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(61) / 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(93) / 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(76) / 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(92) / 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(79) / 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(61) / 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(69) / 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(56) / 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(49) / 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(63) / 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(47) / 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(81) / 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(70) / 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(82) / 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(60) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

Chris Ryan, Chief Executive of the New Zealand Insurance Council, said today that Canterbury earthquake claims will probably be more than $3bn. This will be the biggest payout in New Zealands history for any natural disaster. The second biggest payou

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(47) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

When the anti-whaling ship, the Ady Gil, collided with the Japanese whaling ship the Shona Maru 2, the Ady Gil was badly damaged and later it sank. Listen to Jan 7th 2010 for more about this collision in the Antarctic. Three weeks ago, the New Zealan

发表于:2019-02-18 / 阅读(61) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

One kiwi fruit grower in the Bay of Plenty has discovered a disease in his orchard which has frightened all kiwi fruit growers in the area. Tests have shown that the disease is PSA although they dont yet know which type of PSA it is. This disease is

发表于:2019-02-19 / 阅读(56) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

MPs get money to travel around New Zealand and overseas on important business. However, if they take their family overseas and expect the taxpayer to pay, this can cause trouble. Two MPs are in trouble for this. The first one, Rodney Hide, from the A

发表于:2019-02-19 / 阅读(77) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语

The Labour Party, at their annual conference last weekend, said that they will discuss a capital gains tax. Many countries have a capital gains tax so if you buy a house then sell it at a profit, you pay tax on the profit. Some people buy houses as a

发表于:2019-02-25 / 阅读(135) / 评论(0) 分类 新西兰英语