It’s an ‘international holiday‘ many New Zealanders are not terribly familiar with, but Halloween has become increasingly popular in New Zealand over the past decade - and it’s happening tomorrow night.

While originating in Ireland, we typically think of Halloween as a purely American tradition. With its roots in Celtic custom, Halloween relies on the atmosphere of darkness and withering foliage (as seen at this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere), so it’s not surprising that with October 31 in New Zealand approaching long, light, summer nights, the trend isn’t as popular as it is Stateside.

However, largely through media images (how many Halloween specials of The Simpsons have you seen?), this generation of Kiwi children are eager to jump on the ghoul and goblin-lead bandwagon and into the spirit of All Hallows’ Eve.

Do we celebrate halloween? What can New Zealanders expect from it this year? While private Halloween parties are the most common celebration of the event, trick-or-treating isn’t uncommon in New Zealand, especially if you live in a area populated by younger families. Make sure you have a bag of chocolates and lollies on hand in case you get a few spooky visitors - you don’t want to be the house that gets the ‘trick’ (although unlike in the movies, it probably won’t involve rotten eggs or toilet paper).

You can get in to the spirit low-key style by watching on of the many scary movies which will screen on NZ TV tomorrow night, or rent a DVD classic like Psycho, Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street.

Image from Flickr.

The Official Cash Rate of New Zealand, or OCR, has just been changed from 7.5% to 6.5%. The current world financial crisis has played a big part in the decision to do this, announced the Reserve Bank of New Zealand late this morning.The RBNZ Governor stated that owning to the current state of the financial world;

“economic activity in New Zealand will be further constrained, relative to the outlook presented in our September Monetary Policy Statement, by current international developments. New Zealand can expect to face lower demand for exports and credit is likely to be less readily available. In this environment consumers and businesses are likely to be more cautious and curtail spending.”

Looking for your New Zealand financial hub? NZS.com has just launched a New Zealand finance section, enabling you to view and compare interest rates and exchange rates by day, month and year.

Updated daily at 3.30pm courtesy of the RBNZ, NZS.com gives you a quick, easy to comprehend view of current and archive New Zealand financial data.

Since 1989, NZ on Air has funded over 15,000 hours of Kiwi television. Everyone has their favourite Shortland Street catfight, What Now skit, and treasured Kiwi film.

Unfortunately, most of this content hasn’t been very accessible after original broadcast - until now. NZ on Screen aims to unlock the treasure chest that is New Zealand television, providing a fully funded, commercial-free resource for archive TV shows, movies, music video and other media.

This online stroke of genius lets you search by title, genre and media type, with the 256 current titles being added to regularly. The NZS.com picks? Check out the comedy duo McPhail and Gadsby, comedy-drama Being Eve and 80’s Yuppie drama Gloss.

It’s just a week away, the first of the many stat holidays for the 2008 summer holiday season. Queen’s birthday at the beginning of June was the last long weekend New Zealand was privy to - so we’re all relieved to have Labour Day coming up next Monday after a four-month-drive of full working weeks.

The 27^th of October signifies the beginning of long weekends, with most of the regional anniversaries occurring between November and March, and along the way Kiwis get to enjoy Christmas, New Years, Waitangi Day and finally Easter finishing off the summer season in April.

Let’s hope the Kiwi weather gives us another great summer, can you smell the BBQs already?

What are your plans for the first long weekend? If you haven’t made any yet, grab a cheap flight out of your home city and check out one of the great central backpackers New Zealand has to offer. Backpacker accommodation in New Zealand isn’t just for international students anymore; many city backpackers offer all of the luxuries of hotel accommodation (from private rooms to bars to WiFi access) at a fraction of the cost. The best thing about a backpackers is that normally you can book in on the fly, without a reservation - or with very little notice. Why not do something spontaneous and check in to a backpacker hostel this weekend?

If you manage a business located in New Zealand, you’ll generally be familiar with the Companies Office website. From July 1, 2008, it became mandatory to complete company administration online, which includes name reservations, company incorporations, annual returns and general company maintenance such as the appointment of directors.

In August the New Zealand Companies Office (www.companies.govt.nz) refreshed their website to;

“..reflect the ongoing commitment of the Companies Office to the provision of improved services and a lower cost of compliance..”

A major use of the website is research on New Zealand companies as many people include a Companies Register Search in their first step towards understanding the basic structure of a company in New Zealand.

Over time it is expected that the internet will become the predominant method for interacting with your government. Within New Zealand the e-government initiative is working towards this goal, acknowledging that people who have grown up in the online world have very different expectations of how they interact with governmental agencies.

Hot off the press, news has just gone out that the latest Window operating system will not be called Vista, XP or something else emotive, but purely: Windows 7.

The seventh release of Windows has decided not to take on an aspirational name as its roots are firmly ground in Vista, while refining and evolving substantial upgrades to the platform technology development.

There is no immediate word yet on a release date.

We’re just hours away from the first election debate from the leaders of the political parties. Screening tonight on TV1 at 7pm, the televised debate will be made more interesting than ever by truly involving the New Zealand public - and making history at the same time.

Alongside TVNZ, the debate is run by YouTube, and will see questions posted via video on the popular streaming content website, to be responded to by the party leaders in the televised debate.

This enables any New Zealand citizen with a webcam a chance to communicate directly with political leaders in a way never possible before - and voice their questions and concerns at the highest level.

As New Zealand has often been a leader in both political strides and embracing technology, it seems a perfect fit to merge the two together in preparation for the upcoming 2008 election.

Go to the YouTube debate channel to post your questions now.

Image from Flickr.

The much-anticipated opposition tax cut plan has just been released by the National party in the last few minutes, and finally New Zealanders have a clear picture of what John Key has been talking about for several months.

It was revealed yesterday that National would scale back on tax cuts because of the declining state of the New Zealand economy. Breaking news has announced that if elected in the 2008 election next month, John Key plans to put an extra $15 in the average wage earner’s pocket each week above the current tax cut plan offered by the incumbent New Zealand Government.

National plans to, if elected, roll out most of the tax cuts in April next year, while the current Labour party plan sees cuts rolling out slower, culminating in 2011.

John Key will formally confirm figures this afternoon at a press conference in Auckland. Keep tabs on the NZS.com political news headlines for updates.

The newspapers have already started advertising restaurants with Christmas function availabilities - which means the festival season is about to kick off! Yes, it’s still eleven weeks away, but we’re all so busy these days it’s really only eleven weeks away!

Christmas functions are always the first to get organised, and then comes the stressful part: Christmas Shopping. So many gifts to buy, so few ideas. Have you starting thinking about how you’re going to tackle your shopping this year?

Christmas sales online are now more popular than ever, you can find the best discounted brands at amazing prices on the NZ web, even when the malls and shopping centres won’t budge on their RRPs.

Christmas shopping for kids is made super-easy online, check out our ideas for the best toys for Christmas 2008, to take all of the guessing out of your little ones’ present buying this year. Make sure you buy brands online to save on time, money, and the most important thing: your sanity!

Biking to work, to coffee, and to the grocery store has become rampantly popular this year. With the ‘Green’ ecological movement, variable petrol pricing and increasing traffic congestion issues, biking or cycling has become a new way of life for thousands of Kiwis country-wide - many of whom would never have thought of biking for transport before.

Like any trend which is taken up, we’re now seeing the biking backlash - lead by those who are unhappy with the behaviour of cyclists on inner city roads. It has been a common topic in the opinion media lately - are cyclists arrogant and inconsiderate to every other road user?

A recent TV3 News piece assessed popular cycling roads around St Heliers in Auckland, particularly Tamaki Drive. The road, which does not have cycle lanes, is often congested with groups of 10+ cyclists who, according to some pedestrians, will not stop at crossings, cycle 3 or 4 people side-by-side (instead of the legal maximum of 2), and keep traffic at 30kms per hour, making the short drive to Auckland city take up to an hour.

What do you think of cyclists’ behaviour on central city streets? Are they arrogantly disobeying road rules, or simply trying their best to stay safe on the roads, looking out for opening car doors and overloaded 4WD’s, while enjoying themselves socially and keeping fit?