Category: Business

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand’s fuel stocks have dipped across the board according to the latest update, but the government says levels are stable and sufficient.

The latest government data accurate to midday Sunday shows 51.2 days of petrol, 41.6 days of diesel, and 47.4 of jet fuel.

That was down by 2.8 days, 3.2 days and four days respectively, compared to the last update published on Monday.

The supplies include more than 15 days of petrol, 12 of diesel and 1.5 of jet fuel on six ships within two days of arrival in New Zealand, and a further 6.6 of petrol, 8.2 of diesel and 19.8 of jet fuel on five ships within three weeks.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) said stocks were expected to decline over the next few weeks, but that this was to be expected.

“This is normal and is how fuel companies manage their daily business, with fuel distributed around the country and then replenished by incoming imports. Fuel tanks are not kept at 100 percent capacity all the time.

“This is the sort of variation we would expect to see when international shipping is operating as usual, without the current Middle East situation. Movements remain within expectations and show normal patterns.”

Officials said reassessment of phases under the fuel plan would not be required of ministers.

“MBIE’s advice to ministers is that an assessment is not required, as these changes do not raise any immediate concerns.

“There is currently no indication of fuel supply disruption, and fuel continues to flow normally into New Zealand.”

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The 2026 New Zealander of the year and founder of Xero, Sir Rod Drury, has denied claims of misconduct against a former staffer after it was revealed a police complaint had been laid.

The complaint alleged misconduct when former Xero staffer Ally Naylor was a junior Xero employee in 2017.

Now, Drury has released a response to those complaints, labelling his relationship with Naylor as a “limited, consensual relationship”.

The accounting software company had launched a review into its handling of the allegations at the time.

In a statement, Drury said he had always tried to be “open and honest throughout his life”.

” I do not intend to engage in public back-and-forth on private matters or cause further distress to those involved. However, given the relentless nature of the reporting, I believe it is important to provide context.

“I reject any allegation of wrongdoing. Reports have mischaracterised the nature of a friendship over several years. Ally Naylor and I had a limited, consensual relationship 10 years ago.”

Drury said Naylor had been a “willing participant” in that “relationship” and it was based on working closely together and having children of a similar age.

“We spent time together socially, including her arranging a visit to my holiday home over Summer.

“I have given that detail reluctantly to give more context and accuracy to the nature of the relationship because the media reporting has been selective and misleading. Any other relationships I had over that period were consensual and mutual.”

He said Xero undertook an investigation in 2017/2018 and until then he had “no idea” Naylor viewed the relationship as anything other than “consensual and mutual”.

“After the investigation concluded, I stayed on the board for several years. From my perspective the matter was closed.

“I hope this public experience and scrutiny doesn’t dissuade other New Zealanders from participating in public awards and honours.

“I know I may be criticised by some for making this statement but, given the level of attention and the way this has been reported, I believe it is important to set the record straight for my sake and my family’s. I would like to continue focusing on the New Zealand Inc projects, thought leadership and the many philanthropic initiatives I’ve dedicated my post-career life to.”

Last week Naylor told RNZ she expected to speak to police about her complaint this week.

Police have refused to confirm to RNZ whether they were investigating Drury, who founded Xero in 2006 and was its chief executive until 2018.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Some central Auckland businesses fear they will go under before the long-awaited and long-delayed City Rail Link [CRL] opens.

The $5.5 billion project connects Waitematā Station with a redeveloped Maungawhau Station and two new underground stations, Te Waihorotiu and Karang-a-Hape, and will carry up to 54,000 passengers an hour.

But by this month, there was still no confirmation of when the new train stations would open, and the CRL would be operational, other than some time in the second half of 2026.

In Auckland CBD, across the road from the construction site of Te Waihorotiu Station, one business was at breaking point.

Krupali Patel works at a restaurant she did not want to name.

She said they had minimal foot traffic, and loud construction was putting off potential customers.

“Business is not going good. It’s very tough for the owner and me. The owner is not making much money, so it’s hard to pay rent. I’m not getting as many hours as I want to work.”

Patel said that unless there was a dramatic improvement, the business would not survive more than a few months.

Barrel N Burger opened on Wellesley Street in December 2025.

Aida Safeia, who works there, said construction of the train station and recently completed work on new bus shelters and wider footpaths right outside their store had slowed business.

But she was optimistic about the future.

“Hopefully, this will be a very busy area, and over time it will compensate for the lack of business we experienced in our opening period.”

At the other end of the line, in Mount Eden, Sarah Lee works at Korean takeaway shop Han Bite, near Maungawhau Station, which had been closed for five years.

She felt disappointed after multiple construction delays.

“We’re expecting that once the train station opens, many people will come and visit us.

“That’s what we’re waiting for, but it keeps being delayed. That’s the problem.

“When we first came here, they said [it would be done by] the end of last year, but early this year I asked the manager of the construction, and he said probably around October this year.”

The entire CRL was meant to be completed by 2021.

But then the project cost blew out by $1.1 billion, and targeted completion dates in 2024 and 2025 came and went.

Lee said a specific completion date would give her business more certainty and allow her to plan for the future.

Further down the road, Jaimik Shukla from Blood Works Tattoo Studio hoped the CRL brought more people to Mount Eden, but if that did not happen, he would consider relocating.

“The business has been in survival mode for the past few months. Sometimes we fall behind on the rent.

“We’re hoping the train station can start as soon as possible so we can get the foot traffic we missed out on for quite a long time.”

But next door, Fenella Chia from Café Ditto said they were doing well and had a healthy number of regulars.

“We’re really happy with the area and the community we’ve built here. It’s really developing, there’s a lot of small cafés opening up.

“We’re not too inhibited by the construction. We’re on the main road, we have a bus stop outside, we’re close to universities.”

Chia said many businesses in the area were looking forward to Mangawhau Station being back up and running and believed the wait would be worthwhile.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Farmers are being warned to brace for a challenging next season after prices eased at the latest global dairy trade (GDT) auction.

The average price at the fortnightly auction fell 2.7 percent to US$4143 (NZ$7025) a tonne.

The price of wholemilk powder, which influences farmer payouts, dropped 0.6 percent.

It comes after prices dropped 3.4 percent at the last auction – the first dip of the year.

Jarden head of commodities Mike McIntyre said even if prices continued to slide, the current dairy season was near its end so he did not expect it to impact the final payout for farmers.

He said of more concern was the ongoing geopolitical uncertainty from conflict in Iran which would likely impact New Zealand farmers next season.

“There’s going to be inflationary pressures come from the likes of fertiliser as well. A lot of fertiliser comes out of that part of the world. And then feed prices and even just general haulage prices as well.

“I think we possibly are going to be in a position like we saw back in 2022, where the CPI [consumers price index] for New Zealand as a whole was around that 7 percent to 8 percent mark, but on-farm inflation was more like 17 percent or 18 percent.

“So I think farmers are going to bear a lot of the pain that is going to be felt in terms of the increase in prices.”

McIntyre said prices were “relatively robust” considering the pressure on supply chain systems to get product to market.

“Typically, you wouldn’t expect to see too much in the way of sliding at this time of the year just because of the seasonal drop-off in volumes that are available on the auction. But with China obviously stepping back in terms of its demand, all else being equal, you’d say ‘yes, possibly we will see some further sliding in prices’.

“What I would say though is, a couple of weeks is a long time in dairy, we’ve already seen talk of an outbreak of foot and mouth in China, and so it wouldn’t take much for that to suddenly cause a step up in demand out of that part of the world.”

He said any further price drops were unlikely to impact the current season’s payout, as the prices were “all but locked in now”.

McIntyre said the most recent auction results were disappointing, though, especially as expectations had been for skim milk to perform better.

“Now that GDT’s got multiple sellers from all around the world, New Zealand skim milk powder prices were actually lower. So even the small positives that we can see in the headlines didn’t translate into a better result for New Zealand farmers.”

This was ultimately a reflection of strong milk volumes holding steady globally.

“You know, we’re going to go through 2 billion solids collected for the season for the first time ever, and that’s a big mark to crack through. And it’s not just New Zealand that’s producing a lot more dairy, with the exception of possibly China, [it’s] right across the globe.

“And so just sheer economics with more milk coming on board that you’d expect to see prices fall. And up until now, we’ve been relatively insulated here in New Zealand, but it seems like maybe some chickens are coming home to roost there.”

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Some central Auckland businesses fear they will go under before the long-awaited and long-delayed City Rail Link [CRL] opens.

The $5.5 billion project connects Waitematā Station with a redeveloped Maungawhau Station and two new underground stations, Te Waihorotiu and Karang-a-Hape, and will carry up to 54,000 passengers an hour.

But by this month, there was still no confirmation of when the new train stations would open, and the CRL would be operational, other than some time in the second half of 2026.

In Auckland CBD, across the road from the construction site of Te Waihorotiu Station, one business was at breaking point.

Krupali Patel works at a restaurant she did not want to name.

She said they had minimal foot traffic, and loud construction was putting off potential customers.

“Business is not going good. It’s very tough for the owner and me. The owner is not making much money, so it’s hard to pay rent. I’m not getting as many hours as I want to work.”

Patel said that unless there was a dramatic improvement, the business would not survive more than a few months.

Barrel N Burger opened on Wellesley Street in December 2025.

Aida Safeia, who works there, said construction of the train station and recently completed work on new bus shelters and wider footpaths right outside their store had slowed business.

But she was optimistic about the future.

“Hopefully, this will be a very busy area, and over time it will compensate for the lack of business we experienced in our opening period.”

At the other end of the line, in Mount Eden, Sarah Lee works at Korean takeaway shop Han Bite, near Maungawhau Station, which had been closed for five years.

She felt disappointed after multiple construction delays.

“We’re expecting that once the train station opens, many people will come and visit us.

“That’s what we’re waiting for, but it keeps being delayed. That’s the problem.

“When we first came here, they said [it would be done by] the end of last year, but early this year I asked the manager of the construction, and he said probably around October this year.”

The entire CRL was meant to be completed by 2021.

But then the project cost blew out by $1.1 billion, and targeted completion dates in 2024 and 2025 came and went.

Lee said a specific completion date would give her business more certainty and allow her to plan for the future.

Further down the road, Jaimik Shukla from Blood Works Tattoo Studio hoped the CRL brought more people to Mount Eden, but if that did not happen, he would consider relocating.

“The business has been in survival mode for the past few months. Sometimes we fall behind on the rent.

“We’re hoping the train station can start as soon as possible so we can get the foot traffic we missed out on for quite a long time.”

But next door, Fenella Chia from Café Ditto said they were doing well and had a healthy number of regulars.

“We’re really happy with the area and the community we’ve built here. It’s really developing, there’s a lot of small cafés opening up.

“We’re not too inhibited by the construction. We’re on the main road, we have a bus stop outside, we’re close to universities.”

Chia said many businesses in the area were looking forward to Mangawhau Station being back up and running and believed the wait would be worthwhile.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The government’s refreshed Active Investor Plus Visa has drawn in nearly $4 billion in funds already invested or committed, in its first year.

Changes to the so-called ‘Golden Visa’, which gives wealthy foreigners residency if they directly invest in local companies, took effect last April.

Investors in the growth category have to put in $5 million over three years, or a separate balanced category required lower-risk investments of $10m over five years.

Further changes announced in September allowed visa holders to buy a home worth at least $5m.

Since last April, the government had received 609 applications from 1988 people.

Immigration minister Erica Stanford said in the first year of the refreshed scheme, $1.49b had already been invested, with a further $2.415b in the pipeline.

Stanford said the investments in private credit, which were now at almost $900m, had a significant impact for businesses “looking to diversity their sources of capital, and and access more flexible lending arrangements, but who did not want to dilute equity in their business”.

Aged care and healthcare, horticulture, data centres, digital media and technology, tourism, FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) exporting, manufacturing, and dental tech had already been invested in.

“Private credit matters because it helps unlock productive capital for New Zealand businesses through private lending, giving firms another option alongside bank finance which is often asset based. This enables expansion, acquisitions, recruitment, investment in plant and equipment, and working capital,” she said.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Auckland’s City Rail Link (CRL), is not enough to revitalise the CBD, an entrepreneur says.

The $5.5 billion rail transport project was due to be completed later this year.

Andrew Barnes, the founder of Perpetual Guardian and former chairperson of the now merged Regional Faculties Auckland, told Nine to Noon, more needed to be done to make the centre an attractive place that people want to come to, with things such as exhibitions and arts and cultural events.

He questioned why people would use the CRL if the centre was “not an attractive place to come”.

“It’s going to make movement of people more efficient but our challenge now is, a lot of office blocks are pretty much empty and people are working less in the CBD. Why will they come in if it’s better to shop in Newmarket?”

He told said the policy to make Auckland a world class city was disjointed and he wanted to see changes in the way the city was governed.

“I would support comments the mayor has made which is we need to change the funding model… at the end of the day if we don’t have our principal city firing on all cylinders that does affect the rest of the country.”

If things weren’t sorted soon, Barnes believed the city would be having the same debate in 20 years.

Barnes said the city needed to have come cafes or places to grab a drink out on the pavement to help get the streets back to life.

“We need shops, cafes, entertainment downtown.”

He also suggested sites that had been vacant for many years should be turned into proper urban parks.

“Not astro turf and a few benches… it doesn’t take much to actually have it properly grassed with some plants in there.”

The deputy mayor of Auckland, Desley Simpson, said the council was putting significant investment into the wider city centre, with major streetscape updgrades and a programme of events.

She said there was a strong interest in finding ways to keep long-term empty sites contributing positively to the city, and the council was exploring ideas.

Temporary uses like pocket parks, activations or small public spaces were being trialed in parts of the city centre, Simpson said.

Any formal requirements on developers would need “careful thought”, she said, but what the council was doing right now was using lower cost, small scale improvements in hotspot areas such as Fort St at the lower end of Queen St and behind the St James on Lorne St.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Share markets around the world have hit records this week, undeterred by war, rising interest rates and pressure on fuel supplies.

The S&P500 and Nasdaq have been hovering around all-time highs, the FTSE 100 is not far off its February record, and the Russell 2000 is at a high.

Almost all global sharemarkets are looking exceptionally healthy, given the geopolitical tension – with the notable exception of New Zealand’s.

So what is going on?

Koura founder Rupert Carlyon said markets were having a great time, despite the upheaval happening around the world.

“I think there are a couple of things going on.

“One is the US economy. That continues to be stronger than anticipated. I think there is continued belief that the US economy is strong. There is not any sign of recession in the short term.

“That continues to help … over the last four years we seem to be consistently oscillating between is the economy about to take a dive or not. But with the tax refunds that have come out of the US people are expecting actually that we could see another acceleration in the economy.

“The other piece is that we like tech again. We didn’t like tech two or three months ago. The big tech names and the AI names, I think we’re starting to see with Claude and others a massive realisation and recognition of what these tools are going to do and what they can do.

“Microsoft is up 15 percent in the last couple of weeks. We’re just starting to see that come through again … all of a sudden the worst case scenarios around oil and energy aren’t quite coming rue and we’ve got good news around tech in the economy which is driving things higher as well.”

Generate investment specialist Greg Smith said markets in Europe and Asia were doing well, too.

“Equity markets are looking through the current tensions, to a de-escalation and looking through to the broader resilience of the economy. The US earnings season has got off to a pretty good start. There’s still plenty of optimism around the growth that AI and tech-related companies are delivering.”

He said the resilience of equity markets was notably different from what had been seen in commodity markets, particularly oil. “Oil has had huge volatility and has been up as much as 80 percent. It’s been down, it’s been up, it’s been down … it’s been up again with the latest deadline approaching.”

He said equity markets seemed to have a glass half full approach while bond markets were taking a half-empty stance. “They’re more focused on the long-term inflationary outcomes.”

He said things could change if the conflict in the Middle East dragged on.

“Equity markets will probably reprice it more if the conflict is a longer lasting one … but overall the equity market is pretty resilient.”

Mike Taylor, founder of Pie Funds, said he thought market participants put a lot on hedging through March.

“Then as oil prices didn’t move to the worst case scenario and the S&P500 rallied, those shorts had to be covered, which has caused the market to rally like a home-sick angel.

“I agree that it does seem odd give that inflation is higher and growth is lower as a result of the war, but you could have said the same after the tariffs.”

But what about NZ?

New Zealand is a notable underperformer.

Carlyon said the country’s economy was highly leveraged to interest rates.

“Whether that be because they’ve got the dividends … the utilities are kind of largely there for dividends, and then we’ve got the property companies all there for the dividends. We’ve got a very weak property market which also relates to it.

“The third thing impacting the New Zealand market right now is there is a lot of nervousness around the gentailers and what happens there. They make up a big chunk of our market.

“If you think about what’s working off shore at the moment, it’s technology, defence and energy. The only thing we’ve got out of those three is clean energy. Bu that’s actually domestic electricity and that’s got a whole lot of regulatory risk floating around it.

“There is probably a strong argument that the politicians cannot let electricity prices get much higher before they are going to have to intervene so that … caps the upside for those gentailers.”

Smith agreed New Zealand had not yet caught up. “We’re around 6 percent from the record highs we saw in January.

“We were quite different economically. We’re running below par growth and were just coming into a mini recovery as the conflict hit. We haven’t [got] the same tech exposure in our markets and we’re a net importer of oi l… There’s economic headwinds there.

“I think if our economy can get going, if we see a relatively short war and if the conflict sort of comes to its conclusion in the coming weeks, then maybe New Zealand can get by without rate hikes. I think that will help the picture a lot.”

Sign up for Money with Susan Edmunds, a weekly newsletter covering all the things that affect how we make, spend and invest money.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand