NZ population has grown from 4m to 5m in 17 years
Nobody really knows who the five millionth person in New Zealand was - but there's a chance it could be Odette Olive Deane. The chubby-cheeked tot was born on March 10 this year, around the time Statistics NZ reckons the country's population ticked over to 5 million. Our population has grown from 4m to 5m in 17 years thanks to a combination of natural growth (births minus deaths) and net migration (arrivals minus departures). Stats NZ said today that - provisionally - the population reached 5m sometime in March. Mum Charlotte Deane, 26, said it was "crazy" to think her daughter could be New Zealand's 5 millionth person. Charlotte had gone into labour while having lunch at Burnham Military Camp, where her soldier husband Oliver is based. "I started feeling pains, like a rubber band flicking, and then it all happened." Oliver drove her to Christchurch Women's Hospital and was there for the birth of their "very big" 4.3kg baby, after just 2.5 hours of labour and one day after her due date. Stats NZ's population insights senior manager Brooke Theyers said the precise date when we hit 5 million also isn't available yet but it's estimated that at March 31 had a resident population of 5,002,100. Theyers said while the 5m mark could have been reached by a newborn baby, it was more likely to be a migrant arriving on a plane. The Covid-19 pandemic had caused unusual international travel and migration patterns in recent months, which had boosted net migration as more Kiwis arrived home from overseas, she said. Fewer people were also leaving the country.
Escalating numbers of Covid-19 cases in early March made Charlotte "a bit more paranoid" than normal preparing for birth, she told. "I was keeping track of where the infections were and I didn't really want to go into hospital. And after she was born I didn't want to go into confined spaces." But she had been reassured by research showing babies and children were less likely to catch the disease and likely to have milder symptoms. It's not all been easy. When Odette was just 2 weeks old the country went into lockdown, making the first weeks of maternity leave even more isolating than normal. She was only able to have one week of home midwife visits, and feeding the baby proved hard without outside help from a lactation consultant. But despite those first difficult weeks, Odette is thriving. "She was obviously a giant baby but they think she was born too big. She's just started losing a lot of weight so now she's very petite - we call her Dotty," Charlotte said. "She's very loved. She's had lots of kisses from her big brother [Walter, 20 months]. She goes a little bit crazy during the day but she sleeps really well at night.
Mid-lockdown, at just 4 weeks, Odette started smiling at them - and she hasn't stopped. "She's the most smiley baby I've ever seen."
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Poll: Should drivers retake the theory test every 10 years?
Drivers get where they need to go, but sometimes it seems that we are all abiding by different road rules (for example, the varying ways drivers indicate around a roundabout).
Do you think drivers should be required to take a quick driving theory test every 10 years?
Vote in the poll and share any road rules that you've seen bent! 😱
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49.5% Yes
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48.6% No
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1.9% Other - I'll share below
Here's Thursday's thinker!
I am lighter than air, but a hundred people cannot lift me. What am I?
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Why make picking up reserved library books harder? What do you think? Challenge: Write the last stanza for the first poem attached below.
Once books are reserved in Auckland Libraries books, when they are available no longer go alphabetically by customer but instead go into a Holds pickup shelf number based presumably somehow on when each book needs to be picked up by.
I had two books reserved that arrived on two different days in the Blockhouse Bay Library and hence each book has a different shelf number. Hard to find unless you knew the shelf number in the notification email. Even if you knew the shelf number I found myself three books by the same author on the two shelf numbers.
More recently yesterday a book I reserved was on a different shelf number than was specified in my notification email (see image below).
Sadly it is clear from library staff that a numerical system for reserves is here to stay.
I suggest that so that all books for each person has the same shelf number, the shelf number becomes the last digit of a person's library card (0-9).
Within each shelf number a book is found under the day the reserve arrives in the library (01 to 31, hopefully the same date the email is sent).
Since a customer appears to have 10 days to pick up a book, ten days of the month would appear to be required at any time (for each digit 0-9).
Once there are 10 days used the next day's reserves could go back at the beginning of the shelf number after any remaining books not collected (hopefully none) are removed (along with the old day number and the new day number (01 to 31) inserted) after the last day available and future days' books remaining moved forward to make room.
Each day number (01-31) would appear once for each shelf number (0-9) before the first book on that day- perhaps cover an old withdrawn book with paper with each day number on the spine?
When a reserved book arrives in the library the last digit of the library card could be placed on a piece of paper in the book to be removed when it is put on the shelf, to be recycled the next day.
What do you think?
See the image below and page 3 below for a letter appearing in the Western Leader on 9 September:
www.neighbourly.co.nz...
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