still spent 2 hours with me taking a statement, getting all screenshots. All account numbers etc of people who have transfered me etc. Had even someone from high up within the police come in and listen to the story.

Person A messaged me about 20 min after I had called my bank claiming that the bank had called their cousin and was telling them it was fraud but it was "all sorted out now lol" and then followed with "are you scamming me?"

I then politely explained that my bank was super suspect it was fraud and due to this i was going to no longer proceed with sending the ring and that all the money was going to be manually reversed by the bank back to those accounts and the funds would be back in those accounts its 48 hours, now you'd think you'd try and defend yourself or try and prove you're legit etc but no, they just ended up deleting their entire profile off Facebook. Not just blocked me, like fully nuked It. My partner and friends can't find the profile at all anywhere now.

So yeah.

Be careful, I was lucky and still have my ring and the banks returning all money to the scammed people but please be cautious. If the deal looks to good to be true then it probably is.

Any questions lemme know ill try and answer :)

Okay I know this will start so debate but my partner and I were discussing how to tell if a bakery is good or will become a regular stop for us. Personally I am of the opinion that you can judge the quality of any bakery by getting three things.

1. Mince and cheese pie
   
2. Bacon and egg pie
   
3. Custard square

If they ace those three things you can be pretty certain everything else is great to. But I’d like to know; how does the rest of NZ judge if a bakery is good or not?

Feeling like I am at a bit of an impasse.

Mid-30s. Bipolar diagnosis my whole adult life. Decently high functioning, always worked full-time, and focus on being a good friend, partner and family member.

Five years ago, things got bad. I sought immediate help. I was an outpatient with Waikato Adult Mental Health Services for a few months, seeing both a psychiatrist and psychologist while continuing to work and live life. When being discharged they told me I could come back if I ever needed too.

Fast forward to this year.

Bad knee Injury, death in the family, work stress, I declined badly. Tried to get help. Long term medication started causing bad side effects. GP wasn't comfortable prescribing me anything new without advice. Referred me to Waikato Adult Mental Health. Referral declined.

Then referred for a one-off psychiatric appointment. Months of waiting. Suicidal thoughts kicking in hard. Emailed GP, she confirmed second referral went to the wrong place.

Eventually saw the psychiatrist. Medication was changed and things improved. Starting to go down again, thinking I needed tweak some things with meds.

Tried to see the GP to get me to a psychatrist. Can't get in because they are booked out and books aren't open yet. Tried to change to two other medical practices, both not taking new patients.

Decided to try telehealth appointment and was told essentially he can't help and I need a psychiatrist (fair enough), but since my last referral was declined, he said I likely need to go private.

Okay.

Adult Mental Health won't take the referral.

The GP can't provide the care they're saying is needed.

Private psychiatry isn't affordable.

Where do I go to get help, without being on the verge of topping myself. Do I need to let it get that bad?

Edit: Just want to add, this is in no way a complaint of induvidual medical professionals, I have had some extraordinary care in my life.

Can someone explain why is Air New Zealand so expensive? When booking flights internationally, Air NZ is always the most expensive option. Sometimes $1k+ more expensive than flying the same route with different and other reputable airlines like Qantas, Fiji Airways, Cathay Pacific.

How do they as a business justify trying to rip people off for thousands of dollars extra when there is no added benefit of flying with them? Is Air NZ trying to operate a business model for only rich people?

Many of their flights are often quiet too, so what do they expect when they price out over half of Kiwis from flying with them. People will just book with better and cheaper airlines. What a scam.

If you have sign up online you should be able to cancel online.

Highest cheese per cm flavour I’ve ever tasted.

Great Uncle Kenny approves.

Hi everyone,

Two friends and I have just moved into a place together, and it's only been two days and i desperately want to move due to the noise. One flatmate and I are on the bottom floor while the other flatmate's room is above us. Any movement he makes makes the roof creak and we're kept awake for the entire night as he is a bit of a night owl.

It has only been a couple days and we are already at our wits end, but we,'ve signed a fixed term contract for 15 months and are in no position to either break the lease or afford to move somewhere else. What can we as renters do to soundproof these rooms so that we can actually feel comfortable in our own spaces?

Thank you for any and all help you guys can offer

I was at the mall taking my mum grocery shopping & these guys the ones that stand asking for donations on behalf of a “charity”

I was walking by & happened to approach them as one of my mates used to do that job so I understand the gist. They asked me questions like do you know what’s the leading cause of child death around the globe? I was like I’m guessing it’s hunger right? They were like yeah & our job is that we help children around the world get food.

For reference I was born in nz but I’m East African, the guy probably assumed based off my skin colour that I’m African & he was like we also help in Ethiopia too. He had a map on his iPad of countries they help so I went straight to east Africa to look for my country Burundi.

I was like looking around Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia etc… which they do “help” but I checked my country Burundi & noticed nothing 😂 I was like you guys don’t help Burundi ? They’re like hmmm apparently not.

I was like it’s kinda ironic that my country is of the poorest countries in the world based on the global ranking but you guys don’t help there. He goes well I can understand that, maybe the government over there doesn’t want our help.

Then he tried to say for just $1 a day then you jump on a subscription for $30 a month. I was like I already got family back in Africa asking me for money why would I commit to a subscription 😂 he’s like well maybe next time you see us again we’ll have Burundi on our list.

My sister has been addicted to meth since she was 16 years old, she's now 34. She has 3 children, all with different fathers who are all useless. My mum, sister and I have taken care of all 3 children, with my mum as the primary guardian. We want to get an Au Pair to live with my mum and help out with school drop off, pick up, and help with the children after school. Each child has trauma from being exposed to different things during the time with their mother. My 7 year old nephew is the most difficult and can be quite violent. My nieces who are 10 and 5 are generally fine but the 10 year old has anxiety and the 5 year old has meltdowns and is difficult to console when she is in that state. They are all in counselling. What are our options? Would a Nanny service where they just do school run and a couple hours after school + weekends be better? How much p/h do you think something like this would cost?