I think it's a far more useful shorthand when I'm not in New Zealand. When I'm overseas, or talking to people overseas, I might be talking to someone who has a relatively similar upbringing and experiences to mine, but there are still enough points of difference that it's useful to recognise a different national context.

While it's true that a number of those differences can be illustrated by the country's legal frameworks (how we treat law and order, establish and deploy government services, and so forth), our laws don't exist independently of our society. Despite what some politicians might prefer, I don't feel it's a one-way imposition of laws that shape society. While not perfectly, our laws reflect society too.