The SME Stream

A weaker dollar's helping commodity prices.  

ANZ’s Commodity Price Index hit a record high in March, rising 6.4% as the dollar weakened 2.8%. 

Global prices rose 4.1% – the second-highest monthly rise on record. 

BusinessNZ CEO Katherine Rich told Mike Hosking on the surface, higher prices look positive for exporters, but they're also facing much higher costs.  

She says the weaker dollar boosts export return but also makes imports more expensive. 

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After pretty much telling us to calm the farm over the fuel situation, I can’t believe the government is getting all antsy about its fuel tax increase - due to kick-in at the start of next year. 

Yesterday, when Finance Minister Nicola Willis gave her regular fuel update, she said it is “very unlikely” that the Government will go ahead with the 12 percent-per-litre increase in January. 

Why’s that? Because the Government doesn’t think people can afford it. Due to the increased costs caused by the war in Iran. 

But I don’t think the country can afford not to increase the taxes.  

Because, as the finance minister said herself yesterday, no increase in the fuel tax is going to mean less money for road maintenance and road construction. 

Anyone who thinks this would be a good idea obviously has a very short memory. 

Because it was only two months when the automobile association released the findings of its most recent research survey of motorists, which found that more than half of us think our roads are rubbish. 

Fifty-four percent of people surveyed by the AA said they were frustrated by the state of our roads. 

South Canterbury was one of the areas where people were most unhappy. More than 60 percent of people there said they thought the roads were in cruddy condition. 

And, at the time, aa spokesperson Dylan Thomsen said his organisation had been pushing for better maintenance of roads for years. 

Two months ago, he said: “We are very pleased that there has been a big increase in funding and focus on maintenance with initiatives like the government’s pothole fund. Hopefully we’ve turned a corner and we'll see aa members happier with their roads in future surveys.” 

That’s not going to happen if the government does do what Nicola Willis was talking about yesterday and does press pause on fuel tax increases. 

As Chris Bishop has said previously about fuel taxes. He says they “go into the roads, maintenance, public transport, the new projects we want to build, the new public transport projects we want to build, all of those things have to be paid for.” 

Adding that the Government “doesn't have an unlimited credit card”. 

So the Government, if it’s totally honest, obviously thinks that increasing fuel taxes is a no-brainer. Which it is.

So why is it saying now that it’s probably not going to? 

Because it doesn’t think it would be fair and reasonable to make us pay more for fuel when we are already, because of what’s going on in the Middle East.     

I get that. But it’s just politics.

Because, if you think beyond the here and now and think about the state of our roads, then you too will, hopefully, see that this move - over time - would be a major step backwards. 

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Diesel is soaring past four dollars a litre. 

Z has issued a national price advisory for commercial customers showing the price of diesel jumping 55 cents a litre, putting the price at the pump at $4.16. 

It says prices are based on what it'll cost to buy the next shipment from overseas, not what's already sitting in tanks.  

Waitomo CEO Simon Parham told Mike Hosking it looks like the price will filter through to all importers across New Zealand. 

He says oil was trading at about $80 a barrel pre-conflict, which has now soared to about $255 a barrel. 

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The average sheep and beef farm is forecast to make double what they did last year - according to new projections. 

The Mid-Season Update by Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s Economic Service is forecasting an average profit before tax for 2025-26 of $287,600 per farm, following two difficult seasons for the sector.

The Country's Jamie Mackay explained further.

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Is property investing actually dead? Investor Ilse Wolfe doesn’t think so, but she says the old way of doing it is. Isle joins Nadine to share her strategies for making property investment work in 2026.

From surviving negative equity early on to building strong cashflow, Wolfe argues it’s still viable, if you’re willing to be active and rethink the playbook.

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The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has been taking place for five weeks, and it's started to impact financial results.

Data shows business confidence has plunged over the last month, airlines are cutting down projected results and retail and construction have taken a hti.

Sam Dickie from Fisher Funds explained further.

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As business owners, you know how hard it is keeping up with your business, let alone the news. Join Wilhelmina O'Keeffe each week as she gives you a rundown of the biggest stories that could impact your business, so you can make informed decisions with expert advice. 

This week,  the fuel crisis rages on so what are the plans to secure more stock? There are fears about what the conflict will mean for inflation and GDP, plus business confidence takes a hit, and the working from home debate continues.

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In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 59, our guest is Lisa King, the inspirational founder of Eat My Lunch and more recently alcohol free cocktail brand, Free AF.

She was born in Hong Kong and moved to New Zealand at the age of two. Her hardworking parents instilled a passion for education and an enthusiasm for entrepreneurial flair.

Lisa King didn’t waste that business oriented zest for life. A couple of university degrees provided her ticket to her dream jobs, in big corporate organisations that could show her the world.

The New Zealand Daily Board sent her to the Philippines, Unilever took her to the UK and the arrival of her first child brought her home. Roles in the heart of FMCG business followed at Bluebird, Cadbury and eventually back to the newly named Fonterra.

But a need to do something with purpose was stirring and, inspired by an advertisement for shoes – buy one get one free – she set up a school lunch programme that followed that same model. If sponsors would pay for a school lunch, her team would deliver that and another to students in need. It was called “Eat My Lunch” and it arrived at a time when some schools had 50 kids going without a midday meal.

They prepared the lunches in her lounge at first, and at its peak her team were delivering 2,600 free lunches and the same number of paid ones, across 45 schools, every day. 

With the arrival of the Government’s school lunch programme, her work there was done and another purpose was waiting.

Lisa had decided to give up drinking alcohol, and was astounded by the social pressures and the awkward questions. She’d decided that the conversation around not drinking was broken.

And so, in 2020, despite Covid and lockdowns and plenty of reasons not to, she assembled a team and created a brand, developed recipes, and launched Free AF, an alcohol free cocktail brand with a goal to reduce the alcohol in people’s lives without sacrificing the experience.

On the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast Lisa King speaks to Bruce Cotterill about, not one, but two entrepreneurial journeys, the lessons she’s learned and the opportunities ahead. Free AF now features in more than 4,000 stores across the USA, including Whole Foods, Target and Walmart and she is very open about the hard work involved in getting established in a massive market, including the importance of keeping her team small and action orientated, jumping time zones and the funding challenges associated with order sizes you don’t expect.

This is a case study in purpose from someone who is in the process of building a global brand. It’s a must listen for every aspiring entrepreneur. Spoiler alert… it’s a lot of hard work!

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New Zealand drivers are about to discover a whole new way of paying to use the roads – and for most, it will be a shock. 

For decades, petrol and diesel motorists have funded the transport network through fuel excise quietly folded into every litre at the pump - currently a 70c tax. 

Soon, that largely invisible tax will give way to something much more visible – paying per kilometre under an expanded road user charge (RUC) system.

On the latest episode of The Business of Tech, I talk to Dunedin-based entrepreneur Adam Johnston about what may be the biggest shake-up to transport funding in 50 years. Light vehicle owners who have never had to think about RUC before will be pulled into a regime that currently applies to heavy vehicles, diesel cars and electric vehicles. Petrol vehicles currently make up around 55% of the national fleet.

Instead of passively paying when you fill up, you’ll be actively buying distance in advance, tracking your odometer, and keeping on the good side of Waka Kotahi.

A new marketplace for RUC payments

 

That sounds like a recipe for confusion and admin overload, especially in a cost-of-living crisis where drivers are already stressed about the price of petrol and diesel. But this shift is also opening the door to a wave of innovation. As the government hands more of the RUC system over to private providers, a new marketplace will emerge around how you pay to drive.

It will likely be in the form of apps that let you buy and manage your RUC from your phone, real-time dashboards that show how much you’ve used, and even telematics devices that automate the whole process by reporting your mileage in the background. Payment platforms will sit in the middle, clipping the ticket on every transaction. Start-ups and incumbents alike will compete to become your go-to RUC retailer, bundling services and perks to win your attention and loyalty.

Johnston and his co-founder, Briyarne Pascoe, both former Delivery Easy workers, are among the entrepreneurs racing to shape this new ecosystem. Building on their RUC Hub project, a free-to-access platform that tells you everything you need to know about road user charges, they saw an opportunity to make a complex system more transparent and user-friendly, while preventing the market from devolving into a cosy oligopoly. The pair plan to become a retail player in the emerging RUC ecosystem.

In the episode, Johnston explains the trade-offs between better digital experiences and the extra transaction costs that could quietly inflate what you pay overall.

This episode unpacks what’s coming, how your relationship with your car and your wallet is about to change, and the tools that could make surviving the new RUC era a little less painful. Streaming on iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.

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How will all the spending on AI translate to bottom-line results? Infratil CEO Jason Boyes spends his days and nights thinking about data centers, and he has thoughts about where investors could see real returns. 

We’re talking about the “defensive” nature of Infratil’s $11B infrastructure portfolio, and the impacts Jason anticipates from interest rate rises and shifting geopolitics. Hear about the outlook for portfolio assets from solar farms in Texas to runways in Wellington, and what’s different about the cooling technology in Infratil’s Canberra Data Centres. 

Plus, why Jason believes the market is still sleeping on US renewable energy developer, Longroad.

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