新西兰英语 533 New Zealanders travel

As the year comes to an end, the Department of Statistics puts out some figures for the year. One surprising figure is that just over 2m New Zealanders went on an overseas trip during the year. This is surprising because our population is only 4.4m.

新西兰英语 532 Samoa first in the world

Samoa is moving the International Date Line and will become the first country in the world to receive the sun instead of the last one. When you cross the International Date Line going east, you go back one day. When you cross going west, you add anot

新西兰英语 531 New Year’s Honours

The New Years Honours list was announced today. Twice a year, the Queen awards honours to people in the Commonwealth countries. These people are those who have done something good for the country. Most of the honours go to people who have worked as v

新西兰英语 530 National plans new welfare benefits

362,400 people aged between 18 and 64 are on welfare benefits. (June 2010 figures). The Prime Minister, John Key, said today that if National is re-elected, there would be changes to the benefits. Sole parents who have children aged 14 and over will

新西兰英语 529 Drowning numbers increasing

A two-year-old toddler drowned in a river in Gisborne yesterday. He is the 13th pre-schooler to drown this year. A number of fishermen drowned at the end of October. Some were fishing from boats or diving for fish while three men were net fishing fro

新西兰英语 528 Fireworks tonight

Listen to Guy Fawkes 2010 to hear about fireworks celebrations last year and Guy Fawkes 2009 to hear the history of Guy Fawkes celebrations. Tonight once again, people will celebrate Guy Fawkes with fireworks. Many cities have free public displays. H

新西兰英语 527 Balancing the books

What does this mean? The books means the budget or the money that we earn and spend. If we balance the books we have enough money coming in to pay for what we spend. The same happens with our government. However, at the moment New Zealand has a very

新西兰英语 525 ACT may win in Epsom

ACT party member John Banks had a cup of tea with Prime Minister John Key this morning in a caf in the Epsom electorate in Auckland. Although John Key cannot say, Vote for John Banks, he said that if Banks wins, the National Party will be happy to ha

新西兰英语 524 Most oil removed from Rena

Most of the oil has now been pumped out of the ship, the Rena, which hit a reef on October 5th. The ship carried 1700 tonnes of heavy oil. 350 tonnes leaked into the sea. This oil killed more than 1300 sea birds and polluted the sand and rocks around

新西兰英语 523 Population statistics

Statistics New Zealand collects population numbers every year from 1st October to the end of September. The latest figures show that New Zealands population on September 30th was 4,414,400. This is equal to 0.06% of the worlds population. We have 33,

新西兰英语 526 Referendum

A referendum is a vote for a policy or idea, not a vote for a person. When we vote for an MP on 26th November, we will also vote in a referendum about the voting system. Part A asks you to vote for one of these: Do you want to keep MMP? Do you want t

新西兰英语 552 Babies’ names

Parents must register the name of their baby before the child is 2 months old. Each year, we learn the most popular names for girls and boys. Last year the most popular girls name was Ruby. This is quite an old name, popular in the time of our grand-

新西兰英语 550 Antarctic exhibition in London

First listen to the previous item: Journey to the South Pole. Tomorrow an exhibition called Scotts Last Expedition opens in London, in the Museum of Natural History. Captain Scott and the four men who went to the South Pole with him, died on their re

新西兰英语 549 Buskers Festival

Once again, Christchurch is hosting the Buskers Festival. This time it is the 19th year. Buskers are street performers. Listen to January 24th 2011 to hear about last years events. This year it will be different but the same, said organizers. The ven

新西兰英语 547 Mining Lignite

Lignite is low grade coal which contains more moisture than high grade coal and is dirty to burn. Southland has ten areas with lignite. Solid Energy, which is a government company, plans to mine this lignite. The company has plans to build a $25m bri

新西兰英语 546 Wind Power plan cancelled

Meridian Energy has decided not to go ahead with their plan to put 176 wind turbines in Central Otago. Local people set up a protest group. This group has spent a lot of time and money fighting to stop Meridian Energy for the last six years. In 2009,

新西兰英语 544 Sale of farms to Chinese

On Friday, the Prime Minister announced that a Chinese company, the Shanghai Pengxin group will be allowed to buy the 16 Crafar dairy farms. The owner of the Shanghai Pengxin group is a billionaire, Jiang Zhaobai. Mr Crafar lost his farms when he was

新西兰英语 543 School starts again

The new school year begins again this week for most schools. Most primary schools start again tomorrow although the Ministry of Education website says the starting date can be any week-day from 30th January to 7th February. February 6th is a national

新西兰英语 542 “Occupy” groups in New Zealand

Occupy Wall St which began in New York in September has spread around the world. By last Saturday, there were 2,668 groups in about 100 countries. Occupy protest groups have been in our main cities for the last six weeks but now councils are getting

新西兰英语 541 Christmas events

Christchurch and Dunedin have their Santa parade tomorrow. Wellington and Auckland had their Santa parades in November 13th for Wellington and 27th for Auckland. It was good weather for both parades. Crowds of people lined the streets to watch the pa