By Gavin Evans June 14 (BusinessDesk) - Forestry encroachment onto higher-value farm land is an issue for councils to manage, Lands Minister Eugenie Sage says. The national environmental standard for plantation forestry doesn’t set out to encourage forestry on good farm lan...

By Gavin Evans June 13 (BusinessDesk) - The status of split ministerial decisions on land purchases by overseas investors may be considered in the next phase of a review of the Overseas Investment Act, Lands Minister Eugenie Sage says. The review work, being led by Associat...

By Paul McBeth June 13 (BusinessDesk) - The government expects to have a new legislative framework in place next year to let film workers negotiate collectively but it won't include all screen work.  Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway today announced...

By Paul McBeth June 13 (BusinessDesk) - Brian Roche has resigned from the board of Wellington Gateway Partnership to take up the chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency, clearing a potential conflict of interest with the Crown entity facing a claim by the Transmission Gully...

By Rebecca Howard June 12 (BusinessDesk) - Up to 2,200 farmers will get on-the-ground support through the $229.2 million Sustainable Land Use budget package and support tools - like Overseer - will be upgraded.  Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor and Prime Minister Jacind...

By Paul McBeth June 12 (BusinessDesk) - The government wants greater engagement from the New Zealand Defence Force with local suppliers and researchers in its $20 billion blueprint to shape the nation's military for the next 30 years.  Defence Minister Ron Mark yesterday un...

By Rebecca Howard June 12 (BusinessDesk) - A $75 million cash injection into Callaghan Innovation's Gracefield Innovation Quarter in the Hutt Valley will focus on making sure the aging facilities - which have asbestos, leaking roofs, cladding issues and failing sewer pipes - a...

By Paul McBeth June 12 (BusinessDesk) - The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has put out feelers for a supplier of local accommodation data at a reasonable price, a week after Statistics New Zealand said it couldn't afford to keep doing the existing survey. ...

By Paul McBeth June 11 (BusinessDesk) - Economic consultancy Infometrics doesn't see the provincial growth fund as the best vehicle to dealing with New Zealand's persistent rural-urban divide.  Urban centres rated significantly higher than rural areas in seven of nine well-...

By Gavin Evans June 10 (BusinessDesk) - KiwiRail says a new rail hub proposed south-west of Dannevirke may be able to take 200,000 tonnes of logs off the roads. Officials have been allocated $400,000 to evaluate the potential for the hub to take trucks off local roads and b...

By Gavin Evans June 10 (BusinessDesk) - More than 260 groups and individuals have submitted on OMV’s application to the Environmental Protection Authority to drill in the Great South Basin. Most oppose the application citing concern about climate change – a ground the decis...

By Paul McBeth June 10 (BusinessDesk) - Greater Wellington Regional Council has imposed a stricter environmental regime on the construction of the 27-kilometre Transmission Gully highway north of Wellington due to ongoing concerns about erosion and sediment control failures....

By Jenny Ruth June 10 (BusinessDesk) - Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr says the prudential part of his organisation, the part that oversees the banking system, is under-resourced. “We need more resource. We’ve said that very often. That was, in part, one of the outcomes of...

By Paul McBeth June 7 (BusinessDesk) - With less than a year until it’s scheduled to open, the contractor tasked with building and maintaining the 27-kilometre Transmission Gully highway north of Wellington has lodged a claim big enough for the New Zealand Transport Agency to...

(Adds Fonterra comment in last 2 paragraphs) By Paul McBeth June 6 (BusinessDesk) - Primary Industries Minister Damien O'Connor will grant Fonterra Cooperative Group a little relief over its requirement to accept milk from all-comers, but it will also face greater oversight...

By Paul McBeth June 6 (BusinessDesk) - The Treasury and Inland Revenue Department are looking into why the government's April financial statements showed the 10-month tax-take running $2.25 billion ahead of the budget forecasts, just one week after they were publicly released....

By Rebecca Howard June 5 (BusinessDesk) - Federated Farmers is pointing the finger at the Reserve Bank's proposed increase in bank capital requirements as more farmers feel under pressure and overall satisfaction with banks hit the lowest level since its first survey in August...

By Jenny Ruth June 5 (BusinessDesk) - The Reserve Bank's bank capital proposals focus on the wrong things, are based on cherry-picking international research and won’t necessarily calm investors and depositors when banks come under stress, according to Martien Lubberink, assoc...

By Rebecca Howard June 5 (BusinessDesk) - The New Zealand dollar was higher on growing speculation the US could move to cut rates, in particular against the backdrop of rising trade tensions.  The kiwi was trading at 66.16 US cents at 7:50am in Wellington from 65.76 US cent...

By Pattrick Smellie June 4 (BusinessDesk) - Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will reshuffle her Cabinet later this month, but is signalling there won't be "substantive changes" in a group of ministers whose continued service is based not only on performance but, in some cases, wh...

By Jenny Ruth June 4 (BusinessDesk) - The New Zealand made up lost ground from earlier in the day after the Reserve Bank of Australia cut its cash rate, a move that had already been fully priced into the market, but then the kiwi fell again. The kiwi was trading at 65.76 US...

By Pattrick Smellie June 4 (BusinessDesk) - An investigation into last week's Budget leak by the State Services Commission has morphed into an investigation into the actions of Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf after the discovery that the National Party had obtained accurat...