Just something I want to share with you. It's about the unique New Zealand climate conditions.
Have a look at http://www.climate-charts.com/World-Climate-Maps.html
NZ has a similar temperature to southern Europe also with similar rainfall. The wind speed in NZ is slightly higher (should rather be a reason to build airtighter and watertighter) and humidity levels are also pretty similar to southern Europe. (Yes, of course there are variations, NZ is covering q wide climatic range after all, but so does Europe)
ProClima has presented examples of climate comparison in detail and I guess I can recall that Christchurch was almost spot on with Nantes. You will find that many places in NZ are somewhat comparable with the Mediterranean regions just more rain and wind.
But do you believe anybody in those regions would build an underinsulated, draughty house?
From my personal experience this “unique NZ climate” is the best excuse to build cheap as chips. I come across that every day at work.
We cannot build properly because we do not have the funds to do it and to calm us self down and get over that fact, we refer back to the “unique” climate requirements.