Yes (for me and probably works for everyone else in NZ who has a hotmail.com account ) sending email to user@hotmail.co.nz goes to user@hotmail.com. I guess as they know I'm in NZ they do this automatically.

I've found no way to send FROM lennonnz@hotmail.co.nz from the webmail tho.

From: Mike Cooper <mikec.cooper@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2011 14:33:35 +1200
To: <phonenet@phonenet.in-newzealand.com>
Cc: nznog <nznog@list.waikato.ac.nz>
Subject: Re: [nznog] Email issue hotmail.co.nz

On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 2:26 PM, Phonenet <phonenet@phonenet.in-newzealand.com> wrote:

Question How is email getting to him at all - is there some sort of wizardry going on that resolves hotmail.co.nz to hotmail.com that is not apparent when checking DNS , tracerouting or trying to browse to hotmail.co.nz?