potential

A key difference between other countries and New Zealand is how they use the word potential.

Others us it to describe the potential of ideas, technology, persons.

In NZ, it is almost always used to describe the potential of a risk, whether ecological - use of the sea (fishing, farming, windmills, mining), use of the land (farming, forestry, windmills, damns, mining), etc. - or scientific catastrophism (atomic, geothermal, etc.).

The only potential they never discuss is either military implications and being invaded. Potentially they don't realise the North & South islands are just a larger version of the Rēkohu (see the Moriori).