I have to spell my street name 50% of the time, and it's a perfectly normal English word. The last place I lived had a slightly unusual English word name, and I had to spell it 90% of the time.

I buy my sunnies from NZ Safety. Impact resistant, scratch resistant, comfortable wrap-arounds for less than 20 bucks.

Thank you for that.

I have re-read your original article, and I think it's point is that the way crime is reported on does not match the reality of the situation, and that the 'tough on crime/soft on crime' rhetoric currently in the news cycle is not new and has nothing to do with actual crime rates. To this i agree.

As to the recent crime rates, they are overall trending downwards. However, as the article you linked pointed out, certain types of crime are on the rise. I would say it is important to try and understand why this is the case, and address the underlying causes, rather than increasing sentences or other harsher punishments. My reasoning is that we have been on the right track with our current approach, so we should not throw out the rehabilitation mindset just because it feels good to punish criminals more harshly.

Is it though? I haven't seen any data suggesting it is.

It's almost as if we need to decouple our feelings of crime, and rely on actual data.

It would be incredibly simple for the reserve bank to set up "Kiwicoin" or whatever, and tie it to EFTPOS.

Convenience is exactly the issue. Technology tends to make our lives easier. I don't even have to take my wallet out now, just use my phone. It's just so much easier. The transaction fee thing is annoying, but most of the time it's so small I just pay it anyway, instead of going through the above-mentioned steps to pay with EFTPOS. I'd also add "chose the wrong account and it was declined" to those steps. I use EFTPOS so infrequently now I often forget which account I keep all my money in.

This is such a long fucking time coming. The only land left in Nelson to build on is steep hills, or productive land out past Richmond (and actually Tasman District Council at that point anyway). This has been needed for ages.

This information is posted in many places. If you actually care to know, a quick Google search would have turned up many articles on their proposed tax changes. Here is one of many.