Politicians behaving well

[vilakins]

Two bills passed into law in NZ this week, to my amazement considering our National (conservative) government.

Same-sex marriage is now law, passed by an good majority (77 to 44) since MPs were free to vote as they wished. Apparently Australian couples are already booking wedding trips here.

And at last we have Mondayisation of two of our holidays, Waitangi and ANZAC days, so that if they happen to fall on a weekend, people get Monday off. As votes were by party, this one was a much more narrow margin, miserly National being outvoted by the other parties.

Comments

[kalypso]

I'm very pleased! I've been watching the video, with everyone embracing while a Maori song is sung!

[vilakins]

There are some amazing videos of speeches, but I didn't post them because most people wouldn't know the speakers. A friend has though. Mojo incidentally is our first deaf MP.

[gwendraith]

Excellent news on both counts :)

[vilakins]

It is! :-D

[mab_browne]

I was reasonably hopeful, but still, it was a lovely thing to wake up to the morning after the vote. :-)

[vilakins]

It was! When I was getting petrol today, they had Maurice Williamson's great and funny speech on the radio again. :-)

I'm amazed we got the Mondayisation; I really didn't think that would go through.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

Two sensible decisions, what are your politicians thinking!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I know! I was amazed.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

What amazes me is not so much that your politicians are using their heads for once but that you did not have a day in lieu for weekend National holidays. We were having that back in 1973 when I first started work and I think Dad and Mam were having them back in the sixties. Congratulations on having a sensible government, they are few and far between.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Losing holidays for 3 years in a row really pissed us off (because of where the fall, we'd have a run with losing two at once sometimes), but even so National complained about the loss to business. [rolls eyes] Like what they deal with 5 years out of seven? Actually some businesses realised it was good for staff to have days off.

We do not do well for holidays as it is. Winter stretches long and grey with nothing to look forward to.

sensible government? WTF is that?

[she-of-emeralds.livejournal.com]

Happy for you. We are not having much of a sensible government here in the U.S. at the moment. See under "the U.S. Senate totally failed to get their heads out of their butts and pass a law requiring much stricter background checks before people can buy guns."

Cowards.

Re: sensible government? WTF is that?

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I totally do not get the attitude to weapons over there. When I posted about a weird right-wing guy I used to work with saying people should be armed so they can bring down the government, someone replied that was an American right. I suppose people grow up with the idea and get used to it.

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

That's excellent! It's full proper equal gay marriage, I take it, and not just civil partnerships?

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Absolutely! We've had civil unions as they call them here since May 2005. People wanted true equality though, and fair enough! :-D

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

You're doing much better than us on the marriage front, but here in the US we've Mondayified lots of our holidays since time out of mind. I guess we're pretty clear on our priorities here in the US. :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yeah, after three years in a row where we missed out, once both of them, people got very resentful. It happened each time, but National moaned that businesses would lose. Bloody hell, they do anyway 5 years out of 7 for each one. Actually, some businesses (probably seeing the reaction of pissed-off staff) pointed out that holidays are good for people.


Australia's had Mondayisation of ANZAC day for years too, adding to our resentment.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

win win :D

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

We do! :-D

Actually I'm even more amazed that we got those two holidays every year (and that was a very narrow win). It seems everyone else had Mondayisation.

[awdureslf.livejournal.com]

"Mondayisation" Great word.

I'm now struggling to think of ANY UK bank holidays that don't already fall on a Monday on purpose, bar the Christmas ones.

Apart from Christmas we don't seem to have any that are date dependant as opposed to "the nearest Monday to..."

Easter and Whitsun are day of the week dependant in any case

May Day has been "First Monday in May rather than actual first of May for a long time.

I've no idea what the August one is marking, if anything but that's by definition "Last Monday in August"

And that's it really, bar the occasional shindig by Betty and Co. None of the Services remembrance days and only Ireland and Scotland have managed to get their Saint's day off - Wales, & England still have to lump it!

I suddenly feel rather hard done by...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

We have:
- Christmas and Boxing Day (Monday and Tuesdayised if on a weekend)
- New Year and day after (Monday and Tuesdayised if on a weekend)
- Waitangi Day (every year now!)
- Good Friday
- Easter Monday
- ANZAC day (every year now!)
- 1st Monday in June (the only winter one; we need a festival, dammit)
- Labour Day
- Anniversary Day (different for each province; ours is in January) Some of those are Fridays and one's a Tuesday - huh)

11 a year (now); not bad. We also now all get 4 weeks leave a year, but basically have to take at least 6 of those 20 days around Christmas when a lot of businesses close. How much do you guys get for annual leave?

[Edit] A South African friend still thinks we're badly done by. I must admit that when I lived in Germany, I got 6 weeks off, a 13th salary, and loads of public holidays.

[awdureslf.livejournal.com]

I make Christmas/BoxingDay/New Years Day, Easter Mon/Good Friday then the bank holidays Whitsun, MayDay, Summer . 8 Last year we had the Wedding Bash and the Jubilee as well though.

28 days of annual leave though, so I'm not hard done by after all! A lot of places here too have compulsory leave between Christmas and New Year.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

28 days of leave! Is that normal for everyone? I've had 20 for a while, but not everyone got it till fairly recently.

[awdureslf.livejournal.com]

Yep, for full time 5-day week working. Although I'm suddenly supicious that some of the bank holidays are allowed to come out of that too.

My employer is nice and doesn't (plus you get 'time off for good behaviour' if you've been there long enough!) but some do include the ones they're allowed to in that I think.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Good laws :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

They are!

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

The latter is good. The former would be good here too, if certain maniacs could get it through their skulls that marriage is more about commitment than gender composition. I'd like every committed couple to have a chance to get married, if that is what they want to do.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Exactly!