Earthquakes in New Zealand occur because we are located on the boundary of two of the world’s major tectonic plates – the Pacific Plate and the Australian Plate. These plates are colliding with huge force, causing one to slowly grind over, under or alongside the other.n earthquake is a sudden motion or trembling in the crust caused by the abrupt release of accumulated stress along a fault, a break in the Earth’s crust. The ‘Ring of Fire’ shows the position of the New Zealand continent within a zone of intense seismic activity around the Pacific Ocean.