Not that any of you care, but today is the New Zealand general election. Y'know, the one that happens every three years and decides which party sits in government. Exciting, eh? ...Well, not really. But I suppose I should go down to the local school and tick the wee little orange box next to "Labour".
The first European to 'discover' New Zealand was the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman (hence the Tasman Sea - the body of water which separates NZ from Australia). Zeeland is a Dutch province. "Nieuw Zeeland" was changed to "New Zealand" by the European explorer James Cook, because... I dunno. Pshh.
Incidentally, voting went well. Now to wait and see if the country'll go to shit.
Labour is ahead of National by about 30,000 votes, or some insanely small number like that. All of the Advance and Polling Booth votes have been counted, but there are still 200,000 Special votes (mine among them) to go. These take longer because... I dunno why. Probably because they have to verify all the forms.. (I had to fill out my address and details, plus answer a short questioneer on my voter status before actually voting, whereas my mum just ticked a small box).
So it looks tight.
If Labour don't get in...well it won't be the end of the world, but I'll probably be rather grumpy for a while.
edit: oh, and Labour is centre-left, National centre-right. Also, graph:
