Here are a few ways to keep track of what’s happening in New Zealand’s Parliament. When Parliament is Sitting Parliament.nz publishes a Parliamentary Calendar (pdf and text) showing the days MPs will be ‘sitting’ in the Debating Chamber. Generally Parliament will sit on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 2pm to 6pm and 7.30pm to …
Continue reading “Find out what’s happening in New Zealand’s Parliament”
This 1869 map of New Zealand’s North Island shows Māori iwi (tribal) boundaries, confiscated land, location of armed police and military bases, and where gold was found. It’s fascinating in many ways, not least because it shows the staggering amount of land confiscated in the Waikato – more than 1.2 million acres. The confiscations were made under the …
So there’s a lovely Tumblr dedicated to images and information on some of the “rare books and fine printing” in the Alexander Turnbull Library. Follow!
I notice that NIWA, New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, has a poster of Māori climate and weather indicators for download on its website. You can either grab the pdf or order a full-sized paid-for poster. The weather (day-to-day state of the atmosphere, varying from minutes to weeks) predictors include: From Te Roroa: The sound …
Continue reading “Māori weather and climate indicators – a poster from NIWA”
Browsing the NZ Gazette, the government’s official newspaper, I came across a parcel of new official geographic names being approved and one or two discontinued. This happens fairly often and this Land Information New Zealand page is a good place to get a heads-up. There’s also plenty of detail on the naming process, including a …
I suck at local elections. They creep up on me. One minute I’m ‘so going to do some research on candidates and be an informed voter this year’ and the next there are thickets of hoardings around town, an unopened orange envelope on my kitchen counter, and only a few days left to vote. Which …
Nice. New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) turned up in a Google Doodle on her 128th birthday. Katherine Mansfield and the Parliamentary Library The Parliamentary Library became a welcome retreat from what she regarded as the crass colonial life of Wellington. She was able to gain access to the library because of the political connections …
New Zealand has 78 local authorities, with around 1600 elected members: mayors, regional council chairs, councillors, local board members and community board members. 11 regional councils 61 territorial authorities – 11 are city councils and 50 are district councils Six unitary councils – which are territorial authorities with regional council responsibilities The Local Government New Zealand website has …
Continue reading “Map of NZ’s regional, district and city councils”
Here’s one busting out of its shell at Auckland Zoo. Hatching looks like hard work.
What’s not to love about Statistics New Zealand? Here are a few things they do that I like: 1. Publish under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International copyright licence (so we are free to use and share content as long as we say where it came from). This is great: a publicly funded organisation which collects information …
Continue reading “Five things I love about Statistics New Zealand”
