Codes for Kiwis

I read in The Australian this week that New Zealand is introducing a full national system of post codes. It was only a short article, but the four paragraphs managed to be pretty superior about the fact that our neighbours across the water were only just attaining this level of sophistication. This is very much in keeping with Australian attitudes to New Zealand generally, despite recent rugby results.

Personally, I find it rather encouraging that they’ve managed without codes until now. What it says to me is that, by and large, their communities are of a manageable, humane size and they’ve presumably been able to provide a decent service without reducing every neighbourhood to a sequence of digits or digits and letters.

Even now, they only need a four-digit code, as opposed to the six or seven letters and digits you have in the UK. And Australia is still getting by with only four digits for the whole continent.