Category: Business

Source: Radio New Zealand

The owner of Wellington bar Red Square remembers celebrating her 21st birthday at the venue on the first weekend it opened.

Now, Sarah Bolton, who was passed down the business by her father and his business partner, said it was time to walk away.

“It’s been a great run, but like all good parties, it’s you’ve got to know when to walk away and I just want to leave on a high,” she told RNZ.

The move came as other long-standing hospitality businesses in the capital shut down, like Havana Bar and Spruce Goose.

Bolton said Red Square would not be closing for revenue reasons.

“I’d love to see Wellington do better, but for us it’s a very different reason why we’re closing,” Bolton said.

She said the Wellington hospitality scene had changed a lot in the past two decades, as had the bar.

What started as a lounge bar with a pool table, serving cocktails and food catering to people around 30, was now a nightclub for 18 to 21-year-olds only open on Friday and Saturday nights.

But the nightclub lifestyle did not fit with Bolton’s own anymore.

“One of the main reasons I’m stepping away is my kids have got Sunday sport and me getting home at four in the morning isn’t really viable anymore.”

Bolton said one of her favourite parts of each weekend was discovering what was in lost property – from someone leaving behind one shoe, to one crutch.

She felt like she had grown up in the place, as had her own kids.

She remembered celebrating her 21st on the first weekend the venue opened.

“It’s been in my family my whole life, so it will be sad standing or stepping away from it. But yeah, it is time.”

Jeremy Smith, director of Trinity Group which owns bars including Lulu and The Arborist, said the late night market had been particulary tough with challenges like “more homeless people, lack of investment, streets not always as clean as they should be”.

“I think there’s not many venues that are flying, most are hanging in there.”

Smith said in the past, one venue would close and another would open, with the number of venues staying roughly the same.

“What we’ve now seen in Courtney Place is that a place closes, and there’s no people putting their hand up to say, ‘Look, I’ve got a new idea, I’ve got a new concept, I’m willing to take the risk’.”

He said people were more cautious, leaving Wellington with more empty venues.

He hoped there would not be more closures on the horizon, and said owners were working together to find solutions.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

More than 100,000 people have claimed a rates rebate so far this year.

The Rates Rebate scheme helps lower-income household who are struggling to pay their council rates.

From 1 July 2026, the maximum rebate will increase from $805 to $830. The income abatement threshold for SuperGold Cardholders will increase from $45,000 to $46,400.

The income abatement threshold for other ratepayers will increase from $32,210 to $33,210.

A household without a SuperGold Card with rates of $2000 a year can get some level of rebate until they earn $42,026 a year.

Every household only earning NZ Super with rates of at least $2000 will be able to get the full rebate.

The Department of Internal Affairs said for the current 2025/26 rating year, it had refunded councils 105,698 rates rebate claims.

That covered the period between July last year and March.

In the previous full year, there were 104,344 claims refunded.

“That means with a few months to go we have already exceeded last year’s claims.”

Local Government Minister Simon Watts said: “We know the cost of living is putting immense pressure on Kiwis, with rising rates adding a further burden to household budgets.

“The government is committed to easing cost-of-living pressures for Kiwis. By making increases to the Rates Rebate Scheme, we are delivering targeted support to low-income ratepayers in need of assistance with paying their rates bill.”

Wellington City Council said it had processed 2223 rates rebate applications so far this year and had 244 active payment arrangements.

Hamilton City Council said it had approved 2908 in the current year, up from 2697 in the whole of the previous year. It had also approved 509 under its own council scheme.

Auckland Council said it had approved 14,500 so far this year, 14,800 in the last full year and 16,000 the year before that. It also had 1508 active payment plans in place.

FinCap, the network for financial mentors, said it was seeing an increasing number of debts to local government among people who sought help but a drop in the median amount of the debt.

“FinCap hears regularly from financial mentors who have assisted people with rates arrears as one of their multiple cost of living pressures. Those on fixed incomes, such as super, being stuck financially are often mentioned in this context,” spokesperson Jake Lilley said.

“The support approaches by councils for people who are having difficulty paying rates on time varies a lot across all the communities that financial mentors support. FinCap has recommended that councils look to the guidance in the framework for debt to government for all the debts they might create.”

The Taxpayers Union’s survey of councils showed the average rates bill across the country is now $3386, up $451 from the previous year. It said the highest average was in Porirua, at $5591, and the lowest in Otorohanga, at $2554.

The government is also working on a rates cap plan.

“Everyone is having to prioritise due to the tough economic times – councils are no different. They need guard-rails so that they can focus on prioritisation and make decisions about what it is best to spend their revenue on,” Watts said.

“Councils effectively operate as monopolies, and we have seen year on year rate increases which ratepayers cannot continue to sustain. That’s why we are introducing a rates cap to keep rates under control.”

Details on the final rates cap model are expected to be announced later this year.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A change to the rules means fewer people will have to account for tax on money they haven’t yet received.

Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand is welcoming a change to the “cash basis person” definition, the first in 30 years.

“A ‘cash basis person’ might be an unfamiliar term, but it’s quite simple. It’s all of us who pay tax on income when it is received, rather than having to pay tax on income when it is accrued or earned for tax purposes,” said CA ANZ tax leader John Cuthbertson FCA.

“No one enjoys paying tax on income they haven’t yet received – whether that’s interest paid at maturity on a term deposit or unrealised foreign exchange gains on offshore accounts.

“Foreign exchange can be particularly problematic. When exchange rates are volatile, taxpayers can end up paying tax on paper gains that may never be realised, creating uncertainty and undermining even the best provisional tax planning.

“Under previous rules, a cash basis person was someone with less than $100,000 of income from financial arrangements like bank accounts, term deposits and government or corporate bonds, or less than $1 million in total value of these assets.

“The limits have now been lifted to $200,000 for income and $2 million for financial arrangements like bank accounts and savings.

“In addition, the requirement to calculate the difference in income as between the two methods has been eliminated, for which taxpayers and their accountants will be eternally grateful.”

He said it was previously the case that the difference in income calculated on a cash and accrual basis could not be more than $40,000.

“A perverse requirement as you were virtually compelled to make the more complex calculation to confirm that it wasn’t required – then you were not required to return income on that basis.

“With inflation over time, the previous thresholds had become massively outdated, similar to our marginal tax brackets which were updated last year.

“These rules were imposing a lot of cost and complexity on affected taxpayers, both in terms of the income calculations required and the resulting taxation payable, including on unrealised gains.

“With this change, more people will be able to pay tax when they receive income, rather than going through the rigmarole of complex tax calculations – and I say that as a specialist tax accountant.

“Now that the thresholds have been lifted, most people moving to New Zealand will have one less tax complexity dissuading them,” Cuthbertson said.

Deloitte tax expert Robyn Walker said it brought the law back to something more sensible and aligned with what had probably been happening in practice.

“This change isn’t new, rather it was included in the tax bill that was released last year and enacted at the end of March. As pointed out by CAANZ, some taxpayers would have been doing complicated calculations and will now have a reprieve from these.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

It has been revealed that the developer behind the partially completed Seascape tower in Auckland owes creditors $589m.

The largest of those, according to a first receivers’ report released from Calibre Partners, was China Construction Bank, which was owed $133 million.

The report said related parties were owed $372 million, and unsecured creditors were owed a further $71 million.

Last month, it was revealed that the partially completed 56-storey building was to be sold, with Calibre Partners engaging Bayleys Real Estate.

Work stopped in August 2024 on the building, following a legal dispute between the developer, Shundi Customs, and the main contractor, China Construction NZ.

A tribunal ruled Shundi owed the builder about $33 million, which was not paid.

Shundi Customs was placed into receivership in March this year.

Construction on the $300 million project began in 2017 and was originally expected to be completed in 2021.

However, Covid‑era disruptions, escalating costs and technical issues delayed progress for several years.

The tower was structurally “topped out” in 2024, meaning the main frame was completed, but the façade and interior fit‑out remain unfinished.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The government’s proposal to scrap the third-year fees-free tertiary scheme and redirect some of the funds towards trades training is being welcomed by business leaders.

However, the Council of Trade Unions argues the move is the wrong thing to do and will only exacerbate skill shortages in sectors like nursing, that need graduates with three years of training.

The government forecast in last year’s budget that spending on the scheme, while low to begin with, would rise to around by $170 million a year by 2029.

It argues the scheme hasn’t worked to boost tertiary study uptake by lower-income New Zealanders as planned.

The Employers and Manufacturers Association head of advocacy Alan McDonald said his organisation had always felt there was an imbalance between academic and trades funding.

“It looks fairly clear-cut the academic side of it hasn’t worked and there is no spare money, so reallocating it is a good thing,” he said.

He said he hoped some of the money reallocated could go to help fund industries and trades that are not currently covered by existing apprenticeship funding, such as refridgeration and heating engineers.

However, the Council of Trade Unions president Sandra Grey said cutting the scheme was not the right thing to do, as it would make skill shortages in areas like nursing and education worse.

“When you are looking at three years of debt to say become a nurse or teacher, you might think again and you might go actually I’m going to do a lower qualification so I can get into the workforce, so I can start earning and not have that really big student debt,” Grey said.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

An estimated 2500 homes and businesses in South Auckland are affected by an internet outage.

Chorus said it had identified damaged copper and fibre cables impacting about 600 copper voice and broadband customers, and 1900 fibre broadband customers.

The company’s outage map shows suburbs in the western part of South Auckland are most affected, including Karaka, Waiuku and the Āwhitu Peninsula.

Details on the outage map shows many of the outages were reported just before 1am on Monday.

“We’re aware of a network outage currently impacting customers in South Auckland and are working urgently to restore services as quickly as possible.

“We apologise for the disruption, we know how important connectivity is for homes and businesses and appreciate customers’ patience while we work through the issue,” said a Chorus spokesperson in statement.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Long time Wellington bar, Red Square, has announced it will be closing at the end of this month.

“As with everything, all good things must come to an end,” the bar wrote on social media.

“Over and incredible 23 years, Red Square has been a huge part of Wellington’s nightlife.”

The bar thanked every person who had walked through its doors, especially thanking loyal regulars and past and present staff.

The bar’s last day will be 30 May, where the public was invited to party one last time at Red Square.

“Here’s to 23 legendary years of Red Square.”

The announcement was flooded with nostalgic comments from the public, calling it the end of an era.

One commentor wrote, “Can’t believe we met here 13 years ago now with two kids.”

Another said, “I dropped my eftpos card in there back in 2006. Good times!”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Wellington Electricity says it likely needs to eke out another $10 to $20 a month from customers to keep the power lines reliable.

That would be over and above approved increases by the regulatory each April through to 2030.

Christchurch lines company Orion was also writing to the Commerce Commission to increase would it could charge to maintain its network in the face of high growth in the region

Wellington Electricity chief executive Greg Skelton told Nine to Noon the company’s modelling showed it likely needed to charge customers an extra $10 to $20 a month to avoid a steep increase in the future and to keep the network reliable.

He said the company needed enough funding to keep an ageing network performing to deal with demand as households and businesses moved off gas.

“What we’re looking at is making sure we’ve got enough funding to keep maintaining the network as it ages and goes through,” Skelton said.

“There’s also funding we’re looking at to start to develop systems and capability and resources inside our business to look at the new future of electric vehicles coming on and being managed, looking at how solar needs to be managed.

“There’s legislation that we have to comply with from today around solar injecting larger amounts of energy into the network, and there’s also trying to manage the exit of gas and the 65,000 customers using gas at the moment, which is largely doing most of our heavy lifting.”

Once they electrify, they they had to build a network that was capable of managing that, he said.

He said they had already run out of maintenance allowances, and were having to spend above what they were allowed to keep the lights on and maintain assets.

Skelton said their modelling showed the number of the current age of performance and failure rates of assets was large – about $1.2 billion.

“Now, we wouldn’t be able to do that in five years. That’s a programme of work that has to happen over more than a decade,” he said.

“When we look at what we need to do in five years, we’re scaling that back from what would be $33 a month down to something that’s between $10 and $20 a month.”

The extra charges would likely come in from 2028, he said.

“We would probably have that smoothed by the commission, so it didn’t end up with a conflict of doubling the charges that customers are currently seeing,” Skelton said.

“It would be smoothed into the five years, probably starting from 1 April 2028.”

Skelton said the investment would help future-proof and optimise the electricity system, with the rise of solar.

He said sister companies in Australia and the UK had already gone through the processes, which was only starting to be introduced here.

“We can see the systems they’re providing; we can see how they’re starting to manage or orchestrate solar coming in, we’re seeing how they’re able to manage and push away electric vehicles into cheaper pricing periods,” Skelton said.

“Some of that’s on us getting our price signals right, and getting those passed through to customers so they then have choices of avoiding or choice of saying ‘we do want to operate in this period where it’s congested’ and therefore that’s a signal to us to say ‘yep, we do need to go and invest in higher capacity of that part of our network.'”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Corrections staff are turning to food banks as the fuel crisis takes its toll, the Corrections union says.

While some prisons, such as Auckland’s Mt Eden, were located close to a main centre, many prisons including Wellington’s Rimutaka Prison, Christchurch Men’s and Waikeria were further away from where staff lived.

The Corrections Association had written to department management with suggestions that would help staff, including a travel subsidy, a van pickup system to collect staff for work and allowing non-custodial staff to work from home.

The association’s president Floyd du Plessis, told Nine to Noon, the average commute for workers was 45 minutes, but some were travelling up to two-and-a-half hours for work.

“Just like everyone else out there, they’re really struggling, everything’s tight, the fuel crisis has made it worse.”

Prisons weren’t often built near areas where people lived and worked, he said, and even with Auckland’s Mt Eden, with the pay staff received most could not afford to live anywhere close to the area.

Public transport was usually not an option, du Plessis said, as there wasn’t usually public transport nearby and if there was shift work made this not possible.

“We have a serious situation where staff are underpaid comparative to a lot of other areas and a large percentage of staff are absolutely reliant on overtime to make ends meet.

“Staff are struggling and unable to pay fuel bills.”

There had been examples of staff needing to stand in queues at food banks recently, du Plessis said, to feed their families.

Some staff were also taking annual leave of avoiding work so they did not have to pay high fuel bills.

Many prison workers did not need to be in the office everyday, du Plessis said, especially if they worked in an administration role.

He said they had also put forward suggestions to Corrections which included putting on vans for groups of staff who could travel together as many were coming from the same area, or to look at a regional allowance in terms of distance.

“We’ve seen the support for social workers and teachers with initiative like that.”

Initially, du Plessis said Corrections had said it wanted to wait and see what the government did. But since then it had reached out to have a conversation with the union.

The union had started trying to ease the stress for workers by pausing union fees for members for eight weeks, du Plessis said.

Corrections said it was prepared to work with staff and would be meeting with the union.

A spokesperson for Corrections, Alex Povey, told Nine to Noon in a statement, Corrections was working closely with the wider public service to ensure it remained aligned to the government’s fuel response plan.

Povey he had been in touch with the union in late April to organise a meeting to hear member’s concerns and explore any ideas that could be considered.

He said Corrections was committed to ongoing dialogue.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Cancer diagnostics company Pacific Edge is aiming to raise up to another $24 million as it continues to battle to regain Medicare coverage in the United States, get reimbursement for its tests, and position the business for growth.

The company’s battle was reflected in its financial results for the year ended March, with a bigger net loss of $35.7m compared with a $29.9m loss last year.

Revenue dropped to $11.5m from $21.8m the year earlier, reflecting the Medicare cut, with testing at US labs falling to 18,784 tests from 23,885 tests the year earlier.

The case for more capital

“The new capital we are seeking today will … support the Company and its operations to regain Medicare coverage and assist our move towards the broader adoption of our tests by commercial payers in the US and further afield,” chair Simon Flood said, adding the company had already made progress.

“Backed by robust clinical evidence, the endorsement of our tests in clinical guidelines, and growing momentum in clinical opinion, we have firmly established ourselves as the first mover and market leader in bladder cancer diagnostics.

“We are determined not to lose that momentum. All of Pacific Edge’s Directors intend to take part in the equity raising. We encourage you to support this offer.”

Second round of funding

The company raised $20m and cut costs last year to help it gather scientific evidence to convince Medicare authorities to reinstate coverage, as well as get payment coverage for its tests.

The latest equity offer consisted of a placement of $18m new ordinary shares to eligible investors at 17 cents per share and an offer of $6m new shares to retail investors with an ability to accept over subscriptions.

The case for support

Pacific Edge expected Medicare administrative contractor Novitas to release a draft documentation to support the reinstatement of Medicare approval before September 2026.

Pacific Edge chief executive Dr Peter Meintjes said reimbursement would assist with increasing revenue and reducing average monthly cash burn below the current target of $2.5 million per month for FY 27.

“The capital we are seeking today will set a clear path to reimbursement for our tests … support continued investment in our clinical evidence and invest in product innovation,” he said.

“We are excited by the growth we see ahead, and we encourage shareholders to support us to take advantage of these opportunities.”

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