Talk:New Zealand/Archive 3

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proposal for semi-protection

there's been lots of blanking and vandalism by anon ips lately - suggest semi-protection - comments? --Danlibbo 04:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

the vandalism here seems to have been relatively light compared to the worst cases. I personally prefer semi-protection only when there's a significant concerted attack (ala the Colbertisms at Bear) and even then the semi-prot was removed after it died down a little. Ziggurat 04:21, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Someone is placing irrelevant remarks in the country box: see the current text for Anthem, Capital, Largest City, and Government. I tried to edit these but they don't show up on the edit page. So you might want to establish the facts in the country box and then protect it. ---WLH, 05 Jan 2007

There was major vandalism to the article a bit over an hour ago, and several people corrected pieces of the vandalism without reverting all of it. It's fixed now.-gadfium 05:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Contradiction

This article claims that Zealand (Sjælland), the Danish island, is New Zealand's namesake, not the Dutch province of Zeeland. However, the exact opposite is stated at Zealand. Given the articles actually interlink I would think that maybe they would have agreeable information. Gorman 08:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you have read a vandalised version, although I cannot find a recent version which made this claim. The article claims (correctly) that New Zealand was named after the Dutch province, but the spelling was corrupted. It may also be that the link to Zealand is confusing; perhaps that should be removed.-gadfium 22:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree: the reference to the Danish Zealand should be removed. The page on Dutch Zeeland states that it is also called Zealand in English. James Cook was certainly not the one who corrupted the name - if it was a corruption. Throughout the journal of his first journey he uses the spelling "New Zeland" which is also used on a map by Alexander Dalrymple that had been published before him knowing the results of Cook's journey; however, Cook may not have known that map. The same spelling seems to have been in use by the British Admirality before that. On other maps from the late 17th and throughout the 18th century there are several ways of spelling the coastline's name: Zelandia Nova, Zeelandia Nova, Nova Zeelandia, Nouvelle Zelande, and Nouvelle Zeelande. It seems to me that the "a" was only introduced some time after Cook or one of his later journeys, but I haven't seen the manuscripts of those journals.Hase 18:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand is named after the province Zeeland in the Netherlands and not after Sjælland in Denmark. The spelling in 'New Zealand' is not, as has been suggested, a corruption of Zeeland, rather, the traditional English spelling of Zeeland is Zealand. For more information on this, read my comments in the discussion pages of the article 'Zeeland'. A Zealandic Canadian, 01 February 2007

Peer review - Wikipedia:Peer review/New Zealand/archive1

I have asked for a peer review of this article. A copy of which is now below. --Midnighttonight (rendezvous) 02:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand

Essentially a blanket peer review. As much information as possible to bring up to at least good article or featured article status. --Midnighttonight (rendezvous) 02:23, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

One thing you need to address is that there need to be more resources cited in the article. For example, how could I prove that New Zealanders are the 16 highest beer consumers? Every statistic like that has to be sourced. I would also make an attempt to find sources backing up the historical claims that you make about New Zealand. How would I as an American know where to begin to find the information that you listed about the history. It is not common information here and as such should be sourced. I am sure that people in other parts of the world would have no clue where you learned this to prove it. In the very least provide the sources that are used on the subtopic pages for this kind of information. Andrew D White 22:35, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll just comment on two things until I have a chance to look the article over properly:

• The lead needs a lot of work. The second sentence mentions Maori without introducing that it is the indigenous language of New Zealand. The sentence "New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island form what is known by anthropologists as the Polynesian Triangle." needs to be incorporated into a paragraph, rather then sitting on it's own. There are also redundancies throughout the lead. I think maybe the lead focuses too much on geography. The economy, culture and history are barely mentioned.
• There are not enough references, as well, the referencing style is inconsistent. There are very few inline citations, instead there are simply external links at the end of sentences. These should be converted to inline citations.

I'll add more later. - Shudda ^talk 01:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC) Have done govt and culture:

• The government section isn't too bad. Covers everything I can think of, only thing is delist the major and minor political parties.
• The culture section:

• First paragraph seems ok.
• "Māori culture survives as Māori continue to support and develop their culture on their own terms and conditions - much as any other living and thriving culture does in the world." Does this sentence say or mean anything?
• The paragraph on the Maori language is good, however Language may need it's own section?
• The sentence on film probably focuses too much on recent films, doesn't really mention any local programmes (ie produced for NZ). Nor does it mention the broadcasting commission or film commission. Maybe needs to focus less on film & tv aimed at international audiences.
• "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu is the longest Māori word. It is the name of a hill in the Hawke's Bay region of the North Island. The Guinness Book of World Records lists this as the longest geographical name in the world." This sentence is trivial, and if it weren't wouldn't it go in the geography section?
• I don't like the last paragraph at all. NZ's domestic music scene is so diverse "New Zealand's music is influenced by the indigenous Māori and immigrants from the Pacific region." is mentioned before the mention of British, American influences. Makes it seem like some influences are greater then others, but this is prob not true. Prob needs a good rewrite. May want to mention Flying Nun? Also, should prob remove "New Zealand music is a vibrant expression of the culture of New Zealand." seems rather POV.

New Zealand's Offical Name

The official name of New Zealand is the Dominion of New Zealand. The fact box should say this at the top. Somethingoranother 14:27, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Your information is a little bit out of date. See Dominion of New Zealand.-gadfium 18:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The official name for New Zealand proper and its territories is the Realm of New Zealand, and has been since at least 1947. --Lholden 21:02, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Realm of New Zealand is not the long name for "New Zealand", it is the name for the area in which the Queen in right of New Zealand is head of state. This includes New Zealand, Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau and the Ross Dependency Brian | (Talk) 00:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Society?

I am thinking of adding a 'society' section which would include religion, class and the position of women. What do people think? What else should be in this section? --Helenalex 04:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That's tricky, because it could take in everything from demographics to politics to sport. Might be worth having a look at similar articles on other countries, and see what is done there. Grutness...wha? 05:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be much real consistency - Republic of Ireland has a religion section, China is the only one I've seen with a society section, France has a miscellaneous section (!) and so forth. I meant 'society' in the sense of the structure of society, rather than as everything that people do. I don't think any of the subsets I mentioned above justify their own section, but they should all be addressed, even if only to say something like 'religion is not very important in New Zealand'. If anyone can suggest any other way to get these things in without creating a lot of very small sections or cluttering the intro, please do so... --Helenalex 22:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I think a section like that would have to be done delicately. Certainly we don't have a caste or formal class system. Surely things like ethnicity, gender equality, religion, wealth distribution etc could be covered in different sections. Rather then one called society. Maybe look at some FA articles on countries, see what they do. - Shudda ^talk 23:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Just looking at Canada, which is FA, and culturally similar to us. They have no society section, maybe we should not bother, and incorporate this into demographics, economy, culture. - Shudda ^talk 23:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks like I missed the bit on religion in the 'demographics' section. I might put a bit about women in the culture section, but you're right, a society section probably isn't necessary after all. --Helenalex 00:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Geography

"...running westward on the continent to the 135th meridian which included New Zealand." Call me old fashioned but I can't follow this. In the first place, shouldn't it be 'eastward' not 'westward'? And in the second place New Zealand would only be included if the meridian was about 179° east. 11:19, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The description was rather lengthy - but it is east to west be "'all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean' and running westward on the continent to the 135th meridian which included New Zealand". This could be changed to "'all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean' inlcuding the islands of New Zealand" - or - we could reverse it to "the continent from the 135th meridian and "'all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean" which includes New Zealnd - it sjust that the first one is closer to the original. What do you think?Alan Davidson 12:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I see the problem - tortuous, old fashioned language. Unless you are going to quote the full text it might be better to simplify the whole thing into modern English - "all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean, including the islands of New Zealand" is pretty clear, but explain that it's a paraphrase. Actually, I can't see the old text now, it's gone! GrahamBould 15:33, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Sex was traded

Sex was traded. This is documented. Do not censor. See The Penguin History of New Zealand Michael King isbn 0-14-301867-1 origyear 2003. Comment1 11:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Some - approximately

It is an extremely minor point, but when stating the Tasman Sea is 2000 kilometres across, readers would understand it is not precise, and that it is a rounded approximation. Alan Davidson 09:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

NZ copyright

Hi all. I'm curious about NZ copyright rules as regards to public domain + government agencies. In Wikipedia, we often come across documents from the US government, which are noted to be in the public domain (though I wonder if this 'taken by an employee of the federal governemnt and thus public domain' also applies to spy photos ;-).

Well, anyway, is there something in NZ law that is similar? Are *any* of the photos I find, for example on a Council or Transit NZ website public domain? MadMaxDog 07:45, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The place to ask this question is on Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board.-gadfium 07:50, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Such things are usually "Crown Copyright" rather than Public Domain. Karora 09:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Additions of crown copyright are usually subjected to a Wiki policy going by the Orwellianly inapproriate name, "the Fair use Test". Wikipedia policy is heavily based on American law, especially adopting the American fair use test. Comment on the copyright page suggests this is because Wikipedias servers are on US territory. The fair use test is however used to both rule in and rule out images which are subject to the intellectual property laws of other nations, despite the Fair use principle appearing to have relatively narrow application outside the US, (unlike Crown copyright which is used through most of the Commonwealth). Also the Free use principle has been been used to attack the posting of crown copyright pictures, on the grounds that all images on Wikipedia should be able to be altered by any subsequent user. My own personal view is both these policies are inappropriate because 1. they tend to exclude non US material and 2. they imply fair use is legal, which it is not necessarily, and leave non US residents (and potentially some US residents) open to liability.

I don't really folow Wiki politics and after a breif discussion with those involved in the copyright policy were unwilling to tackle a problem beyond their legal knowlegde. The present situation is attempts to post Crown Copyright material are sometimes blocked by deletionist Wikipedians who keep referring everything back to irrelevant US law and Wiki policy based upon it, and sometimes allowed when they seem to potentially break NZ law merely because they fit withtin the US fair use exemption.

Oh and by the way someone has tagged this whole page for breach of copyright, without saying what.

End Grump :-) Winstonwolfe 07:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you about NZ Crown copyright and fair use, but I think we're pushing shit uphill. The copyvio tag was obviously vandalism.-gadfium 09:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

For a discussion about another licence which is not free, but it seems silly that we can't use, please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive BB#Use_of_international_wheelchair_symbol. If someone can see a difference between these two cases, feel free to explain it to me on my talk page.-gadfium 08:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

History

The history section is skewed a bit much towards 1840 and before. While this is a refreshing change from the more usual 'nothing happened before Abel Tasman' bias, there needs to be more on post-1840, and since space is limited, less on pre-European NZ and the Treaty. If no one has any major objections I will do a rewrite. I've already substantially rewritten the History of New Zealand page, and this section will essentially be a very compressed version of that. --Helenalex 21:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Not an objection per se, but just a note that I agree about the usual bias in many NZ articles where anything pre-European (or non-European) is invisible, so I am pleased to see that you seem to be someone who will take care in that regard. Kahuroa 18:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

A lot of the regional pages still have Eurocentric bias (Taranaki, for example), so if anyone knows a bit of local history, there is work to be done... --Helenalex 22:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. I've moved the history of naming to its own section, as it was very difficult to fit into the narrative, and I felt it worked better on its own anyway. --Helenalex 23:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Someone has stated that Cook named the Islands North, Middle and South. I have never read this before, and Cook actually thought Stewart Island was just a Penninsula (and that the Banks Penninsula was an Island) so this is obviously false. I tried to simply delete that sentence, but it was put back up by somebody. I'm new to wikipedia, but Id like to correct this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.207.191.160 (talk • contribs).

Those names for the islands sound correct, but I agree that it probably wasn't Cook who applied them. Anyone know who did? I'll remove the statement for now. -- Avenue 02:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I've added some sourced stuff - Cook didn't name the islands and I have no idea who did, but by 1840 the current ones were partly in common use. I suspect they were never officially named North and South (possibly Stewart's), but just acquired the names through common usage. --Helenalex 23:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Cook has a long and distinguished history of giving New Zealand locations inordinately boring names: are you sure he didn't name them North and South Islands? And secondly, on the suggestion that 'why Wellington was chosen as capital', James Belich thinks (in Making Peoples/Paradise Reforged) that it was simply a matter of geographical convenience - a great and highly defensible natural harbour on one hand and a good political position with relation to both islands. Charlespk 08:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Cook's maps use the terms "Tovypoennammu" and "Aehikamauwe" (sp?) - i.e., Te Wai O Pounamu and Te Ika O Maui garbled by someone more used to Yorkshire English than Te Reo Maori. The term "Middle island" for the South Island was used in the 1840s and 1850s - by Brunner and Taylor among others. Not sure when its use started or finished - I don't think I've ever seen anything dated past about 1870 to use the term, or before 1840. The New Zealand Institute was using the terms Middle island and South island interchangably by 1868. Grutness...wha? 11:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Subheadings

User:PDH has taken it upon him/herself to remove all the subheadings and all the {{main}}s that were underneath them, meaning that we now have large blocks of text and no links to a lot of pages (including Music of New Zealand, Cuisine of New Zealand, Te Reo Māori and Māori culture). A case could be made for the subheading removal, although I think it works far better with them in, but the links which went with the subheadings were really important. I'm going to reverse pretty much everything s/he's done, although if anyone thinks it was a good idea, feel free to make the case... --Helenalex 07:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello Gadfium! I see you are dealing with this issue at the same time as me. What you've done with the international rankings section works quite well, and seems like a good compromise on the subheadings issue. The table of contents was rather long... --Helenalex 07:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The effect of Peta's edit was to bring this article in line with the standard layout of country articles. In general, subheadings are avoided in well-written articles as they impact on prose flow, are a poor equivalent to well-rounded paragraphs, and enlarge the table of contents un-necessarily. Furthermore, in articles written in the summary style, their use should be negated by the general overview. Your concern about main links is a poor reason for reversion; if they are central to the topic being summarised, they can be added to the primary list; if not, then they need only be incorporated in the text.--cj | talk 09:09, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The polite thing to do would have been to raise the issue on the talk page before reformatting the entire article. It's not like this is one of those articles that no one cares about. Could you post a link to a country article which meets your approval? If it is obviously a better way to do it, I will change this page to conform to it. --Helenalex 10:35, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Not every edit needs to be discussed before its made – being bold is how things get done. The most obvious article to compare this one to, on several levels, is Australia. There's also Nauru and India.--cj | talk 11:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

In order to make this page conform to the ones you've listed, most sections would need to be reduced in size. This might be a good idea anyway - a lot of them are longer than they really need to be. --Helenalex 22:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I have experimentally reduced the History section and removed the subheadings, and I have to say, it works better. If no one has any objections I will do the same for most of the other sections over the next week or so. See, doesn't discussion work better than just jumping in and changing things without saying anything first? --Helenalex 04:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

problem

In the 2nd paragraph of 'government', it mentions anand satyanand as the head of state. Then it says that Dame Silvia Cartright is the Head of State.

This confuses me. Chessmanlau 00:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chessmanlau (talk • contribs) 00:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

No, the paragraph states that women have held all four of the most important political offices in New Zealand at one stage (Sovereign, Governor-General, Prime Minister, Chief Justice). It doesn't state anywhere that Dame Silvia is head of state, because she isn't, the office of Governor-General is only representative of our head of state, HM the Queen. --Lholden 00:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Thx. Yeah i just realised that. Thx. Chessmanlau 00:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Can someone add information on what functions as New Zealand's de facto upper house in governement? New Zealand is curious in not having an 'offical' upper house - Homesick_kiwi_uk

If you look at New Zealand Legislative Council, it says the upper house was abolished because it was seen as ineffective. Parliament of New Zealand and Constitution of New Zealand are good places to look at the current structures limiting the power of Parliament; in short, the limitations on Parliament in the absence of an upper house are cultural rather than legal, but quite strongly entrenched.-gadfium 19:58, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Cheers for that good explanation Gadfium, do you think it is worth putting a very brief mention of something to that effect in the overview article? - Homesick_kiwi_uk

It's rather too specialised for the main New Zealand article, and would need to be scrupulously referenced if expanded on in the Parliament of New Zealand article. I can get away with hand-waving like this on a talk page, but not in an article.-gadfium 09:12, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

When I saw that the Government section needed 'polishing' i thought it could be included, but I agree that to do it justice it would need to be too long-winded for an overview articleHomesick kiwi 11:13, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Aussies as Minority group

I can find no ref to the large numbers ( hundreds of thousands!) of Australians living permanently in New Zealand.While Kiwis in A/a seem to be a readily identifiable group, I wonder if the reciprocal is the case in NZ ? The article Australian Diaspora ignores this question, despite NZ being possibly the largest reservoir of expatriate Aussies ! Any ideas ? Feroshki 05:29, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

There aren't as many Aussies in NZ as you seem to think. For instance, the 2006 census recorded 62,634 usual residents of NZ who were born in Australia, and no doubt some of them had Kiwi parents and might not think of themselves as Australian.[1] (For example, 1.6% of Māori usual residents were born overseas, or about 9,000 people;[2] I suspect most of them were born in Australia.) The 26,355 people who identified as Australian at the ethnicity question are definitely Aussies, but that's only 0.7% of the population, and is less than the number of British, Chinese, Samoan, Indian, Tongan, Cook Island, Korean or Dutch people.[3] -- Avenue 08:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

For comparison, 428,000 Australian residents were born in New Zealand (2003).[4] -- Avenue 08:55, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Portuguese explorers

I have removed the following from the article for the time being:

The first Europeans to discover New Zealand may have been Portuguese explorers in 1522 led by Cristavao (or Christopher) de Mendonca, states Peter Trickett's new book entitled "Beyond Capricorn". [5]

because this theory is highly speculative, at least as far as exploration of New Zealand goes. There are in fact numerous theories about early explorers of New Zealand, including ones about Chinese explorers, none of which have great credibility with historians. We should not mention one such claim without the others, and we should explain the basis for each claim. This is not appropriate for the main New Zealand article. It is not even appropriate for the History of New Zealand article, although if a separate article was to be written along these lines, a link from History of New Zealand would be appropriate.

I have changed the New Zealand article to say that Tasman was the first known European explorer, as this acknowledges that there is the possibility of earlier ones. This is more or less the wording that existed in this article before February.-gadfium 21:26, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I see that my removal of the sentence cited actually failed, because Avenue made the same edit just before I did! He has since added a single paragraph to the History of New Zealand article which I think is sufficient to cover these theories.-gadfium 21:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Copyright infringement

I'm assuming this is vandalism, since it doesn't specify where the page is supposedly copied from. How do we get rid of this? --Helenalex 05:13, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

reverted - has to be vandalism Kahuroa 05:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Wynton Rufer

I'm not convinced that Wynton Rufer is internationally famous enough be be mentioned in the sports paragraph (hell, I'm not that convinced about Richard Hadlee either, but I can let that one go). We need to keep the list down to the super famous people like Jonah Lomu and Edmond Hillary, who even non-New Zealanders who don't know much about sport are likely to have heard of, otherwise it will get swamped when everyone decides to add their hero or their sport's biggest achiever. Wynton Rufer isn't even super famous in New Zealand. Perhaps he is a big name in the soccer world, but his page doesn't indicate that to be the case, so I'm inclined to remove him. --Helenalex 05:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

That's the problem with including a few people as examples: other people get added to the list. I'm happy for you to remove names, or the whole sentence, as you see fit.-gadfium 06:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

National Anthem Audio

I reckon id would be good to have an audio icon for God Defend New Zealand next to it, so with one click a reader can hear it. I'm not too sure how to do this, and it would raise the article's standard just that little bit, getting it up to FA class. -Bennyboyz3000 03:23, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

There's already an instrumental version in the God Defend New Zealand article.-gadfium 08:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Helen Clark's photo

I reckon we need a real photo of the honourable PM as the photoshopping here is extraordinary....extraoridnarily obvious that is. Nickhwt 11:27, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

This is the official portrait, and it is appropriate to use it (it was placed under GFDL at our request). I think you'll find that all leaders' official portraits get some professional attention. More photos of good quality of Clark and other politicians are welcome so long as they are under a suitable license, but should go on their own articles, not in the New Zealand article.-gadfium 19:36, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

One of New Zealand's own is being dissed!!

See [6]--Africangenesis 22:07, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

This is not an appropriate place to raise this matter. New Zealand-related deletions get added to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/New Zealand, and editors interested in following such deletions should watchlist that page.-gadfium 06:10, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, somebody who knew what they were doing, put it there. Sorry.--Africangenesis 06:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Languages

I strongly believe that maori is not an offical language for new zealand, because there is no full maoris left and a majority of New Zealanders speak english not maori. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Debateable (talk • contribs) 08:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

The proportion of people who speak the language, and their ethnicity, are not the deciding factors in the legal status of the language.-gadfium 09:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions

Here are a couple ideas i had after reading through the article which i thought might improve it.

the article has no reference to the continent of Australia which it is part of (this could be linked to internally and externally). OH WOW I JUST DISCOVERED THAT IT ISN'T PART OF IT, so much for our education system :(

Kiwiana is not mentioned or linked to (there is a Kiwiana article internally aswell) and i think it is significant as it helps define New Zealands culture

its hard to navigate from 'NZ' to a 'town' within and 'suburbs' within the 'town'.

this is kind of nitpicky but i think the article about new zealand towns (list) is pointless and should be merged with each specific town article, there is already a category for towns in NZ who agrees? it makes more sense to me (country>(north island, south island)?>town>suburb rather than all the mess that we have now).

im willing to do this in about three weeks. if no one contests to it. it will be similar to Germany's article at the bottom where it has the Geographical Local section.

David E Powell 11:34, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

1) Saying that New Zealand is part of the continent of Australia is like saying that Canada is part of the United States or Scotland is part of England - completely wrong, and insulting to most New Zealanders. New Zealand is part of Oceania, and is also occasionally referred to as part of Australasia. It is never regarded as part of Australia.

2) Kiwiana is appropriately linked from New Zealand culture, which is linked from this page. No problems there.

3) Linking to an individual town from this article would extend this article beyond all reasonable length, since it would require either a mammoth template or a very long list. This is the reason why the list of New Zealand towns exists as a separate article - and is an extremely useful one, at that. Again, it only requires one intermediary step to get to any town.

4) Please do not change the way things currently work too dramatically. While a table of administrative divisions (such as that which is in the Germany page) may be useful, I don't really see much need for a more thorough editing - perhaps more links from the geography of New Zealand page might be useful, but not on this main page. Grutness...wha? 23:04, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

1) Yes i realise this sorry, (did you read what i wrote in CAPS?). I realise now, and before you responded that its part of Oceania, Australasia and of Zealandia. Cheers.

2) Ok, just making a suggestion. Thanks for pointing that out :)

3) I didn't mean linking to towns from this article but linking to towns in each cities individual article (i.e. Aucklands article linking to all towns within Auckland) and perhaps linking to each city or region from this article.

4) Ok im only trying to improve the navigation, its quite messy at the moment (poor usability).

David E Powell 06:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Old proposal

About a year ago, in Talk:New_Zealand/Archive_3#Rearrange, User:Midnighttonight suggested a new ordering for the New Zealand article, and put up a draft at Talk:New Zealand/proposal. The proposal has been gathering dust since, so does anyone have any objections to my deleting it?-gadfium 19:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I support it been deleted, I was looking at it a couple of days ago, and thinking of tagging it for deletion Brian | (Talk) 05:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Support as well Kahuroa 09:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've deleted it.-gadfium 04:42, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Anti Nuclear reverted text 3-4 June 2007

With respect User:SimonLyall, I would hardly describe New Zealand’s anti nuclear legislation or the reasons for it as irrelevant or POV, and so it should be highlighted in the main New Zealand entry. Facts remain, this issue was a thirty year campaign in New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs history where the nation independently engaged with economic giants such as the US and France. We are the ONLY country in the developed world which is anti Nuclear by legislation and this remains a FACT irrespective of personal opinion on the issue. The majority of New Zealanders support its anti nuclear position thus it’s integral to our history and culture, and this should be stated quite clearly as part of New Zealand’s Wikipedia entry.Mombas 00:06, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that 3 lines after the bit you have added we have the sentence The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 prohibits the stationing of nuclear weapons on the territory of New Zealand and the entry into New Zealand waters of nuclear armed or propelled ships. which you are duplicating. The phrase effectively rebuking feels POV in that it makes claims about the wider impact of the legislation in world affairs without backup. These are why I reverted your additional sentence. Please do not assume my objections are politically motivated. - SimonLyall 03:21, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

While I understand your point there are two underlying issues important enough from a nationhood perspective to be coverd? The first being the "disarmament act" provides the legislation only to prevent nuclear powered or armed ships entering NZ territorial waters. This was implemented essentially to stop the visits of American nuclear propelled ships coming into NZ ports. (The Buchanan). The second, the issue of New Zealand being a nuclear-free zone provides a much wider nuclear ban which is not entirely covered by the legislation but by bipartisan party political policy. (Both Labour and National). In my view the nuclear-free zone link needs to remain as it covers more extensively these anti nuclear events which began well before you were born. On the question of why NZ became Nuclear free and rejects the nuclear umbrella (mutual assured destruction) I have added two more links in support of. New Zealand has already backed its international position, in its parliament and when it took the French to the World Court mid seventies. It continues to actively pursue its policy today in the UN. Sorry if I enferd personal political motivation, cheers mate. Mombas 04:08, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

DNZB

Can someone tell me how to link to specific articles in the Dictionary of NZ Biography? (www.dnzb.govt.nz) --Helenalex 18:59, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

It's difficult because the site uses frames. One rough and ready workaround is once you have found your article, select and copy some unique text from it, such as the person's name and birth and death dates, paste that into Google and search. That should find the article in Google, then copy and paste the link. Eg, if you wanted to find 'Mackay, Maria Jane', then you'd search google for 'Mackay, Maria Jane 1844 - 1933' and the first link on the results page is [www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=2M16] - clicking on that brings up the article. Maybe there's a better way Kahuroa 19:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

That seems reasonable, especially since the DNZB is pretty high on the google list for a lot of name searches. Thanks. --Helenalex 20:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

A quicker way, if you're using Firefox as your browser, is to right click on the article, choose 'This Frame', then 'Show only this frame'. You can then copy the link directly from there. Not sure if this is an option in Internet Explorer. Kahuroa 00:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Faith based lobby groups

The article currently says:

Although faith-based lobby groups exist, political parties have recently been hindered more than helped by their support.

and this requires a citation. The easiest citation to find would be someone saying that the campaign by Exclusive Brethren members in 2005 was harmful to National Party votes, but there may be other faith-based lobby groups which have not had such an effect, or at least, for which it would be more difficult to find a reliable citation. I suggest therefore that we remove this sentence entirely as being too general to be defensible.-gadfium 00:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

AgreedA.J.Chesswas 00:31, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree as well Brian | (Talk) 01:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree too - the statement sounds a bit NPOV, although I think that the recent book on the 2005 election - The Baubles of Office - may have explored this issue. --Lholden 01:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Removed.-gadfium 02:16, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Added Figures of Number of Speakers of Languages

I found a source with figures of the number of speakers. It only listed a number and not a percentage. Check my formatting of the information since I do not want to ruin the article by not conforming to some standard. Here is the direct link to the online edition's article about New Zealand: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=NZ . Andrew D White 03:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC) That would make the percentages something like English ~78% Maori ~1% Andrew D White 03:34, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to change those figures, for two reasons. First, like a lot of Ethnologue's figures they are quite out of date, which is probably why the English percentage appears so low. Up-to-date census figures can be found here: Language spoken (total responses) for the census usually resident population count, 2006 (revised 21 December 2006) More importantly, this level of detail seems to clutters up the infobox, making it much less readable. I'll try percentages instead. -- Avenue 15:05, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Geological history

Would this not also be a good section to add to go with the geography and biodiversity? The Rangitata orogeny, Oligocene drowning, recent reappearance? It would give a deeper understanding to the two previous sections, and could perhaps precede them. Richard001 00:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that's maybe too specialised for this overview article. The geology section of Geography of New Zealand could certainly be expanded along those lines, and Geology of New Zealand would be a worthy topic for an article.-gadfium 05:03, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

It would, as would an accopanying category Category:Geology of New Zealand . There are quite a number of articles which could go into it, such as the one on the Maui gas field, the ones on the Auckland and Central N.I. volcanic zones, and New Zealand geologic time scale, which I started about a year ago. In fact, I may just add that category myself... Grutness...wha? 05:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

While some of this might be a bit specialised (e.g. mentioning the Rangitata orogeny by name), I think even this summary article would benefit from including more of NZ's geological history. We should at least mention the split from Gondwanaland and that NZ is geologically active and young compared to most landmasses. I agree that the drowning and reappearance is probably better left to other articles. Some of the existing Zealandia stuff could be cut as well. -- Avenue 15:34, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Auckland Meetup in August

Just thought I'd mention the upcoming August meetup - see Wikipedia:Meetup/Auckland 3. Cheers. Ingolfson 09:23, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Treaty of Waitangi

Since when and where exactely is the Treaty of Waitaingi become the founding document of New Zealand? Whilst there may have been moves to enshrine its place in various constitutional mechanisms... it remains a quaint pience or divisive history rather than a founding document. It seems odd to me that it is assumed to have such signifance... it should be properly consigned to the past rather than continually dragged up as a legitimate instrument for the percieved greivances of generations of Maori who have little or no connection to it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 124.182.18.49 (talk • contribs) 02:04, 24 July 2007.

Well, irrespective of your views on the Treaty itself, there is little doubt that it is New Zealand's founding document. If you take the view that it established British sovereignty in New Zealand, then it is New Zealand's founding document. If you take the view that it established a partnership of the Crown and Maori, then it is New Zealand's founding document. Even historians critical of the contemporary interpretation of the Treaty - such as Prof Paul Moon - argue that it is New Zealand's founding document. --Lholden 22:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at the main Treaty of Waitangi article. Govt websites like [7] call it "New Zealand's founding document" in the first paragraph. Remember that wikipedia has a Neutral point of view especially about controversal issues such asthese. Even if people don't like the place it has been given in NZ society the article has to reflect reality. - —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SimonLyall (talk • contribs) 11:22, 24 July 2007.

Culture section

Is the picture of the twilight bagpipe practice necessary? From my experience, this is not a central part of New Zealand's culture. The section doesn't even discuss anything related to the image. It does mention Scottish influences, but groups them with many others. So why is it there? Any ideas for replacements? --Teggles 07:29, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it used to say that NZ had more pipe bands per head of population than Scotland. I think we should leave it in, at least until a replacement is found. Also, I think it would be pretty difficult to find an image of anything which is a 'central part of NZ's culture' without getting into kiwiana territory. A main point of the section is NZ has cultural influences from all over the place, and since its pretty difficult to get lots of them into one shot, the Scottish one seems reasonable since there was a lot of Scottish migration to New Zealand. I'm going to put the image back, but also try to find a good sports one for the sports section, which should represent a more mainstream part of NZ culture. Having said all this, I'm not hugely attached to the image either, so if anyone finds something better, they should feel free to replace it. --Helenalex 17:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest

It seems APN has put their own link to the NZ Herald as shown in this edit. Should this be removed as a Conflict of interest, since it is self-promotion and possibly link spam? Doesn't the article already have enough external links as it is?

The edit was in 2005 and the article has change heaps since then including removal of the link to the herald's website - SimonLyall 08:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Request for comment on "royal" residence of the Governor-General

Editors of this article may wish to comment on the edits being made at Official residence, advancing the unusual view that the official residence of the Governor-General of New Zealand, and those of his equivalents in other jurisdictions, are "royal" residences (i.e. official residences of the monarch), and that this aspect (assuming for the moment that it exists) deserves mention in a list of official residences, alongside "vice-regal", the somewhat opaque term being substituted for "Governor-General" and the like. -- Lonewolf BC 17:29, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Note: User:Lonewolf BC is here omitting the point that the edits at Official residence are part of a broader cleanup of the article to create a uniform standard; "royal" and "vice-regal" in place of the specific New Zealand Monarch and Governor General of New Zealand brings the New Zealand section into line with others which use (by other editors' contributions) "royal," "vice-regal," "presidential," "prime ministerial" and the like.

Comments are certainly welcome at Talk:Official residence to improve the article as a whole. --G2bambino 19:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

In regard to G's comment, I trust that you folks will forgive me for focussing on the issue. For your information, though, the "general cleanup" only began after the "royal" issue had arisen, though the two spread to the "New Zealand" entry at the same time. Please judge for yourselves which actions have brought about which. (The "cleanup" is also making the article worse in some other ways, in my opinion. You may wish to look at that, also, but those are separate, or at most indirectly related issues.) -- Lonewolf BC 20:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

percentages

I'm sorry ut the percentages of people who speak certain languages is just not right. 98% speak english and 4% speak maori. Sorry but doesn't that seem strange to anyone else?

Some highly talented people speak more than one language. The percentages exclude those who speak no languages e.g. very young children.-gadfium 08:56, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

what's with the New Zealand article being marked for speedy deletion?

I've been coming back & forth the past few weeks to read about New Zealand (I'm considering living there someday)... and I've found the article to be extremely useful... why on earth have the administrators marked it as nonsense? That bewilders me... Wikipedia needs to do some re-structuring & re-staffing, in my opinion. I commend all of your efforts towards making it a better article. Keep up the good work. --147.26.237.114 05:17, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

That was just a vandal.-gadfium 06:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

not a word about sheep

i can't believe we actually have an article about new zealand that doesn't mention sheep. this is surely very important to the economy... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.135.164.200 (talk) 14:44:23, August 19, 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand has diversified its economy a lot over the last 20+ years, and the primary sector is now less than 5% of the economy. While it appears that there is still a perception in some places that New Zealanders mostly have a farming background, or at least a connection to the land, the culture portrayed in the works of Barry Crump and Murray Ball (Footrot Flats) is not the reality for most of us.-gadfium 19:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Digressing -- will the primary sector be as prominent in future New Zealand? Have just finished reading New Zealand Unleashed by Steven Carden. Highly recommended. Moriori 21:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It's still strange. It's like if the article about Texas didn't mention cattle. Very few Texans are engaged in ranching, but it's still an important and iconic activity. The complete non-mention of sheep is an overcorrection. The way to deal with the "New Zealand equals sheep" stereotype is to state the facts, not pretend there's no sheep there. -- Cyrius|✎ 12:18, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Umm, if it's a stereotype then by definition it's not a fact. Something along the lines of "Sheep farming and related primary products - such as wool and lamb meat - used to be prominent and iconic products." Would be factual --Lholden 12:32, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that sheep have a place and pride in our country, and after all, there is more sheep, than humans in New Zealand. LIzzie B Proud All Blacks Supporter

Just for you who commented about the lack of mention of sheep on the page i have created a section just about the sheep and agricultral sheep sector of NZ, and will be updating again soon. feel free to improve :) ((♠Murchy♠) 09:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC))

I took out the coordinates at the top of the page - which were actually those of Wellington. These are given later in the article anyway. Also, similar shaped countries like Japan don't give the coordinates of the country, and nor do United States or Australia. Kahuroa 19:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Forum?

Hi, I just started a forum The New Zealand Forum. Am I allowed to put this on the New Zealand page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.20.3.117 (talk) 00:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello, welcome, and I'll direct you to Wikipedia's External links guideline, under Links to be avoided: "Links to social networking sites (such as MySpace), discussion forums or USENET.", and "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article." Fan sites, or Forums are not a valid External link generally. Sorry, ^Ariel♥Gold 01:01, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Math in language numbers

How can 98% of their people speak English, 4.6% speak Maori, and .6% speak some other language? If it's a range just give the range instead of making our whole project look stupid here. Marcus Taylor 02:52, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Some very talented people can speak more than one language.-gadfium 03:55, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Hahahaha very funny. Nice try. A large number of Europeans speak English as a second language and it's not listed as their language. There's obviously an error here. That's a real nice guess though. Marcus Taylor 14:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I phrased it humorously, but my intent was serious. For people who can speak any language (ie excluding those too young to speak), 98% can speak English. That doesn't mean that English is their first language. 4.6% can speak Maori. Presumably almost all those also speak English. The other language is New Zealand sign language, and although that's an official language not many people use it. There appear to be 2% of people who don't speak English but who speak languages not on this list of official languages of the country.-gadfium 19:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Marcus, did you read the source document? Here's the link again: [8]. If you can see an error there, I'm sure Statistics NZ would be interested to know about it. The figures show NZ is mainly monolingual, with each resident speaking 1.2 or 1.3 languages on average (depending on whether unusable responses and those who spoke no language are included in the base). -- Avenue 05:06, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

GA Review

The article is progressing towards GA status, but I can't say that it meets the current Good Article criteria quite yet. I'd probably rate it as a high B-class article at the present time.

There are still significant gaps in reference citations; including etymology, most of the history section, government & politics, geography, biodiversity, culture & sports. The economy & demographics sections seem to be reasonably well referenced, though the part about agriculture has no sources. I would also recommend removing the subsection header for agriculture, and instead concentrate on writing a good, concise section on the economy as a whole, integrating all of the major parts of the economy into 3-4 paragraphs.

Reference citations should also be formatted properly in accordance with WP:CITE. Specifically, references containing links to sites on the web should contain more than just an external link. Include author, title, publisher, date of publication, and date of last retrieval, so that if the link ever disappears (404 not found), someone can still use the reference to do further research in the article, or verify information.

I would recommend a slight reordering in the order of sections; moving geography & economy up in the list to before the government/politics section, as these sections contain information that is usually sought after first by readers. I would also rename 'politics' to 'government', and eliminate the subsection header for 'government' there. While it's good to talk about the politics, the main topic of the section appears to be government (as it should be), and politics is generally just one part of government as well.

A couple of pretty important information is still missing, including a section on education (primary, secondary, and higher education), transportation & infrastructure (roads, highways, water & air transportation), and media (newspapers, television, radio). It might also be a good idea to include some information on some of the major cultural attractions & landmarks in the culture section; though care should be taken to make sure that it is not written with "touristy" or "PR" language, and it should also not just be a list of popular tourist sites with wikilinks.

Most of the images have copyright tags, but there is one image in the geography section that is not displaying at all.

The template in the 'see also' section should be moved to the bottom of the article with the other similarly constructed templates. These should almost never go into the main sections of the article, as they are generally bulky, and look very awkward unless they're at the bottom.

Other pages that editors might want to take a look at include the manual of style, WP:LEAD, and WP:EL.

Hope this helps improve the article. Please renominate once the issues are resolved. Cheers! Dr. Cash 18:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

wiki new zealand policing act

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4215797a10.html wiki new zealand. --Emesee 06:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

This is covered in the New Zealand Police article.-gadfium 08:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I oppose the merger of Metrication in New Zealand into this article. That article may be a stub, but the information in it is more detailed than is required in an article covering the country in general, and it is part of a series on metrication by country.-gadfium 18:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree, I oppose too. Probably justifies own article and merge proposal is ugly on top of major article- SimonLyall 19:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I also agree. -Ollie Carr, New Zealand.

I oppose the merger, It think it would seem out of place in the main article.Malathos 17:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the proposal.-gadfium 18:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

coat of arms

Should not the coat of armsdeicted not have the national motto 'Onward' on the scroll, rather than the name 'New Zealand'?Peter harlen 12:37, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand no longer has a national motto. See [9] and [10].-gadfium 18:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

As I read the items you cite, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage says than NZ has no national motto, while the governmentally-hosted Encyclopedia of New Zealand says that the national motto is "Onwards". I see that the encyclopedia is prominently headed "An Encyclopedia of New Zealand 1966" — one wonders whether this implies that the information found therein is 41 years out of date. -- Boracay Bill 23:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

My reading of the 1966 Encyclopaedia is that the description of the coat of arms introduced in 1911 had paragraphs about arms, crest and motto. It then goes on to explain that in 1956 the motto was changed to "New Zealand". It is likely that the motto has been dropped entirely since, or that "New Zealand" is not considered a motto. I included the link to the 1966 Encyclopaedia to show how long ago the "Onwards" motto was dropped.-gadfium 00:58, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

As silly as this sounds, yes, the main component of the Te Ara encylopedia is in fact 41 years out of date. The encyclopedia in total is the whole web site, but aside from a number of specific areas that are individually covered, the main section is the 1966 edition, as described here: "This information was published in 1966 in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. It has not been corrected and will not be updated. Up-to-date information can be found elsewhere in Te Ara." [11] kabl00ey 22:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Non-statistical rankings

Some of the international rankings - those not based on statistics - were removed by this edit today. I'm not aware of any discussion about whether they should be here or not. There was a discussion in May 2006 but that was about how to present them.

Do any other countries have them? Republic of Ireland, Libya and Portugal do, and there are very likely others. Most countries don't have any international rankings at all on the main country page.

I like having these figures in the article. New Zealand tends to do well on them - much better than on the purely statistical rankings. What do other people think - should we restore them?-gadfium 07:55, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree Gadfium they should be in there - they provide plenty of useful information on the standard of living in New Zealand and do contribute to the article. The majority were referenced and therefore could be backed up. If it is not suitable to have them at the end of the article as a list perhaps they could be incorporated into the article in some way? What does everyone think?Homesick kiwi 15:23, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

In the absence of further feedback, I'll restore them.-gadfium 18:58, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

The infobox

Is wrong we don't have full independance, the Queen being our head of state is proof enough! And all our laws being signed off by her, or at least by her representative the Governor general. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.105.43 (talk) 09:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand's independence has occurred over time, not as a single act. There are still elements where there is formal lack of independence, as you point out, but there is a difference between independence and being a republic. The article explains that there are various dates at which New Zealand could be considered to be independent, and suggests you see Independence of New Zealand for more detail.-gadfium 22:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Median household income

Income data for Australia has been converted to US dollars using Purchasing Power Parity (obtained from the OECD).[12] This is done because the real purchasing power of the Australian and New Zealand currencies is actually lower than the market exchange rate. For example Australia's median household income at the current market exchange rate is US$48,000 (1.11), but is only US$38,000 using purchasing power parity (1.39).

It is also a common misunderstanding to assume that GDP/C and median household income are closely related. For more information about the relationship between the economy and median household income see link

I hope this is helpfulBadenoch 04:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, thanks for explaining. Perhaps you could add a brief note to the table? ^rossnixon 05:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...how do you explain your figures against [13] where both tables show Australia around 30% above NZ? ^rossnixon 05:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Ross please read the comment about GDP/C already given (see above) and follow the link. The answer to your question is complicated but if you read the link thoroughly this should resolve your question. Regards Badenoch 05:20, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...I'm still suspicious. I note that 2.7 people per NZ household would put our $ up by 4% relative to Australia, but there must be other factors I have missed. I will reread the link, but also see if others have comments. ^rossnixon 05:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Ross you seem to be still troubled by GDP/C, believing that you can use it to make predictions about income in different economies. Perhaps a thought experiment may help you: Consider an imaginary Kingdom of Rossland where the GDP/C is $35,000 after 6 years the economy grows to GDP/C = $38,000 (inflation adjusted). How much has the median household income changed by? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Badenoch (talk • contribs) 05:48, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The answer to the thought experiment was that median household income decreased by 2%. The imaginary kingdom of Rossland was actually the United States over the last 6 years (2000-2006)[14]. The economy grew, but median household income fell. If it is not possible use GDP/C to predict household income changes within the same economy, then how can GDP/C be used to make predictions about two entirely different economies? Does this answer your question?Badenoch 06:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Please note the statistics regarding household income are not accurate and should be removed. According to the CIA New Zealand has both a higher gini coefficient (higher level of income innequality) and $7000 lower GDP per person than Australia. It is therefore not possible that New Zealand could have a higher median household income than Australia. Further the fact that these misleading statistics rather than conventional GDP per person statistics have been selected for a table under economy indicates that the entry for New Zealand is being used more like an advertisment for the country rather than an objective article.

Under the economy article it is also ridiculous to say that New Zealand and Australia were not affected by the 2000's recession, they were, of course they were if their trading partners were. They were affected to a lesser extent than the United States.

Firstly I think Australia is a great country and am pleased that their household incomes are improving. I am a person with a loyalty to both countries (I have family in both countries). Statistically there is no significant difference in household income between Australia and New Zealand. Both have rich areas and poor areas, but the overall income differences in between the two countries are presently minor (see median household income in Australia and New Zealand).

Not including median household income data just because you want to present a biased image that Australia is superior in every way is not fair. It is completely unbalanced. You are free to hate New Zealand, but wikipedia is supposed to reflect a balanced view.

Please don't confuse GDP/C and median household income. It is impossible to reliably predict median household incomes from GDP/C data.Badenoch 20:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Badenoch's assessment. I think the Gini Coefficient is a highly telling statistic though, and if not mentioned on the main page it I think it merits both inclusion and explanation. Perhaps it would be better suited for the Economy of New Zealand page though. kabl00ey 22:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The statistics cited from the CIA seem more realistic than the income statistics on the page. I have lived in Australia an, generally, things are less expensive than in new zealand. Rent is much cheaper in most of Australia, which is not included in a PPP measure. The incomes, and purchasing power, are definitely higher in australia, (this table is the first time ive seen statistics claim otherwise) and it is much easier to live there. Whoever dide that table seems to want to advertise new zealand, instead of portray the truth, as the statistics are selective at best, australians are definitely not US1000 worse off than New Zealanders. Instead of distorting the truth to make NZ look good (which has to be done to make NZ loook better than Australia at least) the article should acknowledge the downside of this country, instead of adopting the biased insular attitude of many NZers in favour of NZ. The information in that table is the exact opposite iof the impression most common in the media, and also of my personal experience. It lacks citations still and shoud therefore be removed. Also the CIA has an interest in providing accurate information that whoever put up the income ranking doesn't. the $7000 difference doesn't get wiped in PPP because they have low taxes at the low end therefore Aussies have over$7000 additional NET income on average than NZ202.74.200.124 (talk) 22:19, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed the median income table. It can still be accessed via the link. The problem with it is that the PPP of a median income does not reflect PPP of all incomes, which I belief PPP-adjusted GDP does better. Therefore, to maintain NPOV, not just my view(based on living in both countries, and on the majority of statistics, or your view based on this one statistic, the problem with which I will explain shortly), they can both be accessed by a link, and not be on the page itself, instead of your one only. Australia's minimum wages are higher, therefore the spread below the median is lower and purchasing power at lower level where it makes the most difference and is more valid is better in Australia. Symonas79 (talk) 23:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)--Symonas79 (talk) 23:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand Defence Force

I know this is the wrong discussion forum but as the New Zealand Defence Force page seems seldom visited I thought it would be appropriate to raise it here. Is there anyone out there with sufficent time and knowledge to make the New Zealand Defence Force page more like the Australian Defence Force page in both quality and quantity of content? - I would be very surprised if there was insufficent information to make it so! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homesick kiwi (talk • contribs) 15:49, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

The correct forum, after the article talk page, is Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board.-gadfium 18:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Branding

I'd like to add a bit on branding and international identity, specifically referring the to "Clean, green" image, anti-nuclear stance, economic liberalism, and a perception of adventure tourism, natural beauty and safety. Where would that most likely fit in? kabl00ey 20:27, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Add a "Tourism" section under "Economy".-gadfium 04:47, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll give it a go. It's not strictly tourism but I'm sure it can get hammered into the right shape and place. Thanks. kabl00ey 11:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Middle Island NOT South Island

I recently discovered the fact that the South Island is historically considered the Middle Island. I think this change should be mentioned somewhere. I did in fact make an addition but it was considered the wrong spot so where should it go?

I'd suggest either the Geography section or the Etymology section. I'm not sure which, but its use on the South Island page suggests to me Etymology. Make sure you reference it if you can. kabl00ey 13:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh just a minor addition something I noticed in the Treaty of Waitangi article. The treaty only relates to most of the North Island. The "South Island" never signed. Should that be mentioned or simply left to readers to discover? I had always understand it to be a national document NOT a local one.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.190.196.91 (talk) 12:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Not sure about that: "Ngai Tahu understandably reject the notion that Te Wai Pounamu was "discovered" and that the Crown's claim to sovereignty over the island can legitimately rest upon such a ground. On the contrary, Ngai Tahu place great reliance on the fact that a number of their leading chiefs readily signed the Treaty of Waitangi." Waitangi Tribunal report Good on you for raising it in Talk pages though: if you think something's controversial or debatable it's best to guage opinion (and hopefully informed opinion too!). kabl00ey 13:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Part of the confusion may be that only northern NI tribes signed the treaty at Waitangi. The treaty was then taken around the country, with other tribes signing it at different ports of call. These signatories definitely included Ngai Tahu leaders. Grutness...wha? 23:29, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Censoring information

Please stop trying to censor or remove information about median household income. We understand that you want to say that Australia is superior because of it's higher GDP/C. You don't need to be so insecure. New Zealand's GDP/C is given three times in the article. We love Australia but this article is about New Zealand. This trans-Tasman rivalry is over the top. Badenoch 03:55, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Where do you get the idea that there is some anit-New Zealand or anti-Australia motive regarding removing that information? It simply just doesn't belong in the over-view of a country article. This is not an advertisement for potential migrants to New Zealand with which they can base their decision whether or not to emigrate to on. It is supposed to be an unbiased and factual article and what is included now is satisfactory. If people want to know the difference in statistical method between the two then they can go to either the Gross domestic product or Median household income pages. Detailed explanations of statistical method are not needed here neither is justification of their use. I also sincerely doubt there is a conspiracy of Australian users or pro Australia New Zealand users that are attempting to sabotage the New Zealand article by increasing GDP per capita comparisons and excluding median household income comparisons which is essentially what you are implying.Homesick kiwi 11:52, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

• Homesick Kiwi. You may notice that the latest sabotage was from an American, however normally the American's are not really a problem.Badenoch (talk) 05:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Let me point out that there appear to be problems with the household income table. It incorrectly stated that the income information for all three countries was median household income. However, this is incorrect. The source for the New Zealand data clearly states that the numbers reflect the mean, not the median. Comparing one country's mean with another's median is misleading.

• The reference was for the median not the mean. Please read references carefully Badenoch (talk) 03:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, the mathematical calculations used to get some of the information in the table constitute original research. For example, the New Zealand data seems to take income information for a single quarter and extrapolate it out to an entire year. This can be inaccurate if income is seasonal, or if it gradually increases throughout the year. As already stated, the person who conducted the original research improperly mixed mean and median income numbers. Furthermore, the source for the PPP conversion isn't mentioned anywhere. For all we know, the PPP conversion could be based entirely on The Economist's Big Mac Index. Alternatively, the PPP or currency conversions could be based on an incorrect time period. Wikipedians should find a single source in which professional economists have compared all three countries, instead of trying to do the calculations themselves. --JHP (talk) 06:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• The income data for New Zealand and USA were mid-year surveys. The Australian data was a September census and therefore is slightly higher than the others. Income data for country state has been converted to US dollars using Purchasing Power Parity (obtained from the OECD).[15]. This is done because the real purchasing power of the Australian and New Zealand currencies is actually lower than the market exchange rate. For example New Zealand's median household income at the current market exchange rate is US$44,000 (1.33), but is only US$40,000 using purchasing power parity (1.47). Badenoch (talk) 03:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I would just like to make it clear that I did not make that second comment; that has been signed fraudulently which possibly limits the merits of this discussionHomesick kiwi (talk) 12:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted the reformatting which attributed comments incorrectly. Since no one has commented in this discussion since the mistake was made, apart from your post pointing out the misattribution, the discussion is not compromised.-gadfium 18:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Apparent out of control, unsupported information

I see that this edit changed the infobox GDP_PPP_per_capita figure from $26,470 to $28,470. No outside source supporting the change was cited. There is a superscripted wikilink referencing a note which says: "⁸ Word Bank GDP per capita data." The cited source for the data says that New Zealand is 34th, with a GDP-PPP of $27,220 (not $26,470, and not $28,470). I see that the article also specifies GDP_PPP_per_capita_rank = 28th, displaying "(28th)", with a wikilink to List of countries by GDP (PPP). Forgetting for a moment that WP:V says: "Articles and posts on Wikipedia should never be used as third-party sources.", let's look at that article and note that it lists New Zealand as 28th, but with a GDP_PPP of $25,874 (not $27,220, not $26,470, and not $28,470).

Similarly, the infobox lists GDP_nominal = $103.873, referencing a note which says: "⁷2006 GDP data converted to PPP using World Bank Data;Gross Domestic Product: March 2007 quarter - Statistics New Zealand" (actually, unlike note 8, note 7 goes through footnote 2 in the References section instead of linking directly), and the resulting external link goes to a page which says: "The Statistics New Zealand website has been restructured. We could not find the page you were looking for." A ranking of 58th is specified, along with a link to List of countries by GDP (PPP). That page does indeed rank NZ 58th, but with a GDP_PPP of $105,819, not $103.873 (the WP:V prohibition against relying on wikipedia articles should apply here too).

There may be other problems as well, I didn't check closely. -- Boracay Bill 04:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Other edits made about the same time by the same IP were clearly vandalism, including an edit to this article, so I reverted this edit although I was not sure whether it had some validity.-gadfium 08:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I've made some fixup edits to the infobox

Official Languages:

• Replaced English percentage of 98% with 91.2%, supported by data cited in footnote 11
  Replaced Maori percentage of 4.2% with 0.24%, supported by data cited in footnote 11

GDP (PPP)

• Tagged mention of footnote 7 as a dead link, since it links to a dead link.
• changed GDP_PPP_per_capita = $26,470 to $27,220, using the figure from the cited supporting source.
• changed GDP from $108.799 to $110,296, per new source in footnote 7.

footnotes:

1. no change
2. marked with the number 2 rather than an asterisk, corrected NZSL
3. marked with the number 3 rather than an asterisk
4. Changed cite of Independence of New Zealand to cite CIA Factbook (WP:V deprecates citing WP as a supporting source)
5. no change.
6. Got rid of "[1]" link.
7. no change.
8. Moved out of <References/>, since no other infobox footnotes are in there. Replaced old link, which was dead, with a new live link from the same source as footnote 8.

I haven't changed them (yet?), but I think that the rankings should be deleted since they effectively cite wikipedia articles as supporting sources, wand this is deprecated by WP:V because wikipedia is not a {{WP:RS|reliable source]]. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Wait up. You can't divide the number of people who speak English by the total number of responses, as some people speak several languages. You may have noticed that there were more responses than the total population, and there are some people (mainly those who are very young) who speak no language.

We could add the original source from the Wikipedia rankings page to each of the rankings on this page to solve the problem you mention. I regard this as a very low priority, but feel to go ahead and add them if you feel strongly about it.-gadfium 04:54, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I've restored your GDP figures and changes to footnote numbering. It's difficult to see exactly what you've changed as diffs don't handle tables gracefully, but I don't see the change to the GDP_PPP you mention above. Some of the footnotes are not sources; there's no reason not to point to another Wikipedia article, in this case Independence of New Zealand, to explain that there is no simple unambiguous date of independence for the country.-gadfium 05:23, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I've edited the infobox again, considering your remarks and comparing its current version with my last-changed version.

• Languages - OK, use the Total people figure from the footnote 11 source instead of the Responses figure: English=3,673,623 / 4,027,947 =~ 91.2% (not 98%), Maori=9,702 / =~ 0.24% (not 4.2%). If I've got that wrong, it's because I couldn't see how the figures presented were supported by the cited supporting source, and either I've missed something obvious (always a possibility) or the support for the figures presented needs to be better explained.
• Footnote 6 - I see that you've restored the "[1]" link. Please note the guidance about that in WP:CITE#Footnote_referencing, "When citing a website within the REF tags, do not use brackets only around the URL. For instance, <ref>[www.google.com]</ref> will result in the footnote being displayed as [1]. Thus, a numbered footnote's description is another number. Instead, cite the URL with a name, <ref>[www.google.com Google]</ref> to display the website page title in the reference list."

-- Boracay Bill (talk) 06:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you've got the language percentages wrong. As the footnote in the infobox states, the percentages did not include "unusable responses and those who spoke no language (e.g. too young to talk)", which accounts for 279,759 people. Subtracting these gives a total of 3,748,188 usable responses from those old enough to talk, and dividing 3,673,623 by this gives 98% of residents speaking English. Where did you get the figure of 9,702 Maori speakers from? The figure Stats NZ give is 157,110, which is 4.2% of the total above. -- Avenue (talk) 07:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks for straightening me out. The 9,702 figure for Maori speakers did seem suprisingly low to me, but it's what I found by searching for "Maori" and arriving at the 118th item ("Cook Islands Maori") in the list referenced by footnote 11. I didn't notice that the 115th item in the list is "Mäori" (with an umlaut), and my un-umlauted search didn't find that. Sorry for the disruption, but I do think that the article got improved a bit in the process. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand Independence

Why was New Zealand considered fully independent on 1947? That was only when the Statute of Westminster was adopted. New Zealand was not fully independent until 1986, when the New Zealand Constitution severed what was left of British rule. I'm most certain that the Statute of Westminster is not the date of New Zealand full independence. Australia's and Canada's articles do not consider the Statute of Westminster as the date of Independence, rather their signing of the constitutions (Australia ratified the Statute in 1939, Canada in 1931. Australia's constitution was signed in 1986, Canada's constitution was signed in 1982). CuffX 01:14, 09 December 2007 (UTC)

The infobox makes it pretty clear that NZ has no one date of independence, and lists 1986 as a possible date. What else do you want? --Helenalex (talk) 23:06, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Governement Section

I have attempted to "reorganize" and "polish" the Government section per the to do list above. Thoughts? -Rrius (talk) 07:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Can "Government section need reorganisation, polishing" be crossed off the to do list? -Rrius (talk) 22:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I think so. It's certainly much improved. -- Avenue (talk) 01:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Problems with the Demographics section

This page popped up on my watchlist because of a change in this section. When I checked the numbers against the ref currently numbered as 37, I found that the numbers in the article were very different from the numbers in the cited supporting source, so I changed them to agree.

Moving down, I see that the link currently numbered 38 is broken. I found a cite supporting the 14.6% figure here, but I haven't changed the cite.

I see that the link currently numbered 39 is broken. I see that adding "-revised" into the URL produces a hit here, but the content of that page doesn't seem related to the article content where the cite is ref'd.

The cite numbered 40 hits an Excel spreadsheet, but it's not immediately apparent to me how well the content there supports the article.

The cite numbered 41 hits a general "Quick Stats" publication which looks like it supports the article re Religion where it is ref'd, and looks like it probably supports points made elsewhere in the article where it is not ref'd.

This stuff needs to be fixed, but I'm not familiar enough with either NZ or the NZ Census website to do this properly. Could someone please take a look at it? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 06:40, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The figures you changed were already correct - they came from table 2 of ref 37, and it appears you were looking at table 1. I added a mention of table 2 to the footnote to reduce the likelihood of someone making the same mistake again.

Ref 38 was withdrawn by the stats department and replaced with a revised version. I've fixed the ref; the actual details are in the pdf file linked to from the ref page.

I haven't time to look at your other points tonight.-gadfium 08:14, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The percentage born overseas excludes those who didn't give adequate responses to that Census question. I've now cited a source that gives the actual percentages, to keep it simple. They gave figures for the UK+Ireland, not just the UK, so I've changed that statistic accordingly.

I've moved the religion citations to later in the paragraph, to indicate that they apply to more than just the first figure.-- Avenue (talk) 13:23, 31 December 2007 (UTC)