The Canterbury earthquake on Sept 4th was unusual because no one was killed. It is the only city in the world which has experienced a 7.1 magnitude earthquake without any deaths. Part of the reason for this is our building code. New buildings have to

发表于:2019-02-08 / 阅读(65) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

When votes for mayor of Wellington were counted on Saturday, Kerry Prendergast had won by 40 votes. She has been the mayor for 9 years. However, when the special votes were counted yesterday, Celia Wade-Brown won 176 more votes than Kerry Prendergast

发表于:2019-02-08 / 阅读(109) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Firemen have spent the last three days putting out a bush fire in Mahia. Mahia is on the East Coast of the North Island, south of Gisborne. More than 100 fire officers and helpers with fire trucks and helicopters have been fighting the fire. The heli

发表于:2019-02-08 / 阅读(111) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Mary Anne Thompson, the ex-head of Immigration New Zealand, was sentenced in the High Court today. She was given a fine of $10,000 and has to do 100 hours community service. She claimed on her CV that she had a PhD from the London School of Economics

发表于:2019-02-09 / 阅读(64) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

The Prime Minister, John Key, has chosen Hekia Parata to replace Pansy Wong. Ms Parata has also been given three Associate Minister positions: Associate Minister of ACC, Energy and Resources, and Community and Voluntary Sector. She has only been an M

发表于:2019-02-11 / 阅读(53) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

An avalanche is a huge snow slide. It can kill skiers or climbers who are buried in this snow slide. The latest cold weather brought snow to mountains and other high places. Strong winds pushed much more snow onto some places and this could slide dow

发表于:2019-02-11 / 阅读(56) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

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

发表于:2019-02-15 / 阅读(84) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

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

发表于:2019-02-16 / 阅读(69) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

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

发表于:2019-02-16 / 阅读(86) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Air NZ showed what their new planes will look like inside. The CEO of Air NZ said that there have been many improvements for Business class passengers in the past few years but nothing for Economy class. The new planes, the Boeing 777-300 model, will

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(71) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

See Waitangi Day 2008 Today, Waitangi celebrations were held as usual but it was not a day of protest. It was a day for celebrating that Maori and Pakeha people are united in this country. Thousands of families came to celebrate. They enjoyed the foo

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(58) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

The government has decided to add 3 cents a litre in October this year and another 3 cents next year to the cost of petrol. This 6 cents will be used for more roads and mostly in Auckland. Last year, the Labour government allowed regions to add a tax

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(61) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

The Minister of Justice, Simon Power, wants to limit trial by jury to serious crimes. At the moment, anyone who is accused of a crime which could bring a sentence of three months in jail, can choose to have a jury trial. The problem is that this take

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(46) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Parliament is in urgency when the government wants to pass a law in a hurry. In this case, the government is in a hurry to set up the new Auckland super-city council before the local body elections in November next year. The government wants to set u

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(42) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Listen to other items on ANZAC Day April 24 2009 and April 25 2008 April 25th is ANZAC Day, the day when we remember New Zealand soldiers who died in wars. April 25th, 1915 was the day when Australia and New Zealand soldiers (they were called ANZACs)

发表于:2019-02-17 / 阅读(52) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Today, the Minister for Climate Change, Nick Smith, introduced an ETS Emissions Trading Scheme bill into Parliament. This will change the ETS that the Labour government passed. Dr Smith said that it was important not to be too tough on industry becau

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(43) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

See June 26th 2008 for background to this news. On Saturday, eight Maori iwi celebrated the Treelord settlement in Turangi near Lake Taupo. It is called Treelord because the fishing settlement with another iwi was called Sealord. The celebrations at

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(69) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

New Zealand has had MMP voting for our Members of Parliament for the last 16 years. MMP means Mixed Member Proportional. The system we had before MMP was called First Past the Post, like horse racing, where the winner was the one with the most votes.

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(65) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Yesterday two police officers were shot and injured in Christchurch. A police dog was shot dead. The police officers did not have guns because they did not expect trouble. They were looking for a missing mental health patient and went to a house next

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(74) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Cabinet Ministers like the Minister for Foreign Affairs, or the Minister for Trade or the Minister for the Environment have to travel overseas as part of their job. They have a credit card to pay for expenses such as hotels, taxis and food. They are

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(54) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语