Want a hint as to why scientists aren't clammoring to get into NZ?

This week's Royal Society Alert on the Marsden Fund:

Mr Jordan noted that the success rate for applications was less than 10%
and this means that many brilliant proposals are not funded. "This not only
causes great disappointment for some of our very best researchers but also
represents lost opportunity. The Royal Society of New Zealand would like to
see continued expansion of the Fund, beyond its current 5% of Vote RS&T."

hhmm, i can just imagine the tea room discussion - let's go somewhere 15 hours flight time from anywhere and do great research in isolation with 70's era infrastructure and an horrendous chance of success for funding, oh what a challenge that would be...

As for the RS saying how wonderfully the Marsden Fund is allocated by... the Royal Society, let's not get carried away. I for one wish we had a more bulk funded approach - shock horror, let senior scientists become managers and develop their own research directions with gasp! budget control and medium term funding stability! but would the civil service do to add value in such a scenario?