新西兰英语 112 A Meeting about Jobs

　　Today, 200 business and community leaders met in Auckland to talk about saving¹ jobs. The Prime² Minister, the Minister of Finance³ and the Governor⁴ of the Reserve Bank all spoke⁵ to the meeting. They are worried about unemployment and say that many people will lose jobs in the future so everybody must help to save jobs.
Groups of people talked about good ways to help people keep their jobs. They made a list of about 600 ideas. The government then chose 20 of these ideas to think about some more.
Here are some of the ideas:
Workers would work for nine days each fortnight and the tenth day would be for more training or community work. The government would pay for this day.
Both public and private money could be used to help bring more tourists to New Zealand.
The government could help banks to provide money for small businesses to borrow. 97% of New Zealand businesses are very small, employing under 20 people. These businesses need to borrow money so that they can grow and employ more people but banks do not have enough money to lend them.
Another plan would be to build a cycle way from the north of the North Island to the south of the South Island. This would employ 4,000 people and take two years to build. It would be used by tourists as well as New Zealanders.
Now the government has to decide what to do about these ideas.

1 saving   

n.节省，节约；[pl.]储蓄金，存款

参考例句：

• Energy saving is term strategic policy of our country.节约能源是我国长期的战略国策。
• Old-fashioned housewives were usually very saving.旧时的家庭主妇通常都很节俭。

2 prime   

adj.首要的，主要的；最好的，第一流的

参考例句：

• The prime minister spoke of the general insecurity in the country.总理谈到了全国普遍存在的不安全。
• He met with the Prime Minister of Japan for an hour.他和日本首相会见了一个小时。

3 finance   

n.财务管理，财政，金融，财源，资金

参考例句：

• She is an expert in finance.她是一名财政专家。
• A finance house made a bid to buy up the entire company.一家信贷公司出价买下了整个公司。

4 governor   

n.统治者，地方长官(如省长，州长，总督等)

参考例句：

• The governor was an expert at fencing with reporters.这位州长是搪塞新闻记者的能手。
• He was elected governor of the state of California.他当选为加州州长。

5 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。