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Listen to New Zealand news, spoken slowly and clearly, using easy vocabulary.
In the last few months, New Zealand house prices have gone up significantly. This was a trend before Covid-19, but they were expected to come down. The government made a new law stopping foreign speculation on New Zealand Houses, and this was not enough to stop house prices rising. Economists thought the Covid-19 recession would cause house prices …
In the South Island, we have a lot of peaches, nectarines, apricots and cherries growing in orchards in the summer. In the Hawkes Bay, a lot of apples need to be picked in the summer. Berries and kiwifruit are grown in the Bay of Plenty. The berries are picked in the summer, and kiwifruit vines need maintenance. Grapes are grown over the summer in …
The election has finished, and the result is that the Labour Party has a majority government. This is unusual in New Zealand because we usually have a coalition government. Even though Labour does have a clear majority, they may still form a coalition with other parties who they have a good relationship with; the Green Party and the Maori Party. Th…
There are several different political parties that you can vote for in the election. Before you vote, you will need to learn about the policies and reputations of the politicans who want your votes. You will also need to learn about the two referendums. There are several good websites that have information about the candidates.Television New Zealan…
After you enrol to vote, the Electoral Commission will send you an EasyVote Card. You can take this card in to the voting place. If you don’t bring a card, that’s okay, you will just have to wait while the workers check your name and address. To find a voting place near you, go here. Most voting places will be open from the third of October until t…
This year, voting places will be open from the third of October. This gives everybody two weeks to vote. This is so that people don’t have to queue up on election day. If you cannot get to a voting place, you can call 0800 36 76 56 to learn about other ways to vote. You could vote by post, or by telephone. People who live overseas can download thei…
If you are over 18 and you have Permanent Residency, and you have lived in New Zealand for over a year, you can vote in the election on October 17. Before you vote, you have to enrol for voting. It is easy to do. If you have a New Zealand passport, driver’s licence or RealMe ID, it is easy to enrol online here. But if you don’t have these things, i…
At the 17 October election, people will need to vote on two referendum questions, as well as voting for a new government. The first referendum question will be about euthanasia, and the second question will be about cannabis. In this article, we will focus on the cannabis question. The referendum question is: “Do you support the proposed Cannabis L…
At the 17th of October election, people will need to vote on a few things. First of all, of course, they will need to vote for a new government. Each person gets two votes: one vote for a local representative, and one vote for a political party. This year, we will also have to vote on two referendum questions. A referendum is a kind of vote about a…
There are four chemicals that you can use to kill Covid-19 when you are cleaning your house. The first is hypochlorite, the main ingredient in bleach. Bleach is a chemical that kills bacteria and viruses, but it can also take the colour out of your clothes, so you have to be careful with it. Another chemical that kills Covid-19 is quaternary ammoni…
Since August the 12th, when Covid-19 appeared in the community once again, people have been looking closely at the people who can come into New Zealand and not be quarantined. People who work on airlines come and go between countries and it seems excessive for them to be quarantined and tested every time they arrive in a new place. Workers who trav…
On August 16 a worker at one of the quarantine facilities caught Covid-19 from a person that he or she had never met. It has forced us to think about how people can catch Covid-19, and what to do about it. Scientists say that the main way to catch the virus is from person-to-person contact. This means that we meet a person, and catch the virus from…
When New Zealand’s alert levels were escalated because of the new Auckland August cluster, people were very upset. Many of them were extremely angry when they discovered that a family with Covid-19 had travelled to Rotorua and Taupo. They said many cruel things about the family online. People invented horrible stories about the family, and this was…
On the 12th of August a new case of Covid-19 was found in the Auckland community. This was after 102 days of New Zealand having no cases of the virus in the community. In response, the government put Auckland into Alert level 3 and the rest of NZ into Alert level 2. This means that Aucklanders should stay home and avoid contact with people who are …
Did you know that international students bring an estimated 5 billion dollars into the New Zealand economy every year? That makes it New Zealand’s fifth largest export industry. Now that New Zealand has closed its borders, business is running out for the international education sector. They can offer online classes, but this does not allow schools …
Thousands of peoplewho applied to rent houses from a Wellington property management company calledLPM between 2014 and 2017 may need to check that their ID is still secure. Thecompany kept scanned copies of important documents such as passports and birthcertificates on an unsecured database that was easy to access. This means that applicantswhose d…
story New Zealand’s rugby league team, the Warriors, haverelocated to Australia for the winter so that they can participate in the rugbyleague season. They went to Australia in May and went through the quarantineprocess. They are now based in Tamworth, New South Wales. No doubt they misstheir families, and perhaps this is why they have been on a lo…
story By the middle of June,it seemed that Covid-19 might be gone from New Zealand because there were nonew cases for 23 days. However, many NewZealanders have been returning home from overseas, and people have beencomplaining that the quarantine processes have been too casual. On the 16thof June, we discovered that two New Zealanders returning fro…
Today is the twelfth day in which New Zealand has had no newcases of Covid-19. There is only one case of Covid-19 that is still active, andthe patient is not in hospital. We are now at alert level 2, which has allowed people tobegin traveling inside the country, as long as they still practice socialdistancing. Last weekend was a public holiday, and…
story On Wednesday New Zealand’s covid-19 alert level moved downto level 2, which gives people a lot more freedom to move around, as long asthey are careful. People can travel, go to work, and even go to restaurants,but they still have to maintain good hand hygiene and physical distancing. Good hand hygiene means that people wash their hands often,…
This week New Zealand’s lockdown has eased from Alert Level4 to Alert Level 3. This means that people can drive short distances from theirhomes, and they can go to work if it is not possible to work from home. Children can go to school if their parents want this, butfamilies are encouraged to let their children study from home if possible. Many peo…
When you are reading the news aboutCovid-19, you may feel puzzled over some new words. In this article, I willexplain some of these words, and give sentences showing the usage. I hope thishelps! Alert level 4: this is New Zealand’s plan for controlling Covid-19 when it is already spreading in the community. see https://covid19.govt.nz/government-ac…
March 3rd wasWorld Hearing Day. Around the world, young people are at risk of losing theirhearing through exposure to loud noise. Onein 5 young people around the world have a hearing loss and this is likely todouble in the next 30 years. Many young people are listening to music for toolong and too loudly through headphones. This can cause hearing l…
This week we have seen a few different responses to theCovid-19 virus. Italy and Spain put their populations under lockdown. This wassimilar to what China had done during the first outbreak in Wuhan. In alockdown, people are mostly not allowed to travel away from their homes. TheAmerican president banned all travel into America from Europe, and lat…
story While New Zealand, atthe moment, does not have any cases of people who have the coronavirus, oureconomy will be affected. New Zealand is closedto Chinese tourists and this is bad news for tourist industries like bungyjumping, jet boating, and so many other kinds of adventure tourism. Towns likeRotorua and Queenstown depend on tourists to fill…
story We have had very hightemperatures and very little rain this summer in many parts of the country. Theresult is low water levels in our rivers. Many towns use water from rivers fortheir supply of water to houses. People who live in rural districts often relyon rain water to fill their water tanks and if it doesn’t rain, they have tobuy water. S…
Thanks to Pat Syme for this article New Zealand is a small country but we have a variety of geographical features and climate. Geographical features vary from plains to mountains and includes lakes, rivers, coasts and deserts. The climate also varies, with the east coast of both islands often dry while the west coast has a high rainfall. Last week,…
Thanks to Pat Syme for this article Nearly 200 visitors toWuhan were able to return to NZ on Wednesday in a special AirNZ plane. Another60 people were expected at Wuhan airport but did not arrive in time for theflight. The passengers were New Zealanders, Australians, Pacific Islanders anda few from Britain. Wuhan is in lockdownat the moment because…
story Yesterday there was an orange haze in the skies of Aucklandas smoke from the Australian bushfires drifted 2,000 kilometers across theTasman sea. Yesterday afternoon it got so dark, it felt like an eclipse. Therewere reports of several people calling the emergency number, 111, to tell thepolice that the sky looked strange. At night, people not…
s New Zealand’s volcanic White Island, alsocalled Whakaari, erupted on Monday. Whakaari is New Zealand’s most activevolcano and a popular tourist attraction. More than 10,000 people visit the volcano every year. When the volcano erupted, there were two tourgroups on the island, a total of 47 people. Some of the people were NewZealanders, and others…
