In May 2003 5 million+ viewers watched BBC TV's Get a New Life as it followed the Goddard family's move from the UK to New Zealand. After being inundated with emails and contacts from other people thinking about making the same move the family realized that however much research people do what they really want to know is 'what is it actually like?' How does it feel as a family to go through such a major change, and is it all worth while? - So Paul wrote this book.

New Zealand has long been a favourite with those wishing to start a new life overseas: this book gives all the information necessary to make the idea of moving to the antipodes a reality. The book is illustrated with first-hand accounts from people living in New Zealand and is full colour, with numerous helpful maps and photographs. Set out to be easily accessible, each chapter guides you through the practicalities of a move to New Zealand, from setting up home to finding a job or setting up a business. In particular, it gives advice on renting accommodation, opening the right bank account, finding your ideal home and making the most of your leisure time. There is also easy access to urgent information such as emergency phone numbers, laws and regulations and healthcare advice. The employment section of the book covers vital information, such as information on business etiquette, the skills and trades most in demand, permanent, seasonal and temporary work, salaries, working hours and holidays, trade unions and contracts, starting or buying your own business and sources of advice and assistance. "Excellent Series", The Times

Author and educator Michelle Waitzman first visited New Zealand in 1998—and she's been hooked ever since. Now a New Zealand citizen, Waitzman outlines all the information you need to manage your move abroad in a smart, organized, and straightforward manner in Moon Living Abroad New Zealand. She offers straightforward tips and advice on how businesspeople, students, teachers, retirees, and professionals can make a smooth transition to living in a new culture and country. Moon Living Abroad New Zealand is packed with essential information and must-have details on setting up daily life, including obtaining visas, arranging finances, gaining employment, choosing schools, and finding health care, plus practical advice on how to rent or buy a home for a variety of needs and budgets. With extensive color and black and white photos, illustrations, and maps, Moon Living Abroad New Zealand will help you find your bearings as you settle into your new home and life abroad.

Touching on indigenous Maori relationships with the now-extinct, flightless moa; the attitudes of Pakeha, or European, settlers toward sheep; the iconography of whales and dolphins; the problems of pest-control; and the pleasures of pet-keeping, this modern-day bestiary is a fascinating study of human–animal relations. In the book’s four parts, the authors unravel the contradictory ways New Zealanders nurture and eradicate, glorify and demonize, cherish and devour, and describe and imagine animals. The study brings together insights from New Zealand’s arts and literature, popular culture, historiography, media, and everyday life to describe and analyze their interactions with nga kararehe and nga manu, the beasts and birds of the land. In doing so, it illuminates fundamental aspects of New Zealand society: how New Zealanders understand their own identities and those of others; how they regard, inhabit and make use of the natural world; and how they think about what they buy, eat, wear, watch, and read. Rich, multifaceted, and engaging, A New Zealand Book of Beasts satisfyingly explores how culture both shapes and is shaped by the “beasts” of Aotearoa.

Have you ever wondered why New Zealand's plants and animals are so different from those in other countries? Why kakapo is the only parrot in the world that cannot fly, or why the kiwi lives here and nowhere else? New Zealand is an extraordinary place, unique on earth, and the remarkable story of how and why life evolved here is the subject of Ghosts of Gondwana. The challenge of explaining New Zealand's natural origins is picked up in this fully revised edition of the popular award-winning book. It presents the latest scientific research in highly readable form, highlighting studies that reveal the deep historical background of our landscapes, fauna and flora - from ancient frogs and moa to delicate insects and the magnificent southern beech forests. It introduces the latest discoveries and resolves past issues like the 'Oligocene drowning' hypothesis. Exciting fossil discoveries are revealed and new scientific technologies and approaches to the discipline of historical biogeography are discussed - approaches that range from undersea geology to molecular clocks - and it inevitably draws attention to the debates and conflicts that distinguish different schools of opinion in this holistic branch of theoretical science. This revision incorporates the results of 10 years of intensive scientific research and includes four entirely new chapters to: focus on 'yesterday's maps' to draw attention to the ephemeral islands in our history that have possibly acted as stepping stones for terrestrial animals and plants but today have sunk into the sea; incorporate the author's own special interest in an ancient group of 'jaw-moths', unknown and unnoticed by most people but with a strong message that New Zealand is part of the world when it comes to explaining where our fauna have come from; present recent research findings on our huge flightless birds, the ratites; and include New Zealand's terrestrial molluscs into the story. Ghosts of Gondwana identifies New Zealand as one of the most challenging places on earth to explain, but it's readable, engaging style and revised illustrations render this often-controversial discipline of science into a format that is accessible to any reader with an interest in natural history and the unique environment of New Zealand.

For more than five decades, gangs have played a pivotal role in New Zealand crime life, beginning with the bodgies and widgies of the 1950s. Based on 10 years of gang research, this book chronicles the rise of the Hell's Angels and other bike gangs in the 1960s, the growth of the Mongrel Mob and Black Power in the 1970s, and organized crime during the last decade. With descriptions of such events as the Devil's Henchmen throwing Molotov cocktails at the Epitaph Riders in Christchurch's first gang war and Black Power members surrounding Prime Minister Rob Muldoon at Wellington's Royal Tiger Tavern, it also discusses the significance of colors and class. With accounts from gang members, police, and politicians, this violent and sometimes horrifying book transports its readers to a tough yet revealing part of New Zealand life.

A tribute to the author's adopted home in New Zealand describes his decision to relocate to a lush bay area near Auckland, where his family and he thrived in the wake of its natural flora and fauna, dolphin-filled waters, and wildlife. By the author of The Pig Who Sang to the Moon.

As a group of islands in the far south-west Pacific Ocean, New Zealand has a history that is steeped in the sea. Its people have encountered the sea in many different ways: along the coast, in port, on ships, beneath the waves, behind a camera, and in the realm of the imagination. While New Zealanders have continually altered their marine environments, the ocean, too, has influenced their lives. A multi-disciplinary work encompassing history, marine science, archaeology and visual culture, New Zealand and the Sea explores New Zealand’s varied relationship with the sea, challenging the conventional view that history unfolds on land. Leading and emerging scholars highlight the dynamic, ocean-centred history of these islands and their inhabitants, offering fascinating new perspectives on New Zealand’s pasts. ‘The ocean has profoundly shaped culture across this narrow archipelago . . . The meeting of land and sea is central in historical accounts of Polynesian discovery and colonisation; European exploratory voyaging; sealing, whaling and the littoral communities that supported these plural occupations; and the mass migrant passage from Britain.’ – Frances Steel

By any measure, New Zealand must confront monumental issues in the years ahead. From the future of work to climate change, wealth inequality to new populism – these challenges are complex and even unprecedented. Yet why does New Zealand’s political discussion seem so diminished, and our political imagination unequal to the enormity of these issues? And why is this gulf particularly apparent to young New Zealanders? These questions sit at the centre of Max Harris’s ‘New Zealand project’. This book represents, from the perspective of a brilliant young New Zealander, a vision for confronting the challenges ahead. Unashamedly idealistic, The New Zealand Project arrives at a time of global upheaval that demands new conversations about our shared future.