About 90 percent of homes in New Zealand are in need of immediate maintenance, with the total cost of the work thought to be $27 billion, research has found.

Centre for Research, Evaluation and Social Assessment (CRESA) – with Building Research Levy backing – is running a project aimed at helping owners keep their homes well cared for in an affordable way.

CRESA’s research director Kay Saville-Smith, told Nine to Noon, the 90 percent figure came from a variety of resources including the latest condition survey done by the centre along with other research it had done.

Saville-Smith said any home that did not operate well, for example, losing heat or getting too warm counted as being in need of maintenance.

The risks associated with an unmaintained home were that it could become damaged during any adverse weather events.

Older homes were likely to be in need of repairs, Saville-Smith said, particularly if the home had not been well maintained on a regular basis.

She said while new builds were less likely to need immediate maintenance, they were not always suitable for the conditions and environment of where they had been built.

Old weatherboard homes for example with wooden window frames, were pretty straightforward to maintain, Saville-Smith said, but for many houses things were not so simple.

“Homeowners, particularly as they age, get less and less willing and sometimes less capable of some of the work.”

Over the years, there had been many design periods which used lots of different sorts of cladding and roof tiles, she said, and every different type of cladding on a home moved in a different way.

“The main thing consumers can do when choosing homes and designs is to understand and think about these things.

“You want a resilient home not one that just looks a bit flash.”

She said it was also important for homeowners to remember low maintenance did not mean no maintenance.

AUT Professor of Construction Management John Tookey, said a lot of general maintenance which needed to be done on homes was relatively small including clearing gutters, touching up paint, checking for gutter cracks and treating surfaces.

He said problems arose “when the outside gets inside.”

“If you don’t maintain, issues can become serious,” he said.

At this stage, Saville-Smith said she did not have data on how much people were paying to keep their homes maintained but they were working with housing providers to get a better idea of this.

She said CRESA wanted to work with designers and housing providers as well as the building industry on how to build better, more resilient homes.

Tookey said the biggest barrier for homeowners with maintaining their houses was finances. Everything from mowing grass to trimming trees came at a cost if someone was being hired to do it.

The next thing it came down to was skills and an ageing population, he said.

“We’ve become increasingly a victim of our sedentary lifestyle.”

His advice for homeowners who did not have access to a lot of funds was to “focus on the small stuff”.

That included using treatments on wood and touching up the house with paint.

He said by the time a problem was big enough to get someone in to fix it, it was going to be expensive.

“Deal with small problems before they become big problems and have a regular budget for maintenance.”

Tookey said it was good to try and set up one day each month where you can do maintenance around your home.

Coming into winter, Tookey said it was good to prepare your home by making sure there were curtains to keep in the heat, along with insulation under the floor and in the roof. He suggested purchasing a dehumidifier to take the moisture out of the air was also good.

Saville-Smith envisioned a checklist of home maintenance for a number of different styles of homes which could be given to homeowners.

She hoped the project would be able to get out the door within 18 months.

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

What will the war in the Middle East mean for the average Kiwi’s finances? How far are fuel prices going to rise? What will happen to interest rates?

And what does it all mean for the price of food – haven’t we had enough increases there, already?

A special episode of the No Stupid Questions podcast out on Wednesday aims to answer these questions – and more.

If you have any questions of your own, send them to questions@rnz.co.nz

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

Worried KiwiSaver members are asking: is this time different?

Markets have been volatile this week as they digest the impact of the war in the Middle East.

But some investors have been concerned the warnings of economic disruption could mean more pain to come for their KiwiSaver balances.

One woman who wrote to RNZ said she was 64 and worrying about her KiwiSaver balance falling.

“I am out of work due to illness and have no other income or support from the government … I am really counting on this money. I’m worried not much will be left.”

KiwiSaver managers say – as ever – the volatility is the price that investors pay for the returns they get on the other side, and for most people, sticking with their investment strategy is the best plan of action.

ASB chief investment officer Frank Jasper said the bank was fielding some inquiries.

“People obviously seeing headlines, especially [Monday] seeing some pretty dramatic market moves and asking questions around what’s going on.”

Jasper said, while riding it out was usually the best course of action, a downturn in markets could sometimes highlight a personality mismatch for investors.

“We do all of this risk profiling when we go into KiwiSaver and we get asked about our attitude to risk.

“And then we live through these experiences and they are visceral experiences, that really test your genuine attitude towards risk.

“I think for some people, it’s a learning opportunity … And they realise ‘when I actually experience it, I realise that it does affect me a bit more than I thought’ … every time there’s a dramatic market move, despite the fact the long-term evidence suggests the world gets through it and we do recover, there’s a scenario you can paint where things get worse.

“Sometimes people will lean heavily on that ‘things will get worse’ scenario. Sometimes they will be right, but most of the time the world returns to normal and things are okay.”

He said, since 2009, the S&P500 had fallen more than 5 percent 32 times and continued to record all-time highs through that period. “It’s just a feature of the market.”

He said it typically took 47 days for the market to recover from a shock.

‘And then within 12 months, about 68 percent of the time, the market is higher than it was 12 months ago.”

He said persistently negative markets would usually come only when a shock become a macroeconomic crisis.

But Jasper said it was a good opportunity for people to think about whether their fund was a match for their emotional ability to cope with risk, not just their investment time horizon.

“It’s very easy to think you are relaxed if there are drawdowns or relaxed if there are shocks in the markets. It’s only living through these experiences you get to actually genuinely test what your attitude to risk is. For some people, they will experience this and go ‘you know what? I don’t sleep well at night and I’m genuinely uncomfortable about this’.

“For those people, it may be very rational to think about a different risk profile over time. But for others they’ll go ‘I’ve got 20 years left, I know these things happen. I’m okay with it’.

“If you think about any other thing in our life, if the big screen TV was on special we’d be really happy about it. Or if you could dine at your favourite restaurant bit cheaper than normal, you’d be really happy about it. The minute shares go on sale, they fall a bit, we get the chance to buy more shares in good companies that we can own for the next 120 years, we kind of get nervous about it. It’s strange behaviour in the financial markets we don’t see in any other parts of our lives.”

ANZ, the country’s biggest KiwiSaver provider, said it had been contacted by a small number of people who wanted to switch to a more conservative fund.

“In April 2025, during another recent period of market volatility, we also noticed an increase in customers contacting us to switch into more conservative funds. However, the numbers were again low – a couple of hundred – and a fraction of what we saw in March 2020.

“We think this is a reflection of how ANZ Investments, alongside other KiwiSaver providers and industry participants, have made conscious efforts to remind KiwiSaver members to stay the course.”

At Milford, head of KiwiSaver Murray Harris said it had not received many calls or questions but was telling members that markets moved up and down and this was no different.

He said investors who stuck to their goals would do better than those who tried to time the markets and switch funds to avoid a downturn, because they would often turn out to have moved at the wrong time. That could mean locking in losses and missing out on the recovery.

Morningstar NZ spokesperson Greg Bunkall said the impact on funds would depend on the performance of equity markets from now.

“To date, the KiwiSaver balanced and growth indexes Morningstar uses to track KiwiSaver funds are flat, and that doesn’t include the bounce back [Tuesday] morning.”

So what can you do if you’re worried?

You should be in a KiwiSaver fund that matches your risk profile.

If you have a long time until you need your money, you can afford to take some more risk and should get through this disruption – and others – by not paying too much attention to your KiwiSaver balance.

If you need the money soon, you should already be in a conservative fund that hopefully isn’t moving around too much.

If you’ve realised you’ve got your settings wildly wrong, and you need money now, you’ll probably need to move your investments, even if it means locking in losses.

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

Declining population in West Papua, and critical loss of life through clashes with the Indonesia military raise the question of genocide in a new book by Brisbane writer Dr Greg Poulgrain.

This work, Curse of Gold, published in English by Kompas, as the title indicates traces the roots of subjugation going on in West New Guinea (West Papua) to a cynical grabbing for resources. An Indonesian language edition is forthcoming.

The book is a history beginning with the discovery of huge deposits of gold in 1936, deposits more than twice the gold being mined at Witwatersrand, together with discovery of oil just off-shore.

The principal mine now, with an Indonesian billionaire as main owner, has 560 km of tunnels and produces 50 tonnes of gold annually.

The existence of the gold was kept secret, awaiting investment and development opportunities, held up by war with the Japanese, known just to Dutch interests, the Japanese, and significant for the future, the Rockefeller petroleum company Standard Oil in the United States.

The writer details the operation of a “Third Force” in a chain of political intrigues and manipulation over a half century: the US company, sometimes officers of the US government, and at all times an early player since the first discovery, Allen Dulles, who came to head-up the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Dulles as the lawyer for Standard Oil had already got a petroleum concession in Netherlands New Guinea before 1936, through forming a joint US-Dutch company with majority US interest.

Heyday of CIA operations
In the 1950s heyday of CIA undercover operations across the “Third World”, Dulles is depicted here manipulating political events in Indonesia, whether spreading disinformation, concealing information from governments, even setting up mysterious, destabilising armed skirmishes.

The objective given is always the same, to secure ownership of resources and a free hand for American commercial interests. At one point covert government help would be provided through some disingenuous work by Henry Kissinger as Secretary of State to Richard Nixon, and the always interventionist US Ambassador Marshall Green.

For people of West New Guinea the intriguing saga has been a catastrophe, seeing their rights, interests, existence and even human identity denied and ignored in the struggles over wealth and power.

The story is in two phases:

In wartime the occupying Japanese encouraged the Indonesian independence movement, as a block against any return to influence by European colonial powers, and naturally wanted Papuan resources themselves.

A Japanese intelligence operative, Nishijima Shigetada, familiar with the region, is given a key role. He had found out about the gold, and persuaded the Indonesian nationalists to include West New Guinea in their demands for a republic — the better to get the trove out of the hands of “colonial monopolies”.

The second phase of developments saw an ugly turn of events with the 1965 military coup in Indonesia, marked by large scale massacre across the country and coming to power of Suharto as President in 1967.

The new regime determined to build on the campaign by its predecessor, President Sukarno, to take over West New Guinea. In the calculus of Cold War rivalries, President John Kennedy had sought to keep him “on side” and the Russians provided guns and aid, in part to best their Chinese rivals.

Dutch gave in
The outcome was that the Dutch who had stayed on in the territory gave in to pressure and pulled out by the end of 1963. It was nominally then put under United Nations trusteeship until an “act of free choice” on independence.

But Indonesian forces moved in, violently put down any Papuan resistance, promulgated theories of an Indonesia Raya, a lost island empire to which all of New Guinea had belonged, and declared the decision on independence would be an issue of “staying” with Indonesia. Neither Kennedy nor Sukarno, who had planned to meet in 1964, is believed to have known about the gold in Papua.

Dr Poulgrain recounts the narrative of bullying and deception, including the sidelining of senior UN representatives, whereby the “act of free choice” became notoriously a series of managed gatherings, no plebiscite of the people ever countenanced. He argues that the “Third Party”, having helped to remove the Dutch, then moved in favour of its own preferred candidate, Suharto, no nationalist from the independence movement, a self-declared friend of US commerce and advocate for untrammelled investment:

“It could be argued that the fiery nationalism so characteristic of Sukarno, the tool that won him the right to enter the harbour of Soekarnopura (Jayapura) on board the Soviet warship renamed Irian, proved to be his own undoing. Under the mantle of Sukarno’s presidency, Indonesia ousted the Dutch from New Guinea, the goal of both Nishijima and the ‘Third Party’, finally bringing an end to the European colonial presence there.

“Only 30 months later, Sukarno was facing his own political demise …”

In case the reader considers this might all be a well-worn path, it should be emphasised there is new material and insight into the origins and enactment of cruelty, appropriation and dishonesty that became the pattern in Suharto’s New Order Indonesia and its captive provinces in West New Guinea.

It is a work of thoroughness and industry, especially where covert activity and actual conspiracy appears; extensive documentation has been provided making the case strong. Much of it is original material, such as diplomatic messaging obtained through libraries, and records of interviews or correspondence with leading figures, viz Nishijima or the former US Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

Well defended
The thesis of the book is consistently propounded and well defended:

“This book is about the ownership of the immense wealth of natural resources in Western New Guinea”.

The colonised inhabitants did not get that ownership or any just share of it, with bad consequences for their culture and welfare. It was a bad beginning in 1963 with Indonesia in a dominating frame of mind:

“Papuan culture is the antithesis of life in Java.”

Where the Dutch colonisers are characterised as a very small population hardly penetrating the hinterland, the Indonesians who took over from them have been aggressive with their industry building, immigration and military occupation.

Papuans today make up barely half the population of 5.4-million, steadily outstripped by arrivals. Population growth in the comparable country, Papua New Guinea, since independence in 1975 has been much stronger, now pushing towards 11-million.

• Curse of Gold, by Greg Poulgrain (Jakarta, Kompas, 2026). ISBN 978, ISBN 978 (PDF)

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Nelson’s mayor says smaller centres are rattled by a warning from Air New Zealand it may have make changes to where it flies and how often.

The national carrier has suspended the earnings guidance it issued less than two weeks ago because of what it said was unprecedented volatility in jet fuel markets.

The airline expects a meaningful impact on its second half earnings.

Air New Zealand said it had put in place initial fare changes, but said it may need to hike prices and adjust its network and schedule “as required”.

Nelson mayor Nick Smith said there was a “huge amount of nervousness in regional New Zealand” over the possibility of Air New Zealand reviewing services.

“We get that they’re under enormous financial pressure with the big loss they announced a couple of weeks ago, as well as the heightened fuel prices, the hope will be that they maintain the set of destinations across New Zealand they do, albeit understanding the frequency of some of those services may be reduced,” he said.

“I’m advocating very strongly on behalf of Nelson, as other mayors will be doing, that if we are to rebuild the tourism industry, we don’t want to have it excessively focused on the Queenstowns and the Rotoruas that are already busy.”

Smith said he was due to meet with Air New Zealand in the next couple of weeks.

“I hope there will be some consultation with mayors and regional leaders as they try and work through how they can be economically viable while at the same time maintain these vital services to regions like Nelson.”

The Nelson mayor said flights were “so important” to regional New Zealand.

“The loss of an air service can have a body blow impact on regional centres,” he said.

Smith said Nelson was a busy airport.

“But even for us, maintaining the frequency and range of destinations is just so important for the future of the Nelson region.”

Timaru mayor Nigel Bowen told RNZ that as a smaller centre, Timaru valued its connection into Wellington.

“We have significant concerns when global events affect fuel prices,” he said.

“We have historically a good working relationship with Air New Zealand and would expect, with any potential changes, that we are brought into the conversation.”

Taupō mayor John Funnell said he would encourage Air New Zealand to keep its services there.

“The airport has been working with Air New Zealand to remind them that it is a popular destination,” he said.

In its market statement the national carrier said the difference in the crack spread price – the margin charged by refineries – had jumped from US$22 barrel to as high as US$115.

Airlines are charged for the Brent Crude price of a barrel of oil – hovering around $US100 – and the crack spread price.

Oil prices fell on Tuesday, with the benchmark Brent Crude down 6 percent to around US$87 a barrel, after rising above $115 on Monday (NZ time).

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

One of the country’s most prominent buyers’ agencies has complained to the Real Estate Authority about a rise in “property flippers” making six-figures from unwitting vendors.

Earlier, Cotality told RNZ that the number of contemporaneous sales had lifted significantly last year after a sharp fall in 2023.

“There was a lift in these types of transactions last year, almost double 2024, and even more than what we saw through the Covid boom times,” head of research Nick Goodall said.

In a contemporaneous settlement, a property flipper often makes an offer with a long settlement period, and then finds another buyer to purchase the property the same day they have to settle, making money on the transaction.

iFindProperty co-founder Maree Tassell said there was noticeably more of the activity happening.

“It’s quite common that there are some deals out there where people are making over $100,000-plus on contemporaneous settlements, getting a property under contract. The poor old vendor, and even often the vendor’s agents will think ‘oh this is a real purchaser’. This is what’s really pissing me off.

“You’re getting these people come along, they get the property under contract, they act like they are the buyer. They tie a property up to say 20 days’ due diligence and then they’re immediately sending it out to their database and putting a big margin on it trying to onsell the property… they will pretend they’re bringing a builder through or pretend they’re bringing a valuer through and it will be a potential buyer. It’s quite deceptive to the vendors and quite deceptive sometimes to the agents.”

She said people saw it as a quick way to make money.

“And you get a whole lot of people creating mentoring services… they’re charging people money to come and learn how to make money in property.

“It’s all very sexy and it’s called no money down deals so they’re teaching people who know [not much] about property and don’t have the money to buy property just basically how to tie property contacts up and sell the contract. There’s no protection for the consumer, there’s no protection often for the vendor. They don’t know what’s happening.”

Property law expert Joanna Pidgeon said traders who were finding properties, buying them personally and then onselling were excluded from having to comply with the Real Estate Agents Act because they were self representing.

“Companies that sell property owned by the company directly to consumers are not required to hold a real estate licence issued by REA. However, a company that engages a contractor or sales agent who does not hold an active real estate licence to act as their representative on property sales may be engaged in unlicensed trading.

“People who buy directly from property traders who are not licensed do not have the same protections as when buying from a licensed real estate agent. This is particularly important as there is a conflict of interest when a trader is onselling directly. A purchaser should be seeking advice in relation to this, and should have their deposit held in a trust account pending the vendor becoming the registered owner of the property. We have seen some purchasers lose their deposits when traders have got into financial difficulty and the deposit has been released but the vendor unable to settle to enable the onsale.”

Tassell said she had meetings with both the Real Estate Institute and Real Estate Authority about the issue, which were positive.

The Real Estate Authority said it received a range of inquiries about property related activity and whether activity is within its regulatory scope. “We are not able to comment on any recent enquiries while our enquiries are ongoing, particularly out of fairness to the parties and to preserve the integrity of the process.”

Tassell said her business would make it clear if it were onselling, “We have a clause saying we’re licensed buyers’ agents. We’re not buying the property. We’re looking for someone to buy it. It’s total transparency with the vendor, it’s total transparency with the vendor’s agent. And then with our clients, the purchasers, it’s total transparency what they pay us. We’re not putting $150,000 between contracts and just laughing all the way to the bank.”

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

Air New Zealand has suspended its earning guidance amid what it calls unprecedented volatility in global jet fuel markets.

The airline expects a meaningful impact on its second half earnings.

After implementing initial fare changes, it says it may need to take further price action and adjust its network if the conflict leads to continued high jet fuel costs.

Air New Zealand shares had fallen nearly 8 percent on Monday.

Oil prices are up about 8 percent to US$99.90 a barrel, after climbing to a high of US$119.50 a barrel overnight, its biggest-ever absolute price jump in a single day.

Reuters reports that some jet fuel prices have doubled since the start of the conflict putting pressure on carriers already having to reroute to avoid the Middle East conflict and cater to thousands of stranded passengers trying to leave the region.

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

SuperGold Card holders are finding it difficult to cash-in on weekly supermarket discounts with a mish-mash of locations, leaving some regions missing out entirely with patchy coverage in others.

Age Concern chief executive Kevin Lamb called it an example of “grey washing”.

For example, the SuperGold Card was accepted at grocery stores in most central business districts, but not in Gisborne, Marlborough Nelson, Tasman, West Coast districts nor the densely populated Auckland CBD, with a fast-growing resident senior population of more than 2000 people.

“It is portraying themselves as supporting older people, but doing what I would call the bare minimum in order to achieve that,” Lamb said.

“If you’re going to say that SuperGold Card gets a discount in our stores, why wouldn’t you do that for every store? Not just cherry pick a handful of stores around the country and have such a lack of consistency about where those stores are located.”

Monopoly concerns

Monopoly Watch analyst Tex Edwards said confusing or difficult to get information on the availability of SuperGold Card discounts at leading supermarkets was another example of unchecked monopolistic behaviour.

“What’s being exhibited here with the leverage of the senior gold cards, is a concept called geographic monopolisation in several regions of the country, where you don’t have any brand choice, you just have to go to the Woolworths, or you just have to go to the Foodstuffs banner of either New World or Pak’nSave and Four Square.”

Edwards singled out Wellington, where lobbyists worked on behalf of supermarket chains to maintain the duopoly.

He said it was not surprising that Wellington region had the best coverage of supermarkets offering the SuperGold Card discount in the country, with New World offering it at 100 percent of its stores, and 63 percent at Woolworths.

“The monopolies have these people called the lobbyists, and they run round Wellington and busy telling government officials that they’re doing everything right, and they’re being sensible citizens of New Zealand, and they’re doing all this good stuff, except competing on price and competing on any real initiative,” Edwards said.

Conflicting information

Co-op Foodstuffs, which supplied New World, said there was no comprehensive list of store locations offering the SuperGold Card discount as individual stores were privately owned and operated.

“The discount isn’t offered in our South Island stores. In the North Island, it’s up to individual store owners to decide whether to offer it, so there isn’t a single, comprehensive list of participating stores,” Foodstuffs said in a statement to RNZ.

But internet searches of New World stores offering SuperGold Card incorrectly indicated the card was widely accepted in South Island locations – which was not the case.

Likewise, telephone calls to New World stores also resulted in conflicting information, together with incomplete information online about the terms and conditions at stores honouring the card, such as minimum purchases.

New World’s online location finder did link to a standardised template for each store, but none of them contained information about SuperGold, though other services were mentioned.

Woolworths said it offered the discount in about a third of its stores broadly located nationwide, but that was also somewhat misleading as the discount was not evenly distributed throughout the country, with some regions seeing near 100 percent coverage, while others offered nothing at all.

A list of participating Woolworths stores on the SuperGold app was also out of date with four stores no longer operating.

Commerce Commission response

Grocery Commissioner Pierre van Heerden said supermarkets were not obligated to offer a SuperGold discount at any of its stores, though they needed to deliver on their promises to do so.

“However, we would reiterate that any discounts offered need to be clear and accurate and should not mislead consumers.

“Supermarkets need to follow through where discounts are offered.

“Any exceptions to discounts, including eligible locations, need to be clearly communicated to avoid misleading consumers,” he said.

“We would encourage people to report a concern to the Commission if they think one of the laws we enforce has been breached.

“We are unable comment further without undertaking a more thorough assessment of the matter and, if warranted, through undertaking an investigation,” he said.

Woolworths response

Woolworths’ website indicates a third of its total 185 grocery stores offered the 5 percent discount on any given Tuesday, but just 23 percent of its Auckland region’s stores offered the discount, and not at any of the five stores located within a 20-minute walk of the Auckland CBD.

“Whilst we may not offer the discount in all Auckland CBD stores, we do offer it broadly across the country,” Woolworths director of retail Jason Stockill said.

However, a list of Woolworths stores that accepted the SuperGold card were not broadly located according to data available on supermarket websites, and many of its North Island stores were located near competing New World supermarkets that also offered SuperGold discounts.

“We are aware that some select competitor stores run a SuperGold discount programme. We are not aware of this being directly matched store to store by us or our competitors,” Stockill said.

Still, the following table indicates the regions where Woolworths and New World’s SuperGold Card discounts are matched store-to-store:

• Gisborne District: Woolworths 0 percent offers 0/1 stores – New World 0/0 stores 0 percent offers
• West Coast: Woolworths 0 percent 0/1 – New World 0/3 0 percent offers in the South Island
• Nelson: Woolworths 0 percent 0/6 – New World 0/2 0 percent offers in the South Island
• Tasman: Woolworths 0 percent 0/1 stores – New World 0/1 stores 0 percent offers in the South Island
• Taranaki: Woolworths 20 percent 1/5 stores – New World 60 percent 3/5 stores matched 0
• Auckland: Woolworths 23 percent 14/ 62 stores – New World 61 percent 19/31 matched 11
• Waikato: Woolworths 26 percent 5/19 stores – New World 44 percent 7/16 matched 3
• Southland: Woolworths 33 percent 1/3 stores – New World 0/3 0 percent offers in the South Island
• Hawke’s Bay: Woolworths 50 percent or 2 of 4 stores – New World 80 percent 4/5 matched 2
• Otago: Woolworths 56 percent or 5 of 9 stores – New World 0/11 0 percent offers in the South Island
• Manawatu-Wanganui: Woolworths 60 percent 6 of 10 stores – New World 36 percent 4/11 matched 3
• Wellington: Woolworths 63 percent or 12 of 19 stores – New World 100 percent 21/21 matched 8
• Marlborough: Woolworths 67 percent 2/3 stores – New World 0/2 0 percent offers in the South Island
• Northland: Woolworths 71 percent 5/7 stores – New World 80 percent 4/5 matched 3
• Bay of Plenty: Woolworths 83 percent 10/12 stores – New World 67 percent at 6/9 – matched 5
• Canterbury: Woolworths 95 percent -19/20 stores – New World 0/20 0 percent offers in the South Island

Privately-owned Pak’nSave supermarkets do not offer a SuperGold Card discount, though some Four Square supermarkets do. Woolworths-owned Fresh Choice honoured the card at selected locations.

SuperGold Card discounts difficult to access

The SuperGold card was designed to help offset the high cost of living, which statistically hit New Zealand’s seniors harder than other groups.

Lamb said many of the SuperGold advertised on the app or website were beyond the reach of all but the most wealthy retirees.

“I think as well, it’s often the the interfaces are designed for those people who are extremely efficient at using online technology, and that doesn’t apply to a portion of the older population,” he said.

“There are still somewhere in the region of 20 to 25 percent of the older population who don’t have any access to any online resource.

“So creating an app or creating a website is meaningless for those people, and those people do tend to be the ones who are the most vulnerable.”

In any case, using the SuperGold Card App to figuring out which supermarkets did or did not offer the discount was impossible, with no sense as to the rationale behind the selection of stores.

Auckland CBD and other centres miss out

Stockill said Woolworths considered a number of factors when deciding which stores would be included the programme, including demand.

“We are always looking at options to provide additional value to our customers. We know the SuperGold discount program is very valued in the stores we offer it in and we would love to extend this to all stores,” Stockill said.

“However, the truth is that this programme is costly and whilst we would love to roll this out more broadly, we do need to carefully balance this expense with our ongoing investment into lower prices, services and shopping experiences for all our customers.”

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

New Zealand could make its fuel supplies last about three to four weeks if supply was completely cut off.

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) data shows that, on 1 March, there were 49 days’ worth of petrol, 54 of diesel and 50 of jet fuel in New Zealand.

But that total includes “stock on water” that has shipped but not yet arrived here. That is more than half the diesel stock, and 22 of 49 days’ supply of petrol.

War between the US, Israel and Iran has created significant disruptions to the price and supply of fuel and oil around the world, particularly due to the closure of the crucial supply route through the Strait of Hormuz.

Murat Ungor, economist at the University of Otago, said if fuel were completely cut off tomorrow, New Zealand could sustain itself for roughly a month, or just under, with the stocks on shore, assuming there was rationing and prioritisation for essential services.

Read more:

He said stock on water could still take some time to access and transport.

“New Zealand’s fuel supply position is structurally exposed in ways that deserve serious attention. Since the closure of the Marsden Point oil refinery on 31 March 2022, New Zealand has been entirely dependent on imported refined fuels,” he said.

“International transport was significantly disrupted in 2020 due to border closures implemented in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Fuel use for both international aviation and international shipping has been recovering in the years since. Any sustained conflict involving Iran introduces an immediate risk to global oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately 20 percent of the world’s petroleum liquids transit daily.”

Kelly Eckhold, chief economist at Westpac, said there were two boats due to arrive at Marsden Point, near Whangarei, in 10 days. “What I’m not totally sure is if there are others that are also en route but it certainly looks like that’s the situation… there’s about 45 to 48 days’ of products available assuming the stock that’s on the water makes it here.”

He said at the time the new stock arrived, the country could be at around 17 or 18 days’ worth.

He said if supply was completely cut off, there would probably be a prioritisation process. “With ordinary car use there can be changes in the way that people use fuel. You can work from home… the thing with diesel is that it is used in the supply chain.

“The agricultural sector is a heavy user, the transport sector is a heavy user. They’re required to be able to do that otherwise you can’t even get goods to the supermarket. I would expect that if it really got that bad they would have some sort of prioritisation scheme in place to be able to keep things going.”

He said whether that was likely would depend on how the situation unfolded. “If things don’t resolve in a month or six weeks, it would strike me as a decent probability.”

ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner told RNZ the disruption of oil around the world was becoming “pretty real”.

She said the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait had joined Iran in reducing output because they were not able to ship through the usual routes.

MBIE said the country’s fuel stocks were still “healthy” and fuel companies were not reporting issues with supply chains.

“New Zealand has a well defined, multi agency system for managing fuel supply disruptions,” a spokesperson said.

“In the event of disruption, the Fuel Sector Coordinating Entity-led by MBIE-works with NEMA, fuel companies and regional civil defence groups under the National Fuel Plan to maintain supply, prioritise essential services, and manage distribution.

“Should the situation escalate, the International Energy Agency (IEA) may intervene through collective actions like coordinating release of strategic oil reserves by their member states. This happened when Russia invaded Ukraine. The New Zealand Government has agreements with governments from the USA, United Kingdom and Japan to enable ticket contracts or stocks to be held in those countries count toward our emergency oil reserves.

“These measures, accompanied by the government’s long term Fuel Security Plan, provide a clear framework to respond effectively to both domestic and global fuel supply shocks.”

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A worst of worlds scenario for consumers is how one economist is describing the dual effects of the Middle East conflict on both inflation and economic growth.

The war and the resulting supply worries are pushing up global oil prices, with Brent Crude climbing above US$100 a barrel on Monday, to reach its highest level since 2022.

The ensuing price jumps at the petrol pump will not only affect people’s wallets directly, they are expected to flow right through the wider economy.

“Petrol prices are a key input to so many businesses, and so as their costs rise, that’s likely to push up costs on the other side as well,” BNZ head of research Stephen Toplis said.

“And that’s not even taking into consideration the increased cost of doing business, like insurance costs rising, and the fact that you may not be able to use freight routes that you previously used.”

The deflation flipside

Toplis said with the fuel price increases acting like a tax on people’s income, the less money they have to spend elsewhere, which tends to mute economic growth, creating a deflationary effect.

“The Reserve Bank’s got this awful challenge of trying to be very aware of the immediate inflationary challenges versus the deflationary challenges further on down the track,” he said.

“But given we’ve already got rising inflation expectations, given that prices will pick up, given that annual inflation might remain at 3 percent or more for a little while, then there’s certainly going to be, I think, in the immediate future, more pressure on the central bank to bring forward its rate hikes without getting too carried away about things.”

Based on current data, September is BNZ’s pick for a hike in the Official Cash Rate (OCR).

The conflict’s effects are frustrating for New Zealand, said Toplis, because it has been a long climb out of a dark economic hole for the country.

“The recovery was fragile and any shock of any description is highly unwelcome at the moment and certainly one of this size couldn’t have come at a worse possible time,” Topliss said.

Markets match the Mid East turmoil

After a muted greeting to the start of the conflict in which markets took a “wait and see” approach, the ongoing conflict saw Australasian markets crash on Monday.

The New Zealand share market had its worst session since April 2025, meanwhile Australian and Asian markets also plummeted.

The benchmark NZX50 dropped 3.1 percent or 421 points, with across the board falls in shares as investors worry about the potential economic fallout from higher oil prices.

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New Zealand’s economy is on a “precipice”, one economist says, as the country faces increasing pressure as a result of war in Iran.

The price of oil has almost doubled from where it was at the start of the year, pushing up fuel prices and creating the potential for inflation across a wide range of goods and services.

Economist Shamubeel Eaqub said there would be a wider inflation effect for New Zealand, beyond the increase in petrol prices that has already begun.

“The way to think about it is where it originates… essentially, the Middle East provides up to 80 percent of the crude oil to the main refineries we buy oil from in South Korea and Singapore. Already in Singapore, the refining crack spread – the difference between refined product versus crude, has increase from $3.5 to $35. That means 10c more at the pump, roughly. That’s the first wave.”

“The second is around how we use oil in so many parts of the economy. It’s true that for transport we’re far less dependent, that was the case in the past. But there are particular industries and regions that are very influenced by it. The biggest is, of course, aviation. I feel sorry for Air New Zealand… if you look at the aviation fuel prices, they have skyrocketed because it has to be processed from a particular type of crude.

“It’s all the transport sectors. It’s us driving cars, the diesel for our trucks, which is really the backbone of logistics in New Zealand is diesel. It comes through there.”

He said construction would be the most affected industry initially. “Paint, plastics, paint, chemicals, you name it. Everything is related or affected by the price of oil. Then it’s people like the agricultural sector, hugely affected through fertiliser, diesel… particularly dairy and horticulture.”

He said it could also have an effect on consumer risk appetite, which would influence air travel and tourism.

“If the conflict lasts longer, prices go up, it might damage demand for our goods and services that we export, which then turns to jobs and slows down an already precarious recovery that I hope we continue to have.”

ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner told RNZ the increase in oil prices had been “quite exponential.”

“It’s a pretty substantial shock that is negative for activity and growth.”

She said it would be inflationary beyond the price of petrol because fuel was an input into “pretty much everything”.

“All goods generally need to be moved around,” Zollner said.

Sharp increases in gas prices led to higher fertiliser prices, which could affect food costs.

“There’s a train of thought that thinks of economics as energy transformed, that’s how important energy is. If it spikes up, then down again quickly, there’s no harm done. If it stays high, it’s a problem.”

She said there was already evidence in surveys that businesses’ inflation expectations were increasing, which added pressure.

“We’ve seen the New Zealand dollar come off a couple of cents which makes not only oil more expensive but all imports.”

Finance Minister Nicola Willis said on Monday that there could be a range of potential consequences for supply chains, trade, inflation and future economic activity. She said the Commerce Commission had been asked to step up its fuel price monitoring.

What does it mean for interest rates?

How the Reserve Bank is likely to respond is not yet clear – it could be argued that it will need to increase interest rates to combat inflation, or decrease them to soften the blow to the economy.

“The kind of inflation we’re talking about is supply shock increases,” Eaqub said. “Which could become embedded if the economy is too strong. But the flip side is the economy might not be strong enough and we spiral. So we’re kind of in that precipice at the moment, just as the war is on a precipice.”

Zollner said the Reserve Bank would be weighing up the inflation effect against the fact it was bad for growth and employment if the war was sustained.

“People aren’t sure whether this makes the bank likely to raise rates sooner or later… It’s difficult for markets to deal with.”

Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold said petrol prices were on track to return to levels not seen since the invasion of Ukraine.

Beyond that, he said it seemed reasonable to expect inflation could pick up, but he did not think interest rates would follow quickly.

He said the Reserve Bank would probably view the increase as being for a finite period, and demand could be reduced in future because of it, as well as there being more pressure on household budgets.

“They’ll probably be thinking that if they look forward 18 months ahead, which is around about the period where a policy action now would have its impact, if anything, the issue might be a need to move interest rates the other way.

He said there was a risk that for the next three to six months the economic recovery would “take a pause”.

“Consumer confidence in particular, I think, is often related to changes in fuel prices because that’s a really frequently purchased item in the budget. So, you know, I can easily imagine that there might be a bit of a hiccup or a delay in the recovery that goes for a little while.”

He said it was not impossible that the government might act to cut the fuel tax again, as had happened last time petrol prices spiked. Eaqub agreed. Willis said on Monday that the Government was not considering it.

Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan said it felt a bit like the 2025 US tariffs again.

“Suddenly, a whole lot going down overseas and any hopes of a recovery sort of getting hit in the kneecaps again.”

He said the longer the conflict continued, the worse it would be for the New Zealand economy.

But he was less convinced that it wouldn’t mean higher interest rates.

“There’s a real risk there with the economy.”

He said 10 years ago, businesses facing cost pressures tried to cut costs elsewhere.

“Whereas now you go and talk to businesses and there is still a sense that if cost pressures are coming through, we had no choice but to pass them on five years ago when everybody was in the same boat and everything was rising in price.

“But we feel like there’s a pretty good chance we could do that again… it hasn’t taken long for transport organisations, companies to be going, okay, I’ve got a fuel adjustment factor in place and you’re going to be feeling that from next week… There is a real risk that inflation does [pick up] and possibly that the Reserve Bank might just be a little bit slow to realise what’s going on.

“Which means, ultimately, they need to be raising rates sooner and probably further as well, despite the fact that economic growth and the economy are not in a particularly great space.”

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AI-empowered cybercriminals are attacking businesses at unprecedented speeds with more than 80 percent of phishing emails containing AI-generated content that is difficult to detect.

Kordia’s 10th annual New Zealand Business Cyber Security Report indicates 44 percent of large businesses were successfully attacked in the past 12 months, and 61 percent suffered a serious business disruption, including extortion in one-in-five cases.

Vulnerabilities exploited

“This year’s survey actually showed that we had a lot more voice-based and video-based attacks reported by participants,” Kordia-owned Aura Information Security general manager Patrick Sharp said, adding that biometric data had been used for a long time to authenticate users.

“One of the problems with using things like voice or your face as a form of authentication is that you can never change it.”

Harsher penalties and ecucation

Top of the wish list was for government-supported, educational programmes to raise cyber security awareness, with harsher penalties for businesses who failed to protect data and mandatory reporting requirements for businesses hit by major attacks.

“To date, New Zealand’s privacy laws have not been as punitive as other countries’ when it comes to privacy breaches,” it said.

For example, New Zealand penalties of up to NZ$10,000 were available for a small number of offences – compared to maximum penalties of more than A$50m in Australia.

“The EU, UK and Australia are all explicitly tying cyber resilience to director accountability, expanding mandatory incident reporting, and moving from voluntary guidance to enforceable standards,” it said.

“These are decisive moves to unify government and business standards to defend against the scourge of state and criminal threat actors assaulting their countries.”

Global trends

Among Kordia’s findings was a Microsoft Digital Defence Report 2025, which found AI-assisted phishing campaigns achieved click-through rates of around 54 percent, compared with 12 percent for traditional phishing emails.

Sharp said AI-assisted attacks preyed on people’s emotions.

“They’ll try to get you to do something because they have ingratiated themselves with you, or because they’re threatening, or because they’re trying to pressure you to do something. So if you feel pressure to do something, if you feel slightly uncomfortable about it, there’s not someone you know or anything like that. Just don’t trust it,” he said.

McKinsey reported phishing volumes increased 1200 percent from 2022 to 2025, targeting an organisation every 39 seconds with a daily economic loss totalling $18m.

New Zealand’s concerns

Kordia’s survey of business leaders found 24 percent were concerned about the misuse of AI in their business, with improper use among the top three cyber-security priorities.

Survey respondents were focused on improving or implementing employee training, maintaining best practice, higher security and software for detection with more frequent updates and improved response coordination.

Threat perceptions varied by business size.

Smaller organisations with 50-99 employees were most concerned about phishing and ransomware attacks leading to extortion, with organisations with 100-200 employees concerned over AI misuse and malicious insider threats.

Larger businesses with 201-500 employees were most concerned about distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which could disrupt operations, while those with more than 500 employees saw AI-generated cyber-attacks as a major threat.

Half of the business leaders said they would be willing to pay a ransom to a cyber criminal, and 8 percent of them had paid a ransom over the past year.

Insurance costs reflect risks

“Companies are certainly still using insurance, but it’s not the first thing they should be doing. The first thing companies should be doing is trying to reduce their risk down to the minimum level possible,” Sharp said.

While 17 percent of businesses made a claim on their cyber insurance over the past year, the cost of insurance was beyond the reach for many businesses, who were absorbing the costs, which included the loss of sensitive information, interrupted supply chains, fines and extortion.

A third of the businesses who suffered an attack estimated it took two months to resolve the issue, while a third doubted they could recover from a major attack.

Yet, 25 percent had not taken steps to secure the data, had no cyber security awareness programmes or had not practiced an incident response plan.

The World Economic Forum indicated the surge in successful attacks was compounded by a widening skills gap, with just 14 percent of organisations employing the right cyber talent, as the skills gap grew by 8 percent since 2024.

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

Do petrol prices rise faster when oil increases, than they fall when it drops?

A number of motorists have got in touch with RNZ over the weekend, complaining that it appears that when the price of oil rises, petrol companies respond quickly with higher fuel prices. But when the price of oil drops, the relief does not flow through as fast.

The oil price is now over US$100 per barrel and 95 has reached $3 a litre in some parts of the country. Gaspy said the average price of 91 was $2.64 on Monday afternoon.

Murat Ungor, an economist at Otago University, said it was a known phenomenon.

“Economists have a name for it: the ‘rockets and feathers’ effect. This label suggests asymmetries in the immediate adjustment to a cost change as well as in the number of periods needed for a complete adjustment.”

He said it reflected rational responses to market structure, search costs and competitive dynamics.

“Whilst the pattern disadvantages consumers during price decline periods, it emerges from well-understood economic mechanisms including inventory management, menu costs, asymmetric search behaviour, and oligopolistic market structure.

“Policy interventions focusing on enhancing price transparency and maintaining competitive market structures can mitigate, though not eliminate, asymmetric price transmission.”

He said it was a pattern seen in the UK and US, too.

“Competition authorities across the globe have long been interested in the question of whether retail gasoline and diesel prices rise more quickly than they fall, relative to the movements in underlying input costs.

“So why does this happen? There are a few reasons working together. First, when oil prices go up, petrol stations need to replace their fuel at higher costs, so they raise prices quickly to avoid losing money. All stations face the same pressure, so prices jump across the board within days. But when oil prices drop, there is less urgency. Stations can keep prices higher for longer because most customers do not actively shop around for cheaper fuel when prices are falling gradually.”

He said that it was not price fixing as much as it was fuel retailers responding to competitive pressure and consumer behaviour.

“When you are more likely to notice and complain about rising prices than slowly falling ones, stations can get away with slower cuts. Price comparison apps and websites can help by making it easier to find the cheapest fuel, which forces stations to compete more on price. But the rockets-and-feathers pattern is unlikely to disappear completely. It is baked into how the retail fuel market works.”

In 2024, a focus report from the Commerce Commission said that its analysis showed fuel companies were quicker to increase petrol prices than to lower them.

“There is no evidence that fuel companies ultimately fail to pass through the cost increases or decreases to consumers, rather the speed at which companies do this varies. This effect is present for Regular 91 and Premium 95. The commission estimates that if fuel companies drop prices as quickly as they increase them when costs change, consumers would save in the order of $15 million a year.”

But Simplicity chief economist Shamubeel Eaqub was not convinced it was such a problem. He said it could be that people were more sensitive to price rises than they were to price falls.

“Using 20 years of weekly MBIE data, the rockets-and-feathers hypothesis is not confirmed with the well-specified models. The popular intuition may reflect cognitive bias, structural factors like taxes being a large fixed component of retail prices, or something else. I certainly don’t see the rockets and feather effect in the data.”

Z did not have anyone available to speak. BP said it was monitoring the situation closely.

“There are a number of factors that influence prices. We continue to review bp Connect prices every day to ensure competitiveness in the market. The bp website has more information on the facts about fuel pricing. There are also a number of independent bp operators all around the country who set their own prices and manage their own operations.”

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Airlines may have to cut the number of flights as they grapple with the soaring price of aviation fuel, according to the boss of a New Zealand airline.

The chief executive of Air Chathams says the rising cost of oil is costing the small airline some $140,000 extra a month in fuel.

The conflict in Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route carrying about 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas.

It’s pushed the global oil prices higher. The benchmark Brent Crude rose 18 percent or by US$18 to US$110 a barrel shortly after trading resumed on Monday at 11am NZT.

Air Chathams chief executive Duane Emeny told Checkpoint that prices were certainly on their way up.

Emeny said fuel was the company’s third most expensive cost, behind people and maintenance, and it’s causing significant cost increases for the airline.

“Every time the fuel costs go up by 10 cents, for a small airline like Air Chathams, that’s about $300k on to the bottom line for us. As you can imagine, with an increase of about $60 a barrel to what we are seeing at the moment, which is around the $115 mark, you are looking at annual costs of about 1.65 million increase, or $140k a month,” he said.

“So, it’s really, really significant, especially for a small airline.”

Emeny said the airline may have to cut the number of flights should the price of jet fuel remain so high.

“If you can’t afford to put aeroplanes in the air, then you’ve got to look at that and say ‘do I cut back my schedule, do I provide less connectivity because of this cost and then wait until it comes right and eases?’.”

“… All airlines will be looking at this, the big ones and the little ones,” Emeny said.

He’d like the government to look at ways to soften the blow on airlines.

“It’s an uncontrollable. We just have to grin and bear it,” Emeny said.

“I would just say, if there is any opportunity for the government to look at some of the mechanisms they do control – [Civil Aviation Authority] CAA levies, cost of airways, those sort of things – maybe there’s some short-term measures we can look at to support airlines.”

He said pausing those levies would be a welcome relief, saving the airline around $200,000 a month.

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A freight company is warning New Zealand faces sharply higher freight prices, rising living costs, and months‑long delivery delays as the impact of the Iran conflict spreads through global supply chains.

Rocket Freight said local road transport carriers had already increased fuel charges by more than 30 percent.

Director Lisa Coleman said the escalating costs would hit consumers across the board.

“It’s everywhere, it’s affecting everyone, and it will come down to the last dollar for every single person in New Zealand,” she said.

“Every product that arrives on shelves will be affected.”

Coleman said air freight was also squeezed.

Dubai-based Emirates – the largest air freight operator in the country – had halted operations, and remaining carriers had immediately added war and fuel surcharges, she said.

With only two main air freight providers still serving New Zealand, and a number of airlines yet to return after the pandemic, Coleman said competition was limited and prices had jumped, particularly for outsized cargo.

While she said some increases were understandable, “a lot of it looks like a marketing ploy and a money grab”.

Seaborne freight also disrupted

Ocean freight faced similar pressures.

Coleman said international shipping lines had introduced a “war risk surcharge” of up to 50 percent on marine transit policies.

Many vessels were avoiding the Middle East entirely, re-routing around southern Africa – adding up to 40 days to transit times and significantly increasing fuel costs.

The closure of Dubai – a critical global hub – had thrown container schedules into disarray, leaving vessels out of position and disrupting logistics chains.

“All the trade routing we would normally use is changing. It’s all fluctuating – nobody knows when cargo is going to get here,” Coleman said.

Some shipping lines also invoked force majeure, the contractual mechanism that freed them from delivery obligations during events such as war, natural disasters, or government action.

In several cases, Coleman said cargo had been offloaded at the nearest safe port.

“Then you have to negotiate to get that container picked up from wherever it ended up, put on a different ship, and get it over here.”

Force majeure events were not covered by insurance, because they were treated as acts of war.

The only stable spot, for now, was freight to Australia and China – though Coleman expected prices on those routes to rise as fuel costs continued to climb.

Delays, fuel concerns, and the risk of rationing

Coleman said US-bound freight was already chaotic under the existing tariff environment, but she was increasingly worried about New Zealand’s ability to draw down fuel reserves at an affordable cost if the crisis intensified.

“The supply is obviously going to be our biggest worry. This country will absolutely stop if we have to start fuel‑rationing,” she said.

Coleman said rising transport costs would ripple through every part of the supply chain.

“It comes down to that loaf of bread – it’s going to increase dramatically just because of transport costs.”

Consumers and businesses should expect higher prices and significant delays, she said, warning major household goods not currently in stock could now take months to arrive.

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