Originally Posted by
Daytr
Iceman there are big differences between the current referendum than the first. Mainly, nearly 400k signatures were collected to petition for a referendum. So if you want to blame around 20% of the voting public for squandering $9M, so be it, however I would suggest that's democracy in action. However the latest referendum has been forced on us by one man, John Key.
Re the backpackers, having been one in the UK we used to think the Poms were lazy. But it has to be put into context. We were there for a short time, working hard & playing hard, knowing we weren't dog it for the rest of our lives. So its quite a different ethic. In NZ its hard to compete with the Island labor as their physical attributes are superior to the average Kiwi for certain work. You only have to look at the ABs for that. You are Also comparing some people in NZ who are toward the bottom of the socio-economic spectrum of NZ versus people who are being paid far more here than they would in their own country. So the comparison is never going to be fair.