A North Korean navy truck carries the "Pukkuksong" submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of country's founding father, Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang.

Feeling terrified by North Korea's threat of a "super-mighty preemptive strike"? Here's some reassuring news: New Zealand might just be the safest place on Earth when it comes to surviving a possible nuclear war.

But in lieu of building bunkers, New Zealand could be doing a lot more to thwart a conflict between the isolated Northeast Asian nation and the United States.

In fact, Gareth Morgan - the cat-hating economist and philanthropist who's now running for Parliament - appears to have done more recently in the way of diplomacy than the Government itself.

KCNA North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has threatened our closest neighbour, Australia, with missiles.

North Korea, it turns out, is controversial even in New Zealand, with experts and officials divided over whether war is imminent, and whether we should try to stop it.

READ MORE:

* The United States has 25 million reasons not to bomb North Korea

* North Korea warns Australia of nuclear strike

* China maintains 'combat readiness'

* N Korea video shows mock US attack

KYODO North Korea's longest-range rockets are believed to be able to reach Australia and the United States.

IS NZ SAFE?

On Sunday, North Korea directly threatened Australia with an attack, and its longest-range missiles are thought to be able to reach our neighbour's northernmost points.

State-run media said if Australia continues to back the US "to isolate and stifle" North Korea, "this will be a suicidal act of coming within the range of the nuclear strike".

Likewise, the United States is expected to retaliate to any use of nuclear weapons with more nuclear weapons.

Does that mean New Zealand, too, is at risk?

Rest assured, say experts, there's almost nothing to fear down here: any nuclear attack is most likely to happen in the Northern Hemisphere - with US bases in South Korea or Japan the predicted targets. For those countries, blasts would be devastating.

KCNA North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made no secret of his desire to strike US targets with missiles.

But Dr David Krofcheck, a lecturer in nuclear physics at Auckland University, says North Korea has few bombs and unreliable missiles - as evidenced by a failed test earlier this month.

He says the US is the most likely source of a nuclear strike, which could be in the order of 50 kilotons of TNT equivalent - that's three Hiroshima-style atomic bombs, which, Krofcheck says, is "terrifying".

Any nuclear fallout from the Northern Hemisphere will largely remain there, due to prevailing winds that will keep it above the equator, although some radioactive isotypes would likely reach New Zealand about six months after a blast.

Getty Images Prime Minister Bill English says the onus is on North Korea to stop its provocation.

Despite that, Krofcheck adds, "NZ is a pretty safe place to be".

In fact, it's "probably the best place to be", says Professor Brian Martin, a former physicist-turned-social scientist at the University of Woollongong in Australia.

"Australia is a potential target because it hosts US military bases and those bases are involved in tracking satellite data which is used to launch missiles against Russia or China. A sophisticated response would be to target those."

REUTERS For several years, North Korea has tested missiles, with varying degrees of success.

New Zealand, on the other hand, has no such targets, he says.

So, then, there's no need to build a nuclear bunker and stock it with tinned spaghetti. But there are two other big concerns for New Zealand.

TWO THINGS TO FEAR

KCNA North Korea's most likely targets would be US bases in South Korea and Japan.

The biggest worry, experts agree, is that a war will hit our economy - and hard.

"The real concern for us - not just us, but the entire Asia-Pacific - would be the economic dislocation that would occur from any conflict, because it would be very, very significant, and that does pose a huge economic risk, especially for a small economy like ours that's so dependent on exports," says regional security expert Paul Sinclair.

"When you look at the fact that China, South Korea and Japan are all major trading partners for us, any sort of event that involved them in some way would - at least for a short period of time - have a significant impact on our economy."

AARON P. BERNSTEIN/REUTERS US President Donald Trump calls himself a deal-maker - and experts say he should put those skills to diplomatic use over North Korea.

Martin says we would fare better than most countries, when it comes to keeping the economy moving.

"New Zealand has got the advantage of being a country with a lot of skills, a highly-educated workforce, a fairly small population compared to the area of arable land, mostly near the coast so it has fishing possibilities.

"Australia might be alright as well, but New Zealand's further from the conflict - it's less likely to be implicated. New Zealand is even better off than Australia."

JOHN HAWKINS/FAIRFAX NZ Gareth Morgan visited North Korea, then his Morgan Foundation funded a North Korean visit to New Zealand.

MIND THE MUSHROOMS

The other concern is radiation winding up in our food or other items imported from countries within the fallout zone.

This fear was raised by Dr Andreas Markwitz, a nuclear physicist who heads GNS Science's National Isotope Centre.

He was studying for his science degree in Germany when nuclear disaster struck at the Chernobyl power plant in the USSR (now Ukraine).

"People immediately were told no longer to pick wild mushrooms, because they were in that path where the fallout happened, that got taken up very quickly by mushrooms, so unfortunately for quite some time, we couldn't have wild mushrooms in Germany, or from Poland."

He's concerned the same thing could happen to New Zealand.

"With any nuclear fallout, in any country, we need to watch the products coming into our country from those countries in the future, to be thinking about setting up control posts where cars from Korea come in, where food, mushrooms, from Japan and Korea come in, we need to check all of these very carefully for radioactivity because we certainly do not want to radioactively poison our people."

The effects of such poisoning would depend on the dose - but it would increase the risk of Kiwis getting cancer, he and other experts say.

While mushroom imports aren't currently checked for radioactivity, and most of our mushrooms are grown in New Zealand, a number of other things are tested.

The Office for Radiation Safety, inside the Ministry of Health, has been carrying out environmental radioactivity monitoring in New Zealand and the South Pacific since the 1960s, with monitoring stations in Kaitaia and the Chatham Islands.

It also regularly tests rain water, milk powder and sea water for radiation.

"Management of any health risks associated from nuclear incidents are dealt with on a case-by-case basis with involvement of multiple government agencies using international best practice," a spokeswoman said.

After the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown in Japan, seawater and newly-imported Japanese cars were checked for radioactive contamination, and no evidence of radioactivity was found.

WHAT'S THE SOLUTION?

Could someone go into North Korea and assassinate its "supreme leader" Kim Jong Un, a la the 2014 comedy film The Interview?

Last year, it was alleged that the US and South Korea were practising a "beheading operation" to do just that.

Sinclair says he "shuddered" at the short-sighted suggestion.

"It's based on the premise that if you get rid of one person, everything's going to turn out right. You're dealing with a country that's been imbued with this sort of juche (self-reliance) philosophy for many decades, and it might have the opposite effect than what those people that argue for this sort of step might anticipate. I don't think that deals with the real problem."

On the contrary, he says, New Zealand could and should be helping to soothe the tensions.

North Korea's been hit repeatedly with UN sanctions - including bans on military supplies and luxury goods, and restrictions on money transfers - since 2006.

More sanctions were added against its exports during New Zealand's recent spell as UN Security Council chair.

Those sanctions, says Sinclair, have "done absolutely nothing to halt the development of their intercontinental ballistic missile capacity, to stop the development of nuclear weapons and chemical and biological weapons".

He believes there's no military solution to the problem, and instead of threatening pre-emptive strikes and retaliation, the "rather bellicose" US President Donald Trump should put his claimed skills as a "deal-maker" to good use - with the end goal being something like Iran's nuclear deal.

Sinclair says the obvious first step would be rebooting the six-party talks, which North Korea, the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia held between 2003 and 2007, but abandoned due to North Korea's ongoing nuclear tests.

"There has to be some sort of concession from the west for the time being - not a demand that they scrap entirely their nuclear arsenal, but they cease all testing of it, and then open the door to looking at ways of moving forward."

For that, New Zealand could play a crucial role.

WHAT NZ HAS TO OFFER

"The most obvious contribution New Zealand could make is to share its agricultural expertise," Sinclair wrote in a 2013 discussion paper for Victoria University's Centre for Strategic Studies.

"North Korean agriculture is in a parlous state. Our reputation in this field is second to none. We could directly contribute in this way to the North's rebuilding of its economy.

"A much more modest proposal, but one that could open the door to other modest forms of assistance would be the development of a track two dialogue with North Korea."

Another suggestion of Sinclair's is academic exchange, which would bring in North Korean students to study at New Zealand universities.

Both suggestions seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

"It appears we haven't worked with Korea on agricultural development," a Ministry for Primary Industries spokesman said.

"New Zealand has limited contact with North Korea. We do not currently engage in any agricultural support or student schemes with North Korea," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.

Only one North Korean student had come to New Zealand in the past decade, Immigration NZ confirmed.

The 25-year-old, who was born and grew up in Japan, but held a North Korean passport, studied English in Auckland in 2011 and 2012.

GARETH MORGAN'S INTERVENTION

Prime Minister Bill English is sticking by the Government's existing North Korea policy.

"Our preference is that the provocative actions of North Korea are brought to a halt by a combination of the pressure of sanctions and diplomatic pressure.

"The good news there is that the US and China appear to be talking about this quite directly and taking action and that's the direction we hope they go in to avoid conflict," he told journalists earlier this week.

Asked if New Zealand would support a pre-emptive strike by the US, he said: "that hasn't been suggested and we wouldn't be taking a position on it … we're not going to hypothesise about strategies that they might follow."

In lieu of any firm government diplomacy, Morgan has appointed himself as an envoy of sorts.

In 2013, he and his wife, Joanne, rode through North Korea by motorbike - a trip that culminated in a book, Kimchi Kiwis.

The following year, his charitable organisation, The Morgan Foundation, sponsored three North Koreans - two English teachers and a government official - to visit Waikato's Wintec for five weeks.

The idea, he says, "was to strengthen education ties with the people of DPRK".

A Wintec tutor, Richard Lawrence, also visited North Korea in 2009, with the same goal in mind. He didn't respond to multiple interview requests.

Wintec also declined to comment.

WHAT COULD HAPPEN NEXT?

Morgan's one of few Kiwis going in to bat for North Korea.

Another is Dr Tim Beal, a now-retired scholar of Chinese studies, who heads the NZ-DPRK Society, a friendship group aimed at "building bridges, encouraging connections between New Zealand and North Korea, building awareness, funding a bit of aid".

Its past work has included fundraising to buy tractors for impoverished North Korean farmers.

Beal's firmly in North Korea's corner, one of few people who'll suggest that its missile tests are because it "obviously wants peace".

"If you are threatened by someone, the best way to persuade them not to attack you is to retaliate," he says.

"It's quite reasonable for the Koreans to think that's what they're planning to do. It's a very reasonable assumption. If you're sitting in Pyongyang, the United States may attack, they practise attacking, they threaten to attack, they've done it elsewhere, and so forth.

"The best way of preventing this is developing some form of retaliation to put them off attacking, and that's basically what they've been doing."

He'd like to see some "independent thought ... about how New Zealand can play a useful role" - and says Sinclair is on the money with desire for renewed diplomatic talks, suggesting that the US should suspend its military exercises in South Korea, and North Korea should suspend the development and testing of missiles.

For New Zealand, Beal says, academic and agricultural exchanges with North Korea are "obvious things to do".

"There's lots of ways we could actually build up relations," he says.

Beal's been to North Korea four times, but not for six years now. He hopes to visit again this year - and says he's not at all put off by the current spike in tensions.

"There's a lot of hype about 'the most dangerous country in the world' and all that sort of nonsense, but I don't think we're going to see a war - but it's always a possibility."

* An earlier version of this story reported four North Korean students had been granted seven student visas for New Zealand, based on incorrect data from Immigration NZ. Three of the four were South Koreans. Three visas were granted to the North Korean student, but only one was used to enter New Zealand.