The SME Stream

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Panelists Dileepa Fonseka and Lara Greaves discuss the tax policy back and forth.

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Strong production, high prices, favourable exchange rate - the boom continues for primary producers. BusinessDesk reporter Riley Kennedy.

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World's most valuable company forecasts gross margin to slidie... but it's from 75% to 71%, then back up to 73%. 

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To the Reserve Bank, the cash rate and the state of NZ Inc.

It's assumed by most that the cash rate will be increased 25 points to 2.75%.

It's also assumed there will be another one by the end of the year. What happens after that has a “who knows” feel about it.

What I feel, to a degree, is a groundhog-ish sort of vibe.

We have been here before. We were here before the war. The momentum was building, the recovery was on and we started to feel good about the place.

Then Trump blew it up.

It turns out, if Westpac are right, the period of the war (April, May and June i.e Q2) wasn’t as bad as we thought it might be.

They argue we will see negative growth of -0.1%, so in other words, it's flat and a return to real growth in this current quarter. This is all good!

What the Reserve Bank worry about is inflation. Perhaps they shouldn't be as much as they might be? No it is not in the band, but it's tracking that way.

Business and their desire to bump prices has hit a wall. We simply won't pay and we'd rather not buy than pay more.

The exceptions are rates, power, insurance and imported stuff like oil and also, previously, food.

The Reserve Bank can look through oil a bit. Insurance is starting to be under control. Even power for some is starting to fall in price as generation costs fall.

Food at 1.9% is sorted. Rates of course are an ongoing scandal but, and this is where Kiwibank are right, there is enough there if you were of a mind to just take a beat and let this play out a bit further.

In other words, given we are back where we were about a year ago i.e on the move and feeling better, why would you take a hammer, or at least a negative view of it all, and squeeze when you don’t really need to?

Why risk choking off what little we currently have?

To my mind it is a persuasive argument. It's perhaps a weakness in the Reserve Bank riding instructions, the singular focus on inflation.

But we are currently coalescing under the broad idea of "here we go again", "it's coming right" and "at last, better days ahead".

Please, just for Wednesday, don't wreck it. Is that too much to ask?

LISTEN ABOVE 

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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 …More positive signs for our economic recovery, the battle of the pre-election business policies continues, plus the fuel effect on Kiwi’s spending habits.

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Kim Crossman has spent more than 20 years building a career in entertainment... but becoming a mum has changed everything.

In this episode of Make It Happen, we sit down with Kim to talk about what happens when the career you’ve spent decades building suddenly isn’t the only thing defining your future.

We talk about the uncertainty of an industry where your next job is never guaranteed, learning to back yourself through change, and how becoming a mum to Coco led Kim to rethink what she wanted her next chapter to look like.

Kim opens up about her experience with postpartum prolapse and how one of the hardest periods of her life exposed a problem she couldn’t stop thinking about. That problem eventually led her to become a co-founder of Vital Bits - a business dedicated to postpartum recovery and wellness products.

We get into career reinvention, starting a business for the first time and using a personal brand to open doors in an entirely new industry.

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Could we FINALLY be at an economic turning point?  

Westpac economists have forecast the economy will return to growth in the current quarter. 

They reckon there'll be 2.1% growth across 2026 – even picking up to 3% next year ... with exports and tourism doing the heavy lifting. 

So, are we out of the woods - or is this just a brief respite before the next shock? 

Today on The Front Page, Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold joins us to break down what it means for your wallet, your job, your mortgage – and whether this recovery is for real. 

Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.

Host: Chelsea Daniels
Editor/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Jane Yee

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Meridian’s profit rebounds sharply as renewables investment accelerates. CEO Mike Roan outlines the growth plans and what they mean for power prices.

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Westpac's latest report expects the economy to grow over the next two years, and unemployment to improve. Nicola Willis joins Herald NOW.

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