I’m a New Zealander too, but live in Australia now. Prompted by your reply I have edited my post to read “Health Insurance is compulsory in Australia”.

Curiously I came to Australia as a refugee from Helengrad, Helen Clark’s increasingly high-taxed and uncompetitive New Zealand, only to get even worse from Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard here. When I arrived Australia had a $20 billion cash balance, now we have half a Trillion dollars in Debt. Incomes are higher here, but taxes are on the rise. Maybe I should return to New Zealand, now the National Government has fixed most of Helen’s errors.