Know Your Rights

As a consumer, it is very important to know your rights. Your job as a consumer is to know your rights to ensure that you do not buy a faulty product, pay more than you intend to. There are many rules and regulations regarding products. The Fair Trading Act is an exceptional example of this, it protects consumers from purchasing faulty or falsely advertised products, it also protects consumers when they have purchased a faulty product. For example, if you buy a desk with a missing drawer, if it fits the policy, you have the right to get a full refund or another model of the same desk. If the producer refuses to do this then you have the right to take them to court or report them, unless it states in their policy that they do not accept refunds or swaps. Knowing your rights as a consumer can protect you from any problems with producers in the future.

The Rights Of Consumers and Responsibility Of Producers

The fair trading act protects consumers from misleading or deceptive behaviour from traders.
The act protects consumers from false claims about what the product is. It deals with unfair contract terms,
product safety and even where it comes from. The Commerce Commission also deals with sales and promotion. The Commerce Commission's main goal is to play their part in ensuring that markets work
properly so consumers and businesses are confident in the marketplace. The consumer is responsible for
the act, if the act isn’t being followed, the consumers can also take their own legal action. But the act applies
to both the producers and consumers. If there is misleading or deceptive behaviour being shown by the
producers, the consumers will be protected by the Fair Trading Act.

The Act of Compliance of obligations applies to both the consumers and the producers. However, the obligation does not apply to consumers that intend to get a refund after they deliberately used it all up or ruined it in some way. On the other hand, if you buy a faulty product and try to return it, it is the producer's obligation to either refund the product or give you the same model of the product. In most cases, stores have a returns policy, and if the policy doesn’t apply to the product, you are not protected by the policy. The producers must put their feet in the shoes of the consumers. The business would have to consider the consumers and what they would want and how they would want it to be presented. The commission's job is to investigate the allegations of a producer and to enforce the Fair Trading Act. In conclusion, the Act of Compliance of obligations applies to both the producers and consumers in different ways.

When reporting a business you can go to a range of different sites such as https://comcom.govt.nz and report a business through their complaint form or you could call them through this phone number, 0800 943 600 or email contact@comcom.govt.nz with your concerns about a certain business or producer.

Traditional Maori Medicine

For Social Studies, our class has been learning about early European settlement in New Zealand. I have learned about traditional Maori Medicine and all of the many aspects of it. I also have learned about traditional Maori cloaks. I never realised how amazing the Maori culture was until I research further and deeper into the parts of culture that I never even considered looking at. Digging deeper into my countries history has been a great experience, I think that learning about your countries origin and how it works is very important!  Here is the link to the video of Molly, Connor and I talking about Maori medicine... https://www.wevideo.com/view/1191081226
I made two piktocharts about Maori medicine and about Maori cloaks. The Maori cloaks piktochart somehow deleted, thank goodness I had a backup slide!

What type of government New Zealand has (I finished first)

There are three elements of the New Zealand system of government. The first one is the Legislature also known as Parliament. This is our house of representatives where all the MP's sit. The next element is the executive branch also known as the government. It runs the country. They also make decisions on what and how New Zealand spends their money. The final element is the judiciary, The courts. They are judges and courts. They interpret the law and make changes to it. These elements are very important to New Zealand because they all have a big impact to New Zealand and its future generation. For instance, Parliament makes all the laws, update old ones and give a voice to the people without and approve the government taxes and spending. The government is also very important to New Zealand because it basically runs the country. They make decisions on what New Zealand should spend their money on. They suggest new laws to Parliament, and decides on policies which get put into practice by government departments. Lastly, the judiciary is also very important because they explain the law in cases the come before the court by hearing and deciding cases. They sometimes review decisions made by the government. Overall, the three elements of the New Zealand Government is very important, they impact our everyday lives.

In New Zealand we have 7 political partys - National, Green, Labour, New Zealand 1st, Maori and ACT. At the moment our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, is leader of the Labour Party.

Social Studies; Different forms of government; Monarchies

In Social studies we're learning about form of goverments and at the moment we're looking at royal families and dictatorship. We had to make a mindmap with 10 facts about The Royal family and   monarchs in general. 

Social studies: Family traditions

FAMILY TRADITIONS 

Since school started, in Social Studies our class has been exploring our different cultures and backgrounds. Personally, I am half Asian and half European. My mother and her family are from Malaysia, and my father and his family are mainly from Europe and New Zealand. Since I am Muslim, our family has quite a few traditions, but there are some that most people celebrate in New Zealand but we aren't actually supposed to celebrate. Yesterday in class, everyone in our class wrote some traditions and clothes that they have, we also wrote some food and drinks that they may have. Here is my list of traditions, clothes and food and drinks that my family has.

Ramadan
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting to celebrate the first revelation of the Quran to Muhammad according to Islamic belief. The fast is supposed to bring the faithful closer to Allah (God) and to remind them of the suffering and the less fortunate. Fasting is supposed to be physically and spiritually detoxifying, it can also help break habits like smoking, morning coffee and midday snacking. To prepare for the fast, Muslims eat Suhoor, which is a pre-dawn meal of power foods to get them through the day. At the end of the day, at sunset, Muslims break their fast like the Prophet Muhammad did, with a sip of water and some dates.  But there are also some exceptions for particular people...  there are exceptions for children, the elderly, the sick, women who are pregnant or menstruating and people travelling, which could include athletes during tournaments.

Hari Raya
Eid al-Fitr or Hari Raya is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. What our family does is go to our relatives and friends houses throughout the week to celebrate. We all gather and eat basically. Since most of us had spent a whole month fasting, we have a massive meal that everyone eats. We eat curries, rice, chicken, all sorts of things. This goes throughout the week. At the end of each Hari Raya celebrations, the children all get money! This can sometimes be a reward for the children that have fasted during Ramadan. 


Baju Kurung
Baju Kurung is a traditional Malay Costume which is the national dress of Malaysia. Baju Kurung is typically loose fitting. It is a full length dress, made up of a skirt and blouse. It is made from a long cloth with a folding thing on one side. The blouse is collarless with long sleeves. Sometimes these can be made of silk! The girls in our family wear Baju Kurung on Hari Raya. There is also a men's version of Baju Kurung as well. The Baju Melayu is a loosely fitted shirt with long sleeves, worn with long pants with a sampin. Sampin is the cloth worn on the belly area covering up to the knees or slightly below, or the mid area of the body. Sampin is worn with Baju Melayu, the traditional clothes for Malay men. 


FOOD
There are a lot of foods that my family eat, but here are two of my favourites,


NASI LEMAK: Nasi Lemak is a Malay Dish which is served in a Pandan leaf. Sometimes, Nasi Lemak can be different. It really depends where you get it! But the one that I have consists of... Coconut rice, fried chicken, sambal (chilli paste), fried anchovies, boiled egg, cucumbers and roasted peanuts. Nasi Lemak is seen as the National dish of Malaysia! My family eats it when we are in Malaysia and on Hari Raya. We typically have it for Breakfast in Malaysia!



KETUPAT: Ketupat is a rice cake that is served with hot Penut sauce. But it's not the rice cake your thinking of. Its a cake made of sticky rice that is served cold with hot peanut sauce. Sometimes its served with chicken as well!






TEH TARIK: Teh Tarik is a drink that can be found in Malaysia. It is made from black tea and condensed milk with sugar. This drink is very sweet and probably contains a lot of calories but it's so good! I normally see Teh Tarik at night markets in Malaysia. But we also have it on Hari Raya and at family gatherings.