Actually Ohakea sector is 24% and is currently looking at 24hrs which will take the AIL up to around 30%!
As an ATCO you won't make ends meet, unless your wife works as well.
That would indicate that most Kiwi's don't make ends meet given that ATCO salaries are in about the top 10% salary group in NZ!!
NZ is as expensive as you make it - if you dine out all the time, buy the dearest cuts of meat and eat like a king, go night clubbing etc - sure you won't have alot of money at the end of it. If you are careful with your money, make you lunch and cook your dinner, get an average rental (house) you should have plenty left over to tiki tour around the place. I think the mentallity is the more you earn the more you spend therefore the more you feel you can't make ends meet. I know many people who live very well and are not even earning half of what I get paid. If you take off your Off Duty days, Annual Leave, Days In Lieu, and Sick Leave - you only work 190 odd days of the year. Of those 190 days you only work a 1/3rd of each day - generally less with early releases. If you CHOOSE to work a recall on an Off Duty day - you get paid well for it. Extra money on public holidays over and above your AIL.......is it really that bad???