What sort of place are you living in? I haven't lived in NZ for 11 years now, but I recall heating costs of $100s/month in Winter (poorly insulated Christchurch housing as a poor student). Perhaps the high costs were due to high consumption rather than high unit costs... I didn't really pay attention to it at the time.
I'm in Auckland in a modern well insulated apartment. If I was in a normal nz house I'd expect to triple that, since we have a long distance relationship with insulation.
