新西兰英语 581 Strikes

The workers at the Ports of Auckland are still on strike and the workers at Affco meat works are also on strike. The workers at the Ports of Auckland are called watersiders, stevedores, dock workers or wharfies. Their union has been negotiating with

新西兰英语 580 Otago Rugby Union is saved

The Otago Rugby Football Union (ORFU) is 131 years old but it is in financial trouble. It owes $2.35m, some to the Bank of New Zealand (the BNZ), the Dunedin City Council (DCC) and local businesses. For the last two weeks it seemed it would be in liq

新西兰英语 579 Boating tragedy

A 12 metre fishing boat with nine people on board capsized in Foveaux Strait on Wednesday night around midnight. This was only an hour after it left Bluff near Invercargill. Nobody realized that the boat had capsized and sunk until 2pm on Thursday wh

新西兰英语 578 Rain in Northland

Northland has had heavy rain and strong winds for the past 24 hours with flooding in some areas. About 200mm of rain fell last night and it is still raining. Some farm land is flooded. Some roads and schools are closed and the police said that people

新西兰英语 577 Te Urewera trial

In October 2007, the police arrested 18 people from the Maori iwi, Ngai Tuhoe, in Te Urewera. The police said that these people were training in secret for possible terrorist activities like kidnapping. The police had taken secret videos showing thes

新西兰英语 576 Tickets for Comedy show

Tickets for The Flight of the Conchords went on sale today and sold out in a very short time. The Flight of the Conchords is a comedy show with songs written and performed by two young New Zealand men: Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie. They became f

新西兰英语 575 New Road Rules

Two road rules changed at 5am today. The first one is that traffic turning right must give way. The second one is at a T intersection. Often there is a Give Way, or Stop sign at these intersections so there is no problem. However, if there is no sign

新西兰英语 574 Funeral of Tongan king

King George Tupou V of Tonga died last week in a Hong Kong hospital. He had been visiting the UK and was on his way home with his brother when he became ill. Although he had kidney surgery last year, he seemed to be in good health this year. His deat

新西兰英语 573 Change your clock on Sunday

Daylight Saving time finishes on Sunday April 1st, at 2am. It is time to put your clock back one hour. To help you remember which way to change your clock, you can say, Spring Forward, Fall Back. Fall is the American word for Autumn. The verb to spri

新西兰英语 571 The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

This year, Queen Elizabeth celebrates 60 years as Queen of Great Britain and the Commonwealth. Her father, King George VI, died on February 6th 1952. Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, were visiting Kenya at the time, on their way to Canada. T

新西兰英语 570 Is this summer?

Much of New Zealand has been very cloudy and cool so far this month. However, some inland places, especially Central Otago, have had hot weather. Usually February is our hottest month so the cool temperatures and winds for most of us are disappointin

新西兰英语 569 Why the CTV building collapsed

The Royal Commission on the Canterbury Earthquakes has been trying to find out why some buildings collapsed on February 22nd 2011. Their report last week was about the CTV building, which killed 115 people when it collapsed and fire broke out. After

新西兰英语 568 Blind athlete in the Coast-to-Coast

First, listen to Coast-to-Coast Race to hear more about this race. Neelusha Memon, aged 27, was always keen on sports. In the year 2000, at the age of 16, she fell ill with a serious disease and was in a coma for four months. When she woke from the c

新西兰英语 572 Lantern Festival

During the weekend, Auckland celebrated the end of the Chinese New Year with a Lantern Festival in Albert Park. A big crowd of people attended. Next weekend, Christchurch will celebrate the Lantern Festival in Hagley Park. The Lantern Festival is usu

新西兰英语 268 Volcano Watch group

The head of the International Airways Volcano Watch group, Peter Lechner who lives in Wellington, said today that their group has been warning about volcanoes for the last 10 years or more. There are nine volcanic ash warning centres around the world

新西兰英语 266 Raising the driving age

Listen to March 3rd 2010 for background to this. The Minister of Transport, Steven Joyce, said there will be changes for young drivers to improve road safety. We already know that the government has planned to raise the driving age to 16 but this is

新西兰英语 282 Violence in Thailand

Since March there has been conflict in the streets of Bangkok between the Red Shirt protestors, who support the last Prime Minister, and the Thai army. However in the last fortnight the violence has increased, with over 60 people dead and more than 1

新西兰英语 280 Public Transport for the Rugby World Cup

In 2011 the Rugby World Cup will be held in New Zealand for the second time. Many of the games will be held in Auckland and some games will have up to 60,000 people attending. With a lot of extra people moving around the city there could be some seri

新西兰英语 205 Labour Day

Today is Labour Day. Most of us celebrate the day by enjoying a holiday. However, the reason for Labour Day at first was to celebrate the eight-hour working day. The story about the eight-hour working day in New Zealand is about a carpenter called Sa

新西兰英语 203 Boy Racers

Listen also to May 26th 2009 The law to crush boy racers cars passed in Parliament today. The government hopes that boy racers will be so frightened of having their cars crushed that they will drive sensibly. The Minister of Police, Judith Collins, s