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Queenstown Lakes Mayor Glyn Lewers. Photo: RNZ / Niva Chittock Cuts to Air New Zealand regional routes will mean less money circulating in the economy of larger cities, the Queenstown Lakes District mayor says. The national carrier has announced more trims to regional flights, including swapping out larger jets for much smaller twin engine turboprop planes on some Queenstown and Dunedin flights - meaning there will be 100 fewer seats on a flight. In some cases, morning departure times will be later and return flights will be earlier in the afternoon, compressing any day trips. Air New Zealand also announced it was ditching direct flights from Invercargill to Wellington from January. Queenstown Lakes District mayor Glyn Lewers told Checkpoint it had come as "a bit of a surprise", and he ...

Photo: RNZ/Tess Brunton A private company that builds hospitals is putting its hand up to play a part in Dunedin's beleaguered public project. The government is looking at cutting back the scope of the new hospital or breaking it into more stages to deal with cost blowouts. Vital Healthcare Property Trust already leases some small health facilities to the government, and owns a couple of billion dollars worth across the Tasman. Its fund manager Aaron Hockly told Morning Report it was willing to be part of the Dunedin solution. "We could certainly look at breaking up part of this project, acquiring part of it and leasing that back to the government for a very long term," he said. "There'd be a whole range of contractual projections for the state, and essentially they would pay us rent." ...

Director of Du Val, Kenyon Clarke. Photo: kenyonclarke.com The convoluted drama playing out for Auckland property developer Du Val has ensnared small-scale investors and subbies alike The fascination with Auckland property developer Du Val's collapse has commanded headlines for weeks on end, in part because of the enormous scale of the debt it's said to owe - $250 million - and in part because of the ostentatious show of wealth that Du Val's founders, Kenyon and Charlotte Clarke, flaunted. On Kenyon's website, one of the few of his public platforms that hasn't been taken down, a video of him driving a Ferrari and standing next to a private jet with his wife plays on loop underneath a tag line: "building a billion dollar empire." But the billion dollar empire was a carefully-crafted ill...

Hundreds of mill workers near Ohakune farewelled their workplace for the final time today, as Winstone Pulp International closed the doors on 45 years of operations. Two-hundred and thirty workers from Winstone Pulp International lost their jobs when the mill confirmed last month that it'd close because of low pulp and timber prices and the soaring cost of wholesale power. The move is expected to decimate the local towns of Raetihi and Ohakune who rely on the two mill sites for employment as it's the largest source of work in the rural area. But for many it's more than just a job, with a number of employees having worked there for decades. "A lot of guys been coming here a long time and this was their life," said mill electrician Daniel Abernathy. He's worked at the mill for 11 years. "It'...

Photo: 123rf Westpac New Zealand are apologising for an error, which caused online banking customers to receive a Westpac One notification from "123456789012345678901234567890" with the message "123456789012345678901234567890123456789" between 4 and 4.30pm on Thursday. In a Facebook post, Westpac said customers had received a string of numbers instead of a message, which had been published to its Westpac One messaging service. Photo: Supplied / Westpac New Zealand One person RNZ spoke to said they were also unable to login to their account. However, all services were operational, according to the Westpac status page, and no incidents had been reported by 5pm. There have been more than 1000 reports of Westpac outages across New Zealand, according to Downdetector, a site which monit...

By Antje Fiedler and Benjamin Fath* of Many businesses are doing it tough - squeezed between rising costs and increasingly frugal customers. Photo: RNZ / Alexa Cook Opinion - With rising costs and drops in consumer spending, small businesses have been struggling lately. Continuous economic pressure is causing significant stress and burnout among small business owners, while confidence continues to decline. Data from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment shows company liquidations are up 40 percent in the first eight months of 2024, compared to 2023. Construction, retail and hospitality have been hit hard due to rising costs and declining spending. The economic climate has been compared with the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC). But ...

More than 100,000 houses were empty in the latest census. Photo: MINT IMAGES More than 100,000 houses were empty in the latest census - and not just because their normal inhabitants were away. But commentators say only a small portion of them are likely to be true 'ghost houses'. In total, the census recorded 111,666 dwellings that were empty. Another 113,499 had their residents away when the Census was conducted. In 2018, 97,842 were empty. Brad Olsen, chief executive at Infometrics, said houses could be empty for a number of reasons - including being a holiday home, being under renovation or having been recently constructed and not moved into yet. He said, overall, 10.8 percent of total dwellings were unoccupied in the census, up from 10.2 percent in 2018 and 10.6 percent in 2013. In ...