新西兰英语 02 Food Miles

The Prime Minister, Helen Clark, went to Germany after the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference. In Germany she made a speech about the environment and what New Zealand is doing to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Even though New Zeala

新西兰英语 09 New Zealand’s First Hijack Attempt

New Zealand had its first hijack attempt on Friday when a woman tried to make the pilot of a small plane fly her to Australia. The plane was flying from Blenheim to Christchurch, a distance of 250km. It was a small plane with only 7 passengers on boa

新西兰英语 07 Youth Policies

This week, the leaders of both main political parties gave their plans if they win the election later this year. John Key, the leader of the Opposition (the National Party) talked about young people and crime. The Prime Minister, Helen Clark, talked

新西兰英语 396 Queensland recovering after cyclone

Cyclone Yasi, a category 5 cyclone, hit the coast of northern Queensland yesterday. Winds up to 290 km per hour caused damage to houses, yachts in harbours, power lines, trees and crops. Heavy rain caused flooding. High waves washed over the land. Th

新西兰英语 394 Pike River Coal Mine Inquest

An inquest is a court which tries to find out the cause of death after an accident or violent death. A coroner is the judge in this court. Yesterday, the chief coroner held an inquest in Greymouth to find out the cause of death in the Pike River Mine

新西兰英语 425 New Earthquake Recovery Dept

The government has set up a new department called the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority or CERA. The job of CERA is to rebuild Christchurch. CERA will exist for just five years. It will have a staff of 50, mostly from other government departme

新西兰英语 740 Great Bunny Hunt

For the last 23 years, hunters have been invited to shoot rabbits on Good Friday in Central Otago. This is a 24 hour event, starting at 9am on Friday. The dead rabbits are counted on Saturday. This year 18,027 rabbits were killed. The record was in 2

新西兰英语 747 Same-sex marriage

On Wednesday night, Parliament passed the second reading of the same-sex marriage bill. It still has to pass the third reading, which should be some time soon. However, usually the second reading is the most important so probably this bill will be pa

新西兰英语 746 Rain

Farmers welcomed the rain which began in the weekend. A few areas had 10 to 40mm of rain but many places had only drizzle or scattered showers today. This is a good start but not enough. The drought is so severe that a few days of light rain will do

新西兰英语 745 Teachers’ Pay

Ever since August last year when a new computer pay system started, there have been major problems with teachers pay. A few teachers have been paid too much, many have been paid too little and some have not been paid at all. In total, this is about 1

新西兰英语 744 Death of famous mountaineer

George Lowe, a famous New Zealand mountaineer, died yesterday at the age of 89. He was born in Hastings and became a teacher. During the school holidays, he climbed in the Southern Alps where he met Edmund Hillary and they became good friends. In 195

新西兰英语 743 Zespri in trouble

Zespri is the New Zealand company which markets New Zealand kiwifruit here and overseas. Zespri owned a branch company in China to manage importing kiwifruit between 2008 and 2010. Now a Shanghai court has found one employee of that company guilty of

新西兰英语 742 EQC apologises

EQC sent an email by mistake to the wrong person. The email contained private information about 83,000 earthquake damage claims. While it did not have names, it gave addresses and information about the damage at that address and the amount of money i

新西兰英语 741 Easter holidays

Easter Friday, Sunday and Monday are probably the most important days in the Christian calendar. For this reason, these days have been bank holidays in New Zealand since 1873 and then they became holidays for most workers. However, in recent years, f

新西兰英语 739 House Prices

Average house prices have increased by 6.7% in the last 12 months in New Zealand. However, the increase in Auckland central city was 11%. The reason for the increase was partly because mortgage rates are low at the moment, around 6%. There is also a

新西兰英语 738 Hot, dry summer

Parts of New Zealand have had an unusually hot, dry summer so far. In the North Island, the east coast and central areas have had temperatures in the low 30s or high 20s. This is the same for most of the South Island, except for the West Coast. The W

新西兰英语 737 Waitangi

If you do not already know about Waitangi Day, listen to previous podcasts: February 5th 2012 and February 6th 2011. Waitangi is in the Bay of Islands. It is just a short walk from the town of Paihia and across the harbour from Russell. There is a sh

新西兰英语 736 Solomon Islands earthquake

A strong earthquake hit the Solomon Islands on Wednesday. It was 8.0 on the Richter scale and was followed 40 minutes later by a 7.0 earthquake. This was only 10km deep. There was a small tsunami about 1.5 metres high which killed some elderly people

新西兰英语 735 Julia Gillard visits NZ

John Key met the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, in Queenstown at the weekend. They discussed a number of things including the rights of New Zealanders living in Australia. Ms Gillard said that New Zealanders are like family in Australia an

新西兰英语 734 Baby Names

The 10 most popular girls names for 2012 in New Zealand were Olivia, Sophie, Emily, Charlotte, Ruby, Ella, Amelia, Sophia, Ava, Chloe. In 2011, the most popular girls name was Ruby. The 10 most popular boys names for 2012 were Jack, Oliver, William,