New Zealand only has a population of 4.2 million, which is a little less than the population of Chennai in India. It is easy to forget this if you live in Auckland, New Zealand’s most populous city where about 1.3 million people live.
When my dear friend (and ACT party supporter) Glenda took me to my first political meeting, it came as something of a shock. A political meeting of a minor party in India would involve 1000s of people, but here I was in a small pub, sitting three meters away from the likes of Roger Douglas. It is at times like this when the size and population of New Zealand hits you.
Yesterday Glenda organised a meeting for people in her area to come and hear about the ACT party. Again it was not a very large gathering. Glenda’s daughter baked the cake in the photo. “We raffled the cake to help cover costs,” Glenda wrote to me after the meeting, “Chris won it, which was great! He’s taking it into the ACT office today to share with everyone.” Doesn’t all this just prove my point about the small-community feeling one gets living in New Zealand?
Courage to tremble 
It sounds wonderful. I spent my first 28 years in Los Angeles, which likely has more people (in the greater L.A. area) than all of New Zealand. Moving to my town of less than 100,000 was a big change – a welcome one really.