>By Global north standards that’s warm.

I dunno, even up in BC here it's been warmer than that these last couple weeks and I would in no way describe where I live as a 'warm place'. At least on the coast. It gets pretty warm in the interior in the summer though.

Sure, but you described NZ as a "warm island nation", you didn't say that it's warm there lately. Where I am in Minneapolis it will be in the 70s–90s in a couple months, but I wouldn't call Minneapolis a "warm city".

I'm reading Pathway of the Birds, about Polynesian voyaging, navigation and settlement with a focus on NZ, and there's a whole chapter "Settling New Zealand: Adapting to a Cool Land", which was something the early settlers had to do because they came from genuine warm islands in tropical Polynesia.