Kiwis are generally kind hearted and want to help, so we don’t like saying “no”.
Sometimes we’ll say “no” in a round-about way which can be confusing to newcomers.
We may say “not sure” or “not really”. We may even say “yeah nah” which means “probably not”. “Yeah right”, especially when it’s said in a sarcastic way, means “definitely not”!
There’s a great Immigration NZ tool called WorkTalk that demonstrates how we communicate in New Zealand workplaces.