Hmm, as is probably obvious to the two of you, most of us up here in the states are clueless concerning your politics, and up until now the only thing we've heard from the NZ Anglicans has been stuff from your former wacko archbishop who sounds just like one of our wackos. Indeed most of us have only ever seen your country via watching The Lord of the Rings movies (though most folks also understand that there are really far fewer orcs, trolls, wizards, hobbits, and so forth, than the movies would lead one to expect).
In any case, do you have some web pointers for places to learn about conservative folks from your country? I think we'd all appreciate the education...or at least most of us would.
To add to shaggy's points, I recommend going over threads about NZ on the "news" section of this board. a lot of resident Kiwi freepers do comment on these threads. Another good place to explore politically conservative NZ opinions is to visit this weblog site:
http://www.npundit.com
(Unfortunately this blog has three authors. One is an atheist, another is a gay Catholic, and third one is not sure so if you want to look at Christian issues i don't think they will have that many)
New Zealand is perhaps one of the most thoroughly secular liberal countries in the Western world (I would say even Oregon looks like the Bible Belt by comparison). We have around 26% of people who have officially no religion, and another 10% who are Buddhists, Muslisms, etc and even many of those who are officially "Christian" are those who will go to church for three things: baptism, wedding, and funeral. From my personal experience most of the Europeans/Pakeha (whites in American usage) of my age (around 20s) right up to 30s aren't Christians. Their knowledge of Jesus and faith is so scacre to the point that Dr Charles Stanley noted "They don't even know who Jesus is" on a trip two years ago. They could be politically leftist or rightist - not all (or even a majority of them) are Labour/Green supporters. And most European NZers from 40s to 65 are like the CINOs (Christian in Name Only) you see in the States. For example, Dr Don Brash, the currently very popular conservative NZ National Party leader in parliament (and could be our next Prime Minister), is an agnostic - he admires John Spong and he says he is still a "Christian" because it is institutionally a traditional NZ moral fabric but he does not believe in the gospel or Jesus as his Saviour. Pacific Island migrants are heavily conservative Christians, but politically they vote the centre-left Labour (just like many Hispanic or Asian Christians in the US vote Democrat). About the original Maori people (not that indigenous - they arrived at NZ around AD 1000 but before that the country was uninhabited), the rural are conservative Christians (Anglicans) or Catholics, but for urban Maoris, anything goes. I believe 1/2 of them are conservative Christians and the rest New Age spiritualists.
In general, just like America, the Left among European NZers in NZ is almostly universally anti-Christian, but unlike the US, the Right in NZ have many who aren't Christians but their attitudes towards us is more like "live and let live, as you Christians won't pose dangers to NZ as radical Islam does".
Sorry, I meant the site http://www.nzpundit.com
And speaking of John Paterson, I saw him in person around a few years back. To me he appeared quite insincere and be honest, his attitudes and manners are far more like of an administration bureaucrat than a Christian.