Your October 2023 Mobile Newsletter

October 2023

Kia ora!

While we’re all looking forward to some warm and lovely spring weather here, another season has been warming up as well: New Zealand’s general election season. While I would guess that it’s not everyone’s favourite season, it simply can’t be avoided. Coming from the United States and growing up with our particular electoral system, we’ve recently had to play a lot of catch up to reach a better understanding of the national politics here in New Zealand. As someone who is interested in systems and how things work, it’s been informative to learn about the voting system used here and comparing it to others used throughout the world.

Since we found out we were eligible to vote a few months ago, I’ve done a fair share of reading to bring myself up to speed on the upcoming general election and have put together a straightforward and friendly introduction to elections and voting for those relocating to Aotearoa. Even if you’re from a country with a similar voting system, as you can imagine, each country has their own unique twists and rules on how elections are done – hopefully this is a helpful intro or refresher to those moving here.

As always, feel free to reach out if there is a particular topic you’d like to hear more about. We’re here to help.

Elizabeth
Newsletter Editor

Elections & Voting in Aotearoa NZ

While I fully understand that there are big and small pros and cons of the different political systems in place in each country, as someone who has come from a land overly dominated by a strong two-party political system, it’s definitely been a new experience to live somewhere that has multiple parties with positions in government. Of course, I had to read about the history of New Zealand’s political parties to understand the conditions that grew the desire for electoral reform which, in turn, is what led to the Electoral Act of 1993 and a new voting system. Starting with the general election in 1996, New Zealand uses a voting system called Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMP or MMPR). In this system, votes are cast for both a local representative and an overall party vote, the latter which allocates additional representatives to parliament to deepen overall proportional representation so that it better matches to the population.

While you should definitely do your due diligence on the multiple political parties here when the time is right, you also need to find out how the actual voting process works. As a U.S. citizen who is used to following very stringent requirements to be allowed to vote, here are five surprising-to-me facts about voting in Aotearoa New Zealand that I’ve come across:

1) Less than ten countries use an MMP electoral system. Currently, only eight countries in the world use an MMP voting system. This includes Bolivia, Ethiopia, Germany, South Korea, Lesotho, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand.

2) Enrolment to vote is compulsory, but actually voting is not. If you're eligible to enrol to vote and you live in New Zealand, you are technically required to do so. If you actively choose not to enrol and don’t have a good reason for not being enrolled, you can be fined up to $100 for a first conviction, and up to $200 for a further conviction (although realistically prosecutions are rare if you don’t).  On the other hand, if you are enrolled, you aren't legally required to vote if you choose not to.

3) There isn’t a set voting date that’s consistent year to year. Current New Zealand law requires elections to be held at least once every three years and two months – the two months allow for some flexibility after certain unusual circumstances like a snap election. Typically, elections are held once every three years, traditionally in November, although this year it will be on Saturday 14th October.

4) You don’t need identification (ID) to vote and can even enrol on election day. As long as you’re eligible to enrol and vote, no driver licence, no passport, nor ID of any kind is actually required to enrol in person. You don't even have to bring anything with you at all to a voting place. If you enrolled early enough, you receive an EasyVote card by mail that makes the voting process faster – even so, you can still vote without it. You can even enrol to vote on election day by filling out an extra "special declaration vote" form sans ID. Even though you'll spend a bit longer at the voting place, your "special" vote is still worth the same as an "ordinary" vote (see next fact).

5) All votes are counted by hand – twice. No vote counting machines in sight! On election day, the "preliminary count" is released that evening. The day immediately after, the official count starts and this time includes overseas and verified "special" votes. These official results are released approximately three weeks later.

Related links:

Electoral Commission NZ created a concise 2-minute explainer video on what MMP is and how it works here in Aotearoa NZ
For the history aficionados, NZ History provides an accounting on the country’s road to MMP.
Curious about the types of voting systems used throughout the world? You can find an easy-to-understand introduction to them here.

Hot Water Beach…in Kawhia

Visiting a hot water beach is such a quintessential and unique New Zealand experience – but I’m not actually talking about the infamous location on the Coromandel Peninsula that gets swarmed with locals and tourists! Nope, I’m referring to an off-the-beaten-track spot that you can find on the North Island’s west coast: Kawhia Hot Water Beach. (Note: “wh” is pronounced like the letter “f”.) Although the small town of Kawhia (a 5-minute drive away) is somewhat secluded and there aren’t any associated tourist hot spots or accompanying buses to be seen, the hot water beach is a reasonably known local Kiwi experience.

Similar to the Coromandel beach, Kawhia Hot Water Beach is named as such because of the hot springs that can be accessed near the tide line at low tide only during approximately full or new moon phases – they’re covered up by the surf during other moon phases when the tide swing isn’t as great. (Look up the tide chart online before visiting!) Unlike the Coromandel, Kawhia is significantly less crowded, sometimes even to the point where you’re the only one on the beach. Additionally, make sure to bring a shovel along to the Kawhia beach – if not, hopefully there are fellow hot water-seekers nearby you can borrow from.

When you arrive at the car park, you’ll find a public toilet for changing and a water tap for rinsing feet off after your beach excursion. (Sorry, no showers.) Because the majority of west coast beaches on Te Ika-a-Māui (the North Island) have black sand, make sure to wear protective footwear on a warm day – black sand can get punishingly hot in the sun. After huffing and puffing up and over the sand dune (it’s kind of big and steep, no need to rush, take your time), look straight out to the water break. From there and to the right is where you should start digging for the hot springs in the wet sand. Don’t have a spade? You can still enjoy a mini feet spa treatment by mushing your feet into the sand.

Whil some reviewers have said the hot water beach at Kawhia is cooler in temperature than what can be found on the Coromandel, we simply disagree. While we haven’t seen bubbling sand at Kawhia, you can sometimes see steam rising from the wet sand. Even without visual clues, you only need to submerge your feet approximately 15-30 cm into the sand to know if you’ve found a hot spot, and with further digging, you can find scalding hot water as well. How hot is hot? We last visited the beach during a winter sunset, found areas in our pool that we had to avoid sinking into because it was burning hot, and had to keep removing clothing layers because the pool kept us quite warm even though we were simply standing there.

I didn’t think we’d find this experience so fascinating, but we definitely did. At every visit, we run around with child-like wonder, smiling and searching for hot water in such a breathtaking location. If you want to experience it for yourself and stay away from crowds, you should visit Kawhia Hot Water Beach, too.

Want to read more?

Read a little bit more about Kawhia’s history in the Waikato region and its significance to Māori here.
Admittedly the hot water beach on the Coromandel Peninsula is more well known and understandably quite popular! Check out this page to learn the basics and find links to more resources
Raglan (Whāingaroa) is just over an hour north of Kawhia and is one of the Waikato’s favourite beach towns with heaps of things to see and do.

Local Lingo #1: Can you handle the jandal?

No one is sure why flip-flops aka jandals (a contraction of the words “Japanese sandal”) are brought into this phrase except possibly because the words rhyme in a pleasant manner. This New Zealand slang is essentially the same as the phrase “can you handle it?” and can be rearranged accordingly as “you can’t handle it.”

“I’m ready for a night out on the town!”

“Nah, you left early last time – you can’t handle the jandal!”

Local Lingo #2: Straight up

This phrase can be question and response – it loosely means, “Are you serious?” and as a response means, “Yes, I’m serious.” It can also be used to answer as an enthusiastic yes.

“Can you handle the jandal?”

“Straight up!” (translation: Yes I can!!)