Waitangi Day is the national holiday celebrated in New Zealand on 6 February every year. It commemorates the signing of a treaty between the British Crown and the indigenous Maori population in 1840.

I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains. This quote is the start of one verse of My Country, by Dorothy McKellar - a poem that I (and a number of my friends of the same age as me) had to memorise in Grade 3 or 4. The issue of droughts and floods in Australia is just as prevalent now as it was when MacKellar wrote her poem, with most Australians obsessing over not enough rain or too much rain, depending on where they live.

Following Liz's lead from where she blogged about the Latin American women nominated in the 2007 bloggies, here is a wrap up of the women nominated in the category of Australian & New Zealand blogs: Nikita Kashner is a 22 year old from Perth in Western Australia, who blogs about her life - her posts usually make me laugh, like this one about Kim Beazley, former leader of the federal Opposition.

The 26th January is Australia Day - a public holiday in Australia where we commemorate the arrival of white settlers on the First Fleet in 1788. For me, Australia Day has always consisted of a number of traditional events with family and friends: backyard cricket (while drinking a beer), jumping in the swimming pool fully clothed after getting all hot and sweaty playing cricket, listening to the Triple J Hottest 100 countdown, watching the Australian Open Tennis on TV, a BBQ lunch or dinner, eating watermelon and ripe juicy mangoes... Here's a wrap up of Australia Day from the blogosphere:

Organisers of the Big Day Out music festival in Australia sparked controversy this week, with their initial banning of the Australian flag from the festival in Sydney, declaring that they would confiscate flags at the gate and that the Australian flag was being used as gang colours to fuel racist hate. Within 24 hours, after much political controversy, organisers reversed this decision by calling it "a request and not a command" to leave the flag at home.