As part of the Government’s work to grow the international education sector, new funding for a dedicated support function will help build sector capability and support schools to attract and manage international students, Education Minister Erica Stanford says.

“Through the Govenrment’s Going for Growth plan, we are focused on doubling the sector’s value to $7.2 billion by 2034. We are already well on our way with enrolments growing 11 percent in 2025,” Ms Stanford says.

“As part of that, we’re helping to ensure that schools have the resources they need. Today’s commitment will see specialist support provided by a tendered organisation with deep knowledge and experience in school-based international education.

“This will support schools with marketing, resourcing, finding homestays, and with resources to understand their obligations to ensure student wellbeing and safety.

“The sector has already made strong progress in 2025, with school enrolments continuing to recover toward pre-pandemic levels. This investment will help schools build on that momentum and grow their international programmes with confidence.”

Ms Stanford says that all schools who choose to participate will be able to benefit this from this support, including those that not yet enrolling international students.

“International education is a large contributor to New Zealand’s economy. Enabling schools to support more international students will allow this economic growth to continue in a way that is high quality and sustainable.”

The tender will be available on the Government Electronic Tender Service (GETS) by the end of June 2026.

MIL OSI

The Government is clarifying climate change laws to provide businesses with certainty around their obligations, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. 

“Ongoing litigation in the High Court, where an applicant has brought civil claims against six major businesses for their greenhouse gas emissions, is creating uncertainty in business confidence and investment that the Government must address.

“The Government is acting now to provide legal clarity and certainty and to remove the possible development of a new regime that contradicts the framework Parliament has already enacted to respond to climate change.

“Our government is committed to fixing the basics, and certainty of law is essential for businesses to operate, attracting overseas investment, and stimulating economic growth.

“Therefore, the Government will amend the Climate Change Response Act 2002 to prevent findings of liability for tort for climate change damage or harm caused by greenhouse gas emissions in both current and future proceedings before the courts. 

“Our response to climate change is best managed by the Government at a national level and not through piece-meal litigation in the courts. New Zealand already has a legal framework to manage greenhouse gas emissions set through Parliament through the Climate Change Response Act 2002 and the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). 

“It is essential to maintain the coherence of the regulatory system and to deliver consistent obligations for greenhouse gas emitters.

“The courts are not the right place to resolve claims of harm from climate change, and tort law is not well-suited to respond to a problem like climate change which involves a range of complex environmental, economic and social factors.

“This law change will not alter the Government’s responsibilities under the Climate Change Response Act and businesses that have obligations under the ETS will still be required to meet them.”

MIL OSI

Heavy rain is expected for the parts of the South Island through until the weekend with MetService issuing orange heavy rain warnings.

MetService said heavy rain was expected for most of the West Coast on Thursday morning which would continue through until Friday or Saturday.

There was a risk of surface flooding and slips on the whole of the West Coast, MetService meteorologist Alanna Burrows said.

She said people should avoid low lying areas and drive cautiously on the roads.

The areas likely to experience the heaviest rain on Thursday would be Westland and the Tasman District, Burrows said.

Westland could expect up to 350mm of rain, she said while the Tasman district could see up to 400mm which was a “huge” amount of rain.

The orange heavy rain warnings were in place for Tasman District, northwest of Motueka, Buller District, Westland District, the headwaters of the Canterbury lakes and rivers, headwaters of Otago lakes and rivers and Fiordland north of Doubtful Sound.

The warnings were in place from 12pm on Thursday until Friday evening for Tasman District and from 10am Thursday until 7pm Friday for the Buller District.

The New Zealand Transport Agency warned motorists to prepare for difficult driving conditions.

Along with the heavy rain, the lower North Island could expect severe gales on Friday in Wellington and Taranaki, Burrows said.

Things would ease off on Sunday, she said.

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

The Climate Change Commission said the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is on track to fail without reform.

In its annual advice to the government, the commission warned that the scheme faces huge future volatility and would fail without reform by the 2030s.

The ETS is a market in which the government sets a price for greenhouse gas that polluters must pay to emit. The price of units rises over time, incentivising firms to emit less.

The commission has advised the government this year to keep auction unit pricing and volumes the same to prevent price instability.

However, chief executive Jo Hendy said a unit shortfall as early as 2028 could see price spikes and significant economic harm.

She said that could result in factory closures to reduce emissions, rather than investment in decarbonisation.

The government could get ahead of the shortfall by publicly consulting on options to address it, she said.

Forest and Bird fears the scheme will soon be unfit for purpose.

Climate spokesperson Scott Burnett said the market had lost confidence in it, due to recent volatility in prices and recent government policy announcements, such as rolling back action on agricultural emissions.

He said it urgently needed reform and stability to allow businesses to make good investment decisions on decarbonisation.

The Climate Change Commission had been sounding the alarm on the fragile state of the ETS for years, he said.

Climate minister Simon Watts told RNZ in a statement that the government welcomed the commission’s advice, and it would carefully consider that before developing proposals for the ETS auction and unit settings.

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

Hundreds of Canterbury teens at risk of disengaging from education are among the first to benefit from a new Government initiative to double the value of investment for both recipients and the taxpayer, Youth and South Island Minister James Meager says.

Christchurch-based Te Ora Hou Ōtautahi has received $750,000 from taxpayers to deliver a 26-week minimum early intervention programme for 300+ young people.

As the first recipient of the new Youth Development Partnership and Innovation Fund (YDPIF), the Government is investing alongside matched co-funding of $750,000 from the Rātā Foundation and Wayne Francis Charitable Trust, for a $1.5 million investment total.

“By co-funding alongside other organisations, we are doubling the amount of financial support being brought into the youth sector. This provides twice the opportunity for young people to benefit from these initiatives at no additional taxpayer cost,” Mr Meager says.

“Te Ora Hou Ōtautahi’s programme, delivered across three years for those aged 12-18, will support school transitions (primary to secondary school), and promote positive, sustained engagement in education for at-risk students.

“Students will be supported to set goals and plan education pathways, have access to one-to-one mentoring, and take part in group activities that build skills and confidence.

“The provider will act as a support liaison between the young person, their family, and school. It will also make connections with other community organisations where necessary, enabling a cohesive wraparound approach.

“Through this community-led support we expect to see an increase in school attendance and improved academic performance, which is a key Government priority as we continue to fix the basics and build the future of New Zealand’s education system.

“This investment also represents the first step in our new direction for all Ministry of Youth Development funding to only go to programmes that can demonstrate successful outcomes which align with key government targets.

“The YDPIF is focused on early intervention programmes which support young people to develop skills and capabilities, contribute to their communities and the economy, and reach their highest potential.

“The Government continues to seek co-investors for this fund. I encourage any interested business or organisation to get in touch, as I want to see a wide variety of outcomes-based innovative services supported which enable young Kiwis to thrive.”

Notes to Editor: 

• The Ministry of Youth Development continues to seek to co-invest with businesses, iwi, trusts, charities, other philanthropic organisations, as well as government agencies through the YDPIF, which is focused on funding outcomes-based, early intervention and prevention programmes that contribute to supporting Government targets and priorities. This includes:
• Fewer people on the Jobseeker Support Benefit.
• Increased student attendance.
• Supporting young parents, aged 12-24 years, with children in their first 2,000 days (aligned with the Child and Youth Strategy).
• Further information on the fund can be found here.
• An Expression of Interest for the YDPIF is available on the Government Electronic Tenders Service (GETS) website.

Attached: An image of Minister James Meager visiting Te Ora Hou Ōtautahi today is attached, with local MP Hamish Campbell with representatives of Te Ora Hou Ōtautahi, Rata Foundation and Wayne Francis Charitable Trust.

MIL OSI

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has brushed off criticisms of his government after days of heated speculation about his leadership.

In a media standup at HamiltonJet Global in Christchurch on Friday morning, Luxon brushed off businesses’ concerns about a lack of funding to bring SailGP back to Auckland.

He has also joked about losing votes in Auckland as a result of his support for the Crusaders, and avoided saying much about a National Party dinner where guests could pay $10,000 to sit next to him.

Auckland events boss Nick Hill told Morning Report he was “very disappointed” at the loss of SailGP, saying it was “significant loss” for the City of Sails and blaming a lack of buy-in from the government.

Luxon said the proposal for funding Sail GP in Auckland did not stack up, but distanced himself from it – acknowledging he was not across the details.

“Yeah, look, um, you know, we’ll continue our conversations with Auckland Council and SailGP but the proposal we received just frankly didn’t stack up,” he said.

He was unsure how much money the government was being asked to provide.

“I can’t remember what the proposal specifics was but when we run it through our evaluation criteria, just didn’t stack up.”

He said Tourism Minister Louise Upston would know about the specifics.

“I’m just well aware that when we looked at the cost-benefit ratio, it didn’t meet the criteria … it just didn’t meet the criteria, is all I know.”

He rejected the suggestion from Auckland businesses the government was working against them.

“Ah absolute rubbish. This is a government that’s backed State of Origin into Auckland, it’s a government that’s put a whole bunch of major events into Auckland, it’s invested in the New Zealand International Convention Centre, invested in the CRL, and we’ve made big investments and big support programmes into Auckland.”

He was in Christchurch [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/593268/christchurch-stadium-opening-te-kaha-opens-after-15-year-wait ahead of the first Super Round at the city’s new stadium Te Kaha, when 10 of the Super Rugby Pacific’s 11 teams would all play at the same venue.

Having grown up in the city, he said it was “tough” to say whether Te Kaha had overtaken Eden Park as the national stadium.

“I gotta say, it’s a world class stadium. It was a pleasure to open it three or four weeks ago. I’ll be there tonight,” he said.

Leadership woes

Luxon has been under pressure in recent weeks over poor polling numbers and leaks from who he has described as disgruntled MPs.

Coalition tensions turned up a notch this week too, as New Zealand First’s Winston Peters criticised Luxon’s decision to call a confidence vote in himself without informing coalition partners, saying that was unwise and would lead to instability.

Luxon and his deputy Nicola Willis in turn criticised Peters in the media – the first time they have been willing to do so directly and publicly.

Despite all that, he joked about losing support in Auckland, where he holds the seat of Botany.

“I’ll be in my Crusaders kit, I’ll lose 5000 votes in Auckland – but that’s okay, because I’m a Crusaders guy through and through.

“If I’m honest with you, in terms of scale and size, Eden Park’s obviously large and can accommodate certain activity, but I can tell you, I’m going to be coming to Christchurch a lot to see a lot of things down here.”

He said it was important to draw international events like Robbie Williams to New Zealand, as every dollar spent on attracting them was “getting $3.20 back into the local economy here”.

“So it’s fantastic, so exciting and it’s honestly – I don’t know whether you guys have been inside it – but it’s amazing. It’s incredible. It’s covered. We’re so close to the action, you’ll be able to hear the lineout calls, it’s just going to be brilliant.”

Christchurch ‘a role model’

He said Christchurch was a “real role model for how we want New Zealand to ultimately look and feel like”.

“You’ve got incredibly modern, reliable infrastructure. You’ve got a fantastic airport, awesome university, great schools, fantastic infrastructure now with the stadium and the redevelopment that’s taking place, and it’s growing very quickly.

“It’s an affordable city, more affordable city than many other parts of New Zealand, and so things like our planning laws are changing in order to be able to increase the supply of housing across the rest of New Zealand.”

In the four years after the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes devastated the city centre, the John Key-led government provided an estimated $16.5 billion, with about half coming from insurance payouts from the then-Earthquake Commission.

Luxon said there was “plenty of cash around” from private capital, but “whether the government needs to be involved, government doesn’t need to be involved in everything. It’s quite good if we’re not in many cases”.

The ongoing fuel crisis that has resulted from the US and Israel conflict with Iran has been putting additional pressure on government finances after high spending under Labour that aimed to keep the economy growing during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Support for businesses and those struggling with high fuel prices has been limited to “targeted, timely and temporary” spending, with the main component being a $50-a-week increase for working families earning tax credits.

Luxon said New Zealand had managed to secure supplies and there was no disruption there, “but, you know, the world needs peace to be breaking out there”.

He said rhetoric like US President Donald Trump’s was not needed.

“We don’t need escalation.”

More weather concerns

Luxon’s comments were made shortly before news of more heavy rain lashing the country – causing landslips in Auckland and prompting people to evacuate their homes.

He was asked about a new report out from the Climate Change Commission pointing to a risk before 2030 of a shortfall of Emissions Trading Scheme units possibly resulting in volatile price spikes, but said his main concern was “growth over and above everything else”.

He said the country was “determined to deliver on our climate change commitments, net zero 2050 … and we’re on track to do exactly that”.

“Last quarter this country generated less emissions than we’ve ever had, ever since we started recording in 2010 – and that’s because we’ve got a government that doesn’t just do bumper stickers and slogans and words, we actually do action and investment, as illustrated by our big investments in the renewables energy boom that’s taking place.”

The government’s push towards renewable energy has largely been focused on planning changes.

Luxon was also questioned about a National Party fundraising dinner, where property developer Matthew Horncastle paid $10,000 for a ticket to sit next to the prime minister and his wife, Amanda.

When Luxon was asked about how things had gone at the dinner on Thursday, he initially said “with who?”

After the name was repeated, he said “oh, there was a National Party event I was at last night, yeah. But yesterday I was also at a company called Zethos, which was pretty exciting because that’s a startup that’s come out of the engineering school that’s recycling critical minerals here in Christchurch”.

Horncastle has previously said that if he entered politics he would aim to be a National Party prime minister by winning the Christchurch Central seat – which has been a Labour stronghold, with just one National MP holding it since 1946.

Asked if Horncastle was the kind of person he wanted in National, Luxon only said it was a “broad church, and if people want to support us from all sorts of work, as it does for every political party, uh, it was just a party event last night”.

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

MIL OSI

MACAU SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 23 March 2026 – Melco Resorts & Entertainment has garnered six diamonds in the 2026 Black Pearl Restaurant Guide, further reaffirming the Company’s status as a global leader in fine dining and underlining its commitment to culinary excellence.

City of Dreams’ signature Cantonese fine dining restaurant Jade Dragon secured the Black Pearl Restaurant Guide‘s coveted Three Diamonds accolade for the seventh consecutive year, upholding its status as Macau’s one and only three diamond Chinese restaurant, and was honored the special “Annual Dish Award” for its signature “Steamed Garoupa Fillet on Egg White Custard with Aged Chinese Hua Diao Wine Sauce” course. Innovative Chinese restaurant Yí at City of Dreams received One Diamond, marking its seventh year of such achievement. Revering the great traditions and savoir-faire of French cuisine, Alain Ducasse at Morpheus maintains its One Diamond status for the third consecutive year, whilst City of Dreams’ tranquil Japanese restaurant Sushi Kinetsu upholds its One Diamond honor in the esteemed guide for the third consecutive year.

Mr. Lawrence Ho, Chairman & CEO of Melco, said, “It is a profound honor for Melco to be recognized once again by the Black Pearl Restaurant Guide in 2026. In addition to the recent achievements in the MICHELIN Guide Hong Kong & Macau 2026, these prestigious accolades are a testament to our unwavering dedication to culinary innovation and our commitment to strengthening Macau’s position as a UNESCO-designated Creative City of Gastronomy.

“This achievement would not be possible without the incredible passion and hard work of our Colleagues. I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to our world-class culinary and front-of-house teams; it is their relentless pursuit of service excellence that allows us to consistently deliver the most memorable and exquisite dining experiences to our guests from around the globe. We remain steadfast in our mission to push the boundaries of luxury hospitality and contribute to the vibrant diversification of Macau’s tourism landscape.”

At the award ceremony which took place today in Singapore, Melco properties’ restaurants received the following honors:

JADE DRAGON – Three Diamonds and Annual Dish Award for “Steamed Garoupa Fillet on Egg White Custard withAged Chinese Hua Diao Wine Sauce”
Being the only Cantonese restaurant in Greater China awarded with both Three Black Pearl Diamonds and Three MICHELIN Stars, Jade Dragon showcases exquisite culinary masterpieces created with the freshest seasonal ingredients and delectable delicacies. Jade Dragon sets the benchmark for fine dining in Macau with its spectacular designer décor and superlative personalized service. Recent honors and awards include:

• Black Pearl Restaurant Guide Three Diamonds (2020-2026)
• MICHELIN Guide Hong Kong & Macau Three Stars (2019-2026)
• Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star rating (2014-2026)
• Trip.com Gourmet’s Black Diamond award (2021-2023, 2026), Diamond award (2024-2025)
• Harper’s BAZAAR HK’s Restaurant of the Year (2026), BAZAAR Taste Elite Macao (2024-2026)
• Tatler Best Awards Asia Pacific’s Best 100 Restaurants (2024-2025)
• Tatler Best Awards Hong Kong & Macau’s Restaurant of the Year Macau (2025), Best 20 Restaurants Macau (2025)
• Tatler Dining Guide’s Top 20 Macau Restaurants List (2024)
• South China Morning Post’s 100 Top Tables (2014-2025)
• TARGET ELITE SELECT Awards’ Chinese Restaurant of the Year (2025), Cantonese Restaurant of the Year (2024)
• TimeOut Beijing Food & Bar Awards’ Cantonese Restaurant of the Year (2025)
• China Feast Restaurants Awards’ Annual Influential Restaurants (2025)
• La Liste’s Top 1,000 World’s Best Restaurants (2025)
• Wine Spectator’s Best of Award of Excellence (2014-2025)
• World Culinary Awards’ Asia’s Best Hotel Restaurant (2025), Macao’s Best Hotel Restaurant (2022-2025)
• Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia’s Macau Tastemakers List (2024-2025)
• Three Stars in Golden Phoenix Tree China Restaurant Guide (2024-2025)

YÍ – One Diamond
One-diamond award winner Yí, located on the 21^st floor Sky Bridge of Morpheus, offers the very heights of innovative fine dining and Chinese cuisine served in a modern seasonal tasting menu format. Its degustation menu is inspired by the 24 Solar Terms of the Traditional Chinese Calendar (Jie Qi), changes 12 times a year and highlights many of the restaurant’s signature dishes. Recent honors and awards include:

• Black Pearl Restaurant Guide One Diamond (2020-2026)
• Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star Awards (2020-2026)
• Trip.com Gourmet’s Platinum award (2021-2026)
• Harper’s BAZAAR HK’s BAZAAR Taste Elite Macao (2024-2025)
• Tatler Best Hong Kong & Macau’s Best 20 Restaurants Macau (2025)
• Tatler Dining Guide’s Top 20 Macau Restaurants List (2024)
• South China Morning Post’s 100 Top Tables (2019-2025)
• China Feast Restaurants Awards’ Best Innovative Restaurants (2025)
• Food&Wine The Best Awards’ Hotel Restaurant of the Year (2025)
• La Liste’s Top 1,000 World’s Best Restaurants (2025)
• Wine Spectator’s Best of Award of Excellence (2022-2025)
• Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia’s Macau Tastemakers List (2024-2025)

ALAIN DUCASSE AT MORPHEUS – One Diamond
Awarded One Diamond, Alain Ducasse at Morpheus redefines legendary French classics with a contemporary vision and sentimental approach to cooking. The restaurant located at City of Dreams sources produce from the best regions which is harvested at its optimal time, highlighting a deep appreciation for nature and an intimate understanding of the seasons. Sourcing from small-scale farms and line-caught fish, the restaurant ensures unparalleled quality and a distinctive tasting experience. Recent honors and awards include:

• Black Pearl Restaurant Guide One Diamond (2024-2026)
• MICHELIN Guide Hong Kong & Macau Two Stars (2019-2026)
• Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star rating (2020-2026)
• Trip.com Gourmet’s Diamond award (2022-2026)
• Harper’s BAZAAR HK’s BAZAAR Taste Elite Macao (2026)
• Tatler Best Awards Asia Pacific’s Best 100 Restaurants (2025)
• Tatler Best Awards Hong Kong & Macau’s Best Service (2025), Best 20 Restaurants Macau (2025)
• Tatler Dining Guide’s Top 20 Macau Restaurants List (2024)
• South China Morning Post’s 100 Top Tables (2020-2025)
• TimeOut Beijing Food & Bar Awards’ French Restaurant of the Year (2025)
• La Liste’s Top 1,000 World’s Best Restaurants (2025)
• Wine Spectator’s Best of Award of Excellence (2019-2025)
• TARGET ELITE SELECT Awards’ French Restaurant of the Year (2024)
• Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia’s Macau Tastemakers List (2024)

SUSHI KINETSU – One Diamond
Bestowed One Diamond, Sushi Kinetsu at City of Dreams offers authentic Edomae sushi across a beautiful, centuries old Hinoki wood sushi bar. The tranquil restaurant serves seasonal delicacies using only the finest ingredients, crafted by Japanese master chefs. Recent honors and awards include:

• Black Pearl Restaurant Guide One Diamond (2024-2026)
• MICHELIN Guide Hong Kong & Macau One Star (2024-2026)
• Trip.com Gourmet’s Diamond award (2024-26), Platinum award (2023)
• Harper’s BAZAAR HK’s BAZAAR Taste Spotlight Macao (2026)
• Tatler Best Hong Kong & Macau’s restaurant list (2025)

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Hashtag: #melco #blackpearl #cityofdreamsmacau #jadedragon #alainducasseatmorpheus #sushikinetsu #yi

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

– Published and distributed with permission of Media-Outreach.com.

Small-town Bay of Plenty is about to be home to a Southern Hemisphere first with big benefits in the fight against potent greenhouse gases.

A new multi-million dollar plant officially opens in Kawerau on Friday to safely destroy harmful synthetic refrigerants.

The Trust for the Destruction of Synthetic Refrigerants, which put $10 million into the plant, said it will significantly reduce that harm.

But it also means the refrigerants won’t have to be shipped offshore.

“The trust has been around since 1993, set up by the industry to deal with CFCs, the old ozone depleting gases,” chairperson Richard Lauder said.

“So we collected them, shipped them to Australia and destroyed them so that we could address the hole in the ozone layer.

“And we’ve since migrated to dealing with their replacement gases, the hydrofluorocarbons, HFCs, which are very high global warming gases.”

Lauder said the Kawerau plant was built to take the risks that come with shipping.

It also means the gases will no longer have to be stockpiled

“Next month we’ll turn the plasma torch on at this plant, it runs at 5000 degrees Celsius – the same temperature as the sun – and we’ll be able to deal with our own waste fluorinated gases here domestically in New Zealand,” he said.

“Some of these gases are 4000 times more potent than CO2, so to put that into perspective if you release 1 kilogram of gas from your heat pump at home, it might be like driving your car for two years in terms of climate impact.

“So we really need to deal with them appropriately and our Trust believed that setting up a plant on shore was the right thing to do.”

Kawerau was picked because of its industrial past.

“I think from the paper industry in particular we’ve got all sorts of skills and capabilities, it’s also adjacent to new geothermal plants so we can use renewable energy to power out plant, I think it’s a great place to put this thing,” Lauder said.

It will permanently get rid of CFCs, HCFCs and HFCs from synthetic refrigerants.

According to the Ministry for the Environment, it is HFCs or hydrofluorocarbons that make up 94 percent of so-called F-gas emissions.

There are measures in place such as limits on bulk HFC imports and pricing schemes under the Emissions Trading Scheme and a Synthetic Greehouse Gas Levy, it said.

The Trust for the Destruction of Synthetic Refrigerants said the new plant will manage gases at the end of their life.

These are found in heat pumps, commercial refrigeration and air condition systems across the country, it said.

It said while there is a place for recycling and claiming the gases, that extended to fully address climate change, ultimately they need to be safely destroyed.

“The 5000 degrees is required because these F-gases are really stable,” Lauder said.

“So the 5000 degrees breaks them down into individual atoms, we inject steam, we add calcium carbonate, and the chemicals that come out the end are actually just water, CO2 that goes to the atmosphere and calcium fluoride salt which is an inert salt which is in fact what’s in your toothpaste, and we can just dump that to landfill until we can find an alternative use hopefully.”

Laura Revell, an atmospheric chemistry professor from University of Canterbury, said there were benefits to no longer having to ship the gases offshore.

“It has high costs associated with it and it creates a lot of greenhouse gas emissions of carbon dioxide and so on, so by being able to dispose of these gases here in New Zealand means that we are reducing our shipping emissions and contribution to climate change in that way,” she said.

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

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 13 March 2026 – WOLF, the heritage luxury brand renowned for its precision watch winding technology and expertly handcrafted watch and jewellery boxes and travel cases, announces a significant strengthening of its presence across the Asian market. This expansion marks a pivotal moment in the brand’s history, reinforcing a commitment to bringing its legacy of craftsmanship and innovation to a discerning clientele throughout the region.

Central to this initiative is the appointment and development of a dedicated local team based in Hong Kong, and dedicated local agents appointed throughout the region. By establishing a robust on-the-ground presence, WOLF ensures that its operations across the region are guided by deep regional expertise and an intimate understanding of the local luxury market landscape. This move signifies not merely an acceleration in the market, but a long-term investment in building lasting relationships with partners and collectors who value superior quality.

“As a fifth-generation family business, growth for WOLF has always been about more than geography, it’s all about relationships. Expanding our footprint in Asia reflects both the strength of the region and our belief in its future. With a dedicated team on the ground, we are not simply entering markets; we are embedding ourselves within them, ensuring that our craftsmanship, innovation, and family values resonate locally while remaining true to our global heritage.” Simon Wolf, CEO.

The brand will further demonstrate its commitment to the region through a series of appearances at key industry trade shows in the coming months. These events will serve as the premier stage for showcasing WOLF’s celebrated heritage, alongside the unveiling of significant new product launches. These upcoming collections exemplify the brand’s dedication to combining innovative technology with timeless design, offering sophisticated solutions for the protection and preservation of the world’s finest timepieces and jewellery.

Join WOLF at:

• Design Shanghai from 19^th to 22^nd March 2026 at Shanghai Exhibition Centre, China.
• Time to Watches from 14^th to 19^th April 2026 at Villa Sarasin, Geneva, Switzerland.
• Tokyo Design Lifestyle Week from 24^th to 26^th June 2026 at Tokyo Big Sight, Japan.
• Singapore Internal Jewelry Expo from 9^th to 12^th July at Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Singapore.
• Hong Kong Watch & Clock Fair from 1^st to 5^th September at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong.

As WOLF accelerates its growth in this dynamic market, the brand invites media and industry partners to explore the vision behind this expansion. Exclusive interview opportunities are available with Simon Wolf, offering a unique perspective on the company’s over 190-year-old heritage, its strategic direction in Asia, and the meticulous craftsmanship that defines every piece.

To request an interview: marketing@wolf1834.com.

Meet WOLF:
WOLF’s global sales teams will be available to introduce customers to the story of WOLF, the over 190-year-old fifth-generation family-owned brand, to show WOLF’s latest collections and discuss a recommended product assortment for their store.

To make an appointment contact: sales@wolf1834.com.

PRESS & MARKETING:
Meet with marketing to discover WOLF’s essential retailer asset packs, which contain an invaluable mix of marketing materials for retailers to promote WOLF to their customers.

For marketing or press appointments: marketing@wolf1834.com.

PRESS ASSETS:
For e-commerce, lifestyle images and editorial copy, please contact marketing for further content: marketing@wolf1834.com.

Hashtag: #WOLF

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

– Published and distributed with permission of Media-Outreach.com.

MIL OSI

Applications have opened for the first round of the Government’s Flexible Fund, paving the way for up to 770 new social homes and affordable rentals for New Zealanders in high housing need, Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka say.

“Our Government believes in social housing. For families and individuals who are struggling to find a stable, secure place to live, we’re focused on turning housing need into real homes,” Mr Bishop says.

“Last year we established the Flexible Fund to replace the confusing patchwork of social and affordable housing programmes with a single, contestable fund focused on delivering the right homes, in the right places for the people who need them most. 

“The new system uses detailed data and local insights to identify where housing need is highest and which types of homes are required. This allows providers to bring forward solutions that best meet local demand. Instead of forcing good ideas into rigid categories, we can support interventions that target need and offer strong value for money.

“Opening the Flexible Fund for applications today marks the next phase of our targeted investment in social housing and affordable rentals.

“Affordable rentals allow people to pay less than the market rent in a region. They are a missing link in the social housing system. There should be an intermediate option between traditional social housing, where people usually pay 25 per cent of their income, and market rentals.

“That targeted investment is underpinned by our Housing Investment Plan, released last year, which provides a clear blueprint for where funding will go and how it will achieve the greatest impact. The Flexible Fund is a key part of making sure that happens.

“The focus is on value for money, strong housing delivery partners, and ensuring public investment provides homes for as many people as possible.

“The Flexible Fund will support delivery in priority locations including the Far North, South Auckland, Eastern Bay of Plenty, Gisborne–Tairāwhiti, Hastings, and key main centres such as Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch.

“The Flexible Fund is part of a wider push to boost social housing and get better results from every dollar spent. Through Budgets 2024 and 2025 we are already delivering more than 2,000 additional homes, including more one-bedroom and accessible homes where they are needed most. We have sharply reduced the number of families stuck in emergency housing motels, and Kāinga Ora is focused on renewing and maintaining its existing stock as part of its turnaround plan.

“At the same time, we are fixing the wider housing system through our Going for Housing Growth reforms so the market can build more homes overall. The Flexible Fund ensures that alongside those system changes, we are continuing to invest in targeted support for New Zealanders who need it most.”

“The Flexible Fund will support social housing and affordable rentals delivered by community housing providers, iwi Māori providers and other capable organisations. Applicants will need to demonstrate delivery capability, financial strength, alignment with local housing need, and value for money,” says Mr Potaka. 

“This is about disciplined investment. We want warm, dry, safe homes that meet local need and can be delivered on time and within budget. 

“For many whānau, housing security is the foundation for better health, education and employment outcomes. Iwi providers are often best placed to respond to that need because they understand their communities and the pressures they face. The Flexible Fund gives them a clear pathway to partner with the Government to deliver warm, safe homes that support long-term stability for whānau.

“Stage one applications open today and close on 24 April 2026.”

Note to editor:

Further details are available on the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development website www.hud.govt.nz and on Government Electronic Tenders Service (GETS).

MIL OSI

The forestry sector is calling for a cap on rates increases after one forestry blocks rates bill went up 570 percent in a year.

The 1100-hectare block near Wairoa managed by agri-advisory firm Lewis Tucker was originally farmland but was bought in 2019 and planted in pines in 2020.

Lewis Tucker said in July last year the Wairoa District Council lifted the annual rates bill from $30,000 a year to $200,000.

The company has submitted on the government’s proposal to simplify local government.

In its submission, it said while it broadly supported the intent to simplify local government it urged limits on differential rates were critical for business confidence.

Executive director Colin Jacobs said the 570 percent rates increase on that one forestry block amounts to $5 million over the lifetime of the forest.

“There’s been no reason given to us as to why a forestry company should pay such large differential rates, what costs are we causing that justifies that increased rate.”

He said the rates increase raised questions about the financial viability of the forest.

“While there has been no explanation for the increase, the assumption is that the extra $5m that this property will now pay in rates over the life of the forest will go to pay for the impact of forestry on roads come harvest time.

“However, Wairoa District Council has applied the differential rating only to forests planted after 31 December 1989, not those planted earlier.

“This suggests that the council’s concern is not the impact of forestry on roading, as a differential rate is being applied only to forests registered in the ETS,” Lewis Tucker’s submission said.

It said there will not be a harvest truck anywhere near this property for at least 25 years.

The company is calling for a cap on or doing away with entirely the amount councils can charge in relation to different land use.

“A cap on rates increases will not prevent exorbitant rates increases for industries targeted by differentials.”

Wairoa District Council’s forestry differentials were changed in 2022 following a review, which sought to better recognise the negative impacts caused by forestry, particularly the hollowing out of rural communities as farmland is converted.

The Forest Owner’s Association unsuccessfully challenged this by Judicial Review in the High Court with the Court of Appeal upholding the council’s rating review.

Association chief executive Dr Elizabeth Heeg said it would like a “soft cap” on differential rates.

“Foresters just want to be a fair member of the community, there are times when it’s appropriate to have differential rates but having a differential where the rates are going up over 500 percent is not fair.

“We’ll be proposing a soft cap that is accompanied by the introduction of good taxation principals and to local government legislation to ensure that when councils are rating us that its based on an actual need in the community and that it’s not just a differential that’s just a secondary form of regulation.”

Wairoa District Council’s chief executive Matt Lawson said the increase in rates related to the change in land use, with the property categorised as vacant forestry before the 2024 Quotable Value revaluation saw it reclassified as exotic forestry.

He said most benefits arising from forestry go out of Wairoa – wages, profits, and opportunities – while, Wairoa was left with the challenge of rural roads impacted by heavy logging trucks.

Meanwhile, Local Government New Zealand has said the proposal to cap rates could undermine efforts to strengthen emergency management.

LGNZ president Rehette Stoltz said while the government has included proposed variations to rates caps for unforeseen and urgent situations, as they are proposed to be primarily available only after a significant event, it limits councils’ ability to invest proactively in reducing risk.

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

From growing a few Christmas trees “for fun”, to a diverse range of towering exotics and natives – there’s a bit of everything at Tāmata Hauhā’s demonstration farm outside Palmerston North.

“One of the reasons we created this farm is because farmers actually want to come have a look,” founder and chief executive Blair Jamieson told Country Life.

Launched in 2021, Tāmata Hauhā works primarily with Māori land owners to provide strategies and funding to develop their land holdings and make the land more productive, mainly through forestry.

It provides the finance for purchasing trees, preparing the land, planting the trees and managing the forest created, as well as carrying out all the administration.

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They grow about 46 exotic and 30 native species of trees across three farm sites.

“You can come here and see nearly every type of forestry system that can be applied.

“We’ve even got silvopasture agroforestry systems behind us, which show you how you can actually continue to graze and actually run a farm and stock underneath those trees.”

With adequate spacing between the trees, Jamieson said the systems also enable farmers to generate carbon credits which offer extra profit through the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

They also offer added benefits like shade and shelter for the stock.

Many of the trees on the farm were planted in 2022 and 2023 – already many stand several metres tall.

There are various types of eucalyptus, elm, paulownia, cypress and poplar, along with different types of pine.

Jamieson said seeing the trees next to each other and understanding their growth helps land-owners in decision-making.

“We support them by saying ‘here is how much you get protected for this type of structuring. Here’s the the native integration you can have for this type of species’.

“I mean, ‘here’s the other options if you wanted to go down the alternative timber production route’.”

While there’s a push to move away from pinus radiata, Jamieson is not totally opposed to it.

“There are a number of people out there in this space who are, you know, just carbon-focused – all about the yield, don’t care what they plant.

“They just want the carbon for the coin and that has led to a number of, you know, outcomes which in the long term are not going to be very good. There’s going to be a lot of pine forests.”

His primary concern is how well these pine forests will be managed, particularly when it comes to large monoculture conversions.

While the Government has introduced tweaks to try and address some of these issues, Jamieson said this had also created uncertainty in the sector.

His view was that pine should be removed from the permanent category in the ETS.

“Encouraging the right type of forestry regimes is all that is needed to actually fix the underlying problem to stop mass farm conversions into pine.

“But that being said […] you can see some of the trees over across the river here are three to four times taller than pine planted at the same age and when you equate that I can actually go into those areas and plant 75 percent native trees, that will stratify and become the dominant canopy over time, I’ll get you there and you’ll make more money than pine and you won’t have the problems and you got more jobs.”

Jamieson said some of their systems, on a per-hectare basis, could create more jobs than farming.

He said it was about using “the right exotic to perform a job for a period of time to enable native growth”.

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

The Government has today passed changes setting a new sensible biogenic methane target, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts say.

The Climate Change Response (2050 Target and Other Matters) Amendment Bill passed its third reading today.

It updates the biogenic methane component of New Zealand’s 2050 climate target and makes several other changes to ensure climate legislation remains fit for purpose.

“The Government announced in October its common-sense approach to setting a science-based biogenic methane target for 2050, and today we have delivered,” Mr McClay says.

“The changes we’ve made provide farmers and exporters with certainty and a clear pathway to reduce emissions.

“At the same time, we can maintain productivity and trade competitiveness.”

The Government is committed to New Zealand’s domestic and international climate change commitments and agriculture will continue to make an important and fair contribution to achieving this reduction.

“Our methane targets must be practical for famers, because a climate solution that shuts down farms and sends production overseas to less efficient systems, is not a solution at all,” Mr Watts says.

“We need to ensure that we are supporting our farmers. That’s why the Government’s approach to reducing agriculture emissions is clear – through technology and partnership we will deliver the reductions we need.”

This Government is backing innovative technology to meet the target and is already investing more than $400 million with industry to speed up the development and roll-out of methane-cutting tools. The first is expected on farm in 2026, with up to 11 available by 2030.

The amendments:

• Reset biogenic methane target to 14-24 percent below 2017 levels by 2050.
• Legislate a review of the methane target in 2040 to ensure its alignment with science and against progress of key trading partners.
• Requires consideration of protecting food production when setting emissions budgets.
• Removes the requirement for ETS settings to accord with NDCs, clarifying the purpose of the ETS as our key tool to drive domestic emissions reductions.
• Defer the fourth emissions budget as more time is needed to reflect the updated 2050 target.

Passing this Bill also confirms the Government’s decision to retain the current Net Zero target for long-lived gasses.

“We carefully considered the Climate Change Commission’s proposal to shift the target from net zero to net-negative, assessing the potential impacts on both the economy and the climate. We found that strengthening the target would come at undue economic cost and therefore have retained gasses,” Mr Watts says.

“Our latest projections show that we are on track to meet the net zero target eight years ahead of 2050.”

The Government has passed this Bill under urgency to provide certainty for the agriculture sector. 

“The debate over targets has gone on for far too long, and it is now time to move from discussion to action,” Mr McClay says.

“This decision has been clearly signalled. It was a coalition commitment, and we have maintained transparency throughout the independent methane review.”

MIL OSI

In the balmy greenhouses of Rainbow Park Nurseries, orchids bloom in perfect rows – a picture of calm that hides how close the operation came to crisis.

The South Auckland business – which grows houseplants and trees for major retailers – has just finished a $2.5 million project to get off natural gas. An army of industrial heat pumps now feed two giant hot-water tanks, keeping the glasshouses at up to 28°C through winter nights.

Manager Andrew Tayler is blunt: without public money, it would not have happened.

“We were very lucky we got the funding,” Tayler says. “If we didn’t, we probably would have thrown waste-oil burners on the front of the boilers and walked away.”

Rainbow Park was one of the last companies to receive a major grant from the government Investment in Decarbonising Industry (GIDI) fund before new rounds were frozen and the scheme was branded “corporate welfare” by the coalition. EECA covered roughly a third of the cost – about $880,000 – with the nursery borrowing and doing much of the installation work itself.

With no local examples to learn from, the company relied heavily on the advice of suppliers and consultants – and a lot of hope.

“Bolting 32 heat pumps together and putting them into two enormous hot-water tanks… it was a leap of faith,” Tayler says. “But if we hadn’t, we’d still be in the cycle of sweating every year about the gas – are they going to supply us, what is the price going to be, how is that going to affect our business?”

Rainbow employs more than 90 people. Doubling gas prices, he says, would have “hamstrung” the business. Instead, the nursery now buys certified zero-carbon electricity and uses the savings on its gas bill to pay down the new system.

“We’d have to do what some other businesses are doing – curtailing production, turning the heat off in some compartments, maybe laying off staff, changing what we grow,” Tayler says.

“I do feel like some of the guys that didn’t have the opportunities we have will be finding it very tough.”

Since Rainbow Park switched, the bottom has truly fallen out of New Zealand’s gas market. Supplies are collapsing faster than expected. Long-term contracts have become scarce and expensive.

Factories that rely on gas now find themselves in a strange limbo – unable to secure long-term supply, facing steep price rises, but with little guidance or public funding to help them make massive, costly decisions about their energy future.

The result, energy experts and businesses warn, is a “forced transition”: a messy, unmanaged exit from fossil fuels that risks shuttering plants, hollowing out regional economies and pushing up prices for everyone else.

“Energy transitions work better when people have time to see the signals and make informed decisions,” says energy analyst Richard Hobbs, a partner at Boston Consulting group. “When shocks arrive unexpectedly and timeframes are short – that’s when you get the really bumpy situations.”

‘We’ve been backed into a corner’

In Bay of Plenty, Whakatāne Growers heats four hectares of capsicum and chilli glasshouses with a mix of coal and gas. The plan had been to get off coal and move fully onto gas – cleaner and easier to run, with captured CO₂ helping lift yields by up to 20 percent.

Instead, site manager and co-owner Michael Simpson is stuck.

A year and a half ago, the company went to renew its gas contract. Their existing supplier could not even offer one. Two other offers came back – at 40-50 percent higher prices.

“There’s two main issues,” Simpson says. “Supply – it’s never a good thing to not know how the future is going to look – and cost. Gas prices have just exploded, and no one’s had the opportunity to make the best decisions for their business. You’ve got to rush now.”

Whakatāne Growers still runs its gas boiler, but has had to dial back temperatures, focus on efficiency and lean harder on coal.

“We never really stopped using coal, but we didn’t go any further with transitioning away from it – more or less because we didn’t have any option,” he says.

The business has looked seriously at geothermal paired with heat pumps. The numbers were “insane”.

“The capital required was absolutely mind-blowing,” Simpson says. “And with electricity prices going up as well, the running costs were going to be the same, or more. You’re kind of between a rock and a hard place.”

With clear signals and a runway, he says, they could have plotted a path.

“Ten years would have been a lot. If there’d been a clear signal: ‘By this date, you won’t be able to run on gas,’ we could have planned. Instead it feels like gas prices have just exploded with little to no warning.”

Without support, many growers and manufacturers, he says, are simply absorbing the costs, passing some on to consumers and hoping something changes.

“Ultimately, if New Zealand businesses have been backed into this corner, to stay productive and operating we’re going to need some help to transition,” he says. “It’s all good and well to say you’ve got to transition. But if the capital outlay is going to kill half the businesses in the country – and the gas prices kill the other half – what are we going to be left with?”

No silver bullets here

New Zealand’s exit from gas was meant to be more orderly than this.

Under the previous government, officials had started work on a Gas Transition Plan, consulting on how to phase down gas while keeping the lights on. The idea was to map out which uses should be prioritised, when new supply would taper off, and how to avoid simply swapping gas for coal when shortages hit.

Alongside it, the GIDI fund helped pay for the hardware needed to switch: electric boilers, high-temperature heat pumps, biomass boilers, and efficiency upgrades in factories, schools and hospitals.

The goal was not only to reduce dependence on a fuel in decline – it was to cut emissions. Gas is one of the biggest sources of industrial climate pollution, and GIDI was designed to help firms shift, to help meet our climate goals.

That has now flipped: decarbonisation has become the bonus, with the driver keeping businesses running as supply worsens.

That dual purpose – climate and energy security – is what a “managed transition” was meant to balance.

The current government parked that process. It had its own plan: the idea of “market-led” transition: where the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and price signals will, over time, make fossil fuels too expensive and clean alternatives more attractive. Ministers have argued that public subsidies distort markets, and say a market-led transition will deliver lower costs over time.

The problem is, since they made that decision none of the markets involved have been behaving the way textbooks say they should.

Gas prices for industry have already doubled on average over five years, but new supply is still shrinking and exploration is yet to restart. At the same time, electricity prices are historically high, and security margins are tightening as gas-fired stations age and new renewables lag demand.

Further, the ETS carbon price has slumped, with multiple auctions failing to clear, weakening the incentive to invest in lower-emissions technology.

“There’s enough evidence already to show that the market is demonstrably not working,” Optima energy consultant Martin Gummer says. “If the market was right, then as prices have gone up there’d be more gas coming on stream. The opposite is happening.”

In that context, a “market-led” transition risks becoming no transition at all.

And as a result, the country faces the worst of both worlds: emissions stay high while businesses face shortages and huge energy bills.

‘The bottom has fallen out of the gas market’

The scale of what might yet happen if New Zealand can not get its energy crisis under control was laid out last month in “Energy to Grow”, a report by Boston Consulting Group for the four main gentailers.

Some of the facts are now well-trodden: New Zealand’s gas supply has fallen around 45 percent in six years. Domestic production now sits below underlying demand. But BCG did future projections too, finding the gas gap is set to worsen rapidly. In one scenario, demand exceeds available gas by roughly 10 petajoules (PJ) in 2026, and double that in 2027.

Even if big users such as Methanex and Ballance curtail production or exit entirely by 2027, their 28 PJ of demand is not enough to restore balance later in the decade. The market is still short.

In a dry year, the picture is worse. Gas-fired power stations need more fuel to back up hydro lakes, soaking up any spare supply that might otherwise go to industry. BCG warns that without better planning, “industrial demand destruction” – companies shutting or relocating because they can’t secure fuel – could begin as early as 2026.

Earlier advice to ministers from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and the Electricity Authority (EA) underlines how tight it has become. In July, officials were asked by Resources Minister Shane Jones whether New Zealand could burn more coal at Huntly so gas could be diverted to struggling factories.

On paper, yes: Huntly can run more on coal. In practice, both agencies say, doing so would push up power prices and increase the risk of shortages, especially in a dry winter. The “spare” coal units at Huntly are not spare at all; they are the emergency reserve that keeps the system stable when lakes are low or gas plants fail.

In other words – any extra gas for industry has to come from somewhere else.

“This is a serious and complex problem,” Gummer says. “You can’t just pull one lever and think it will be a silver bullet. The government has to pull all the levers it possibly can.”

Fear of the unknown: Businesses don’t know when, or how to jump

For many businesses, the result of the gas shortage has been a state of paralysis.

In a survey of 66 industrial gas users earlier this year, consultancy Optima found strong concern about future availability and pricing, with “low ability to transition in the short term”. Twenty-five percent of respondents had already raised prices to pass on fuel costs; 14 percent had reduced production; eight percent had cut staff.

Of 55 firms, 28 believed they could fully or partly replace their gas use within about three years – but only with help on consents and capital. Together, they could cut demand by about 4.8 PJ a year. The combined capital bill was estimated at $532 million; most said some co-funding would be needed to make the numbers stack up.

The remaining 23 businesses said they could not get off gas within five years and needed a longer runway of up to 15 years.

The Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority (EECA) commissioned qualitative research with 25 small and medium gas users – coffee roasters, brewers, pet-food makers, plastics moulders, hothouse growers and others.

It found many run specialist equipment with no cheap, like-for-like electric alternative.

Transitioning often means ripping out perfectly functional gas technology, investing heavily in heat pumps or biomass boilers, and in many cases – like at Rainbow Park – paying for expensive grid upgrades just to get enough power to their site.

The single biggest barrier those businesses identified was uncertainty: about how long gas will be available, if there will be rationing, how high prices will go, whether exploration will restart, whether a promised investment into LNG will arrive, and what happens if they jump early and the government later props the gas market up.

“We never considered the risk to the business of not actually having natural gas,” one participant said. “We always expect that the price could fluctuate… But we never anticipated maybe having no gas coming from the pipeline.”

“What is the priority of the gas supply going to be?” another asked. “If supply is limited, which it already is, how is energy going to be allocated? Who gets it first? Who gets it last?”

EECA chief executive Dr Marcos Pelenur says many firms feel they are being pushed into “make-or-break decisions”: absorb higher costs, invest millions in new plant, or close.

“Gas has declined much faster than most people expected,” he says.

Crucially, however, he does not expect a return to “the good old days”.

“I think it is very likely that we will not have cheap, abundant gas,” Pelenur says. “There are businesses out there hoping gas prices will go back to what they were ten years ago. I do not think that’s going to happen.”

It is far more likely that the nation will have abundant renewable energy instead, Pelenur says.

His message is that businesses should act now on efficiency – EECA’s walk-through assessments often find 10-30 percent savings – and start planning fuel switches, even if the big projects will take years.

But without a national strategy or substantial funding, that planning sits largely on individual firms: and eventually comes back to the issue of money.

The devil and the deep blue sea

For many manufacturers, the choice is not between cheap gas and slightly dearer electricity. It is between paying hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to replace perfectly functional gas equipment – or taking their chances and hoping the fuel keeps coming.

“Most businesses are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea,” Gummer says – unable to afford the capital cost of transition, yet unable to rely on increasingly volatile and uncertain gas supply.

“It’s painful,” one business owner told EECA’s researchers. “The economics don’t work out on our current return on investment.”

Some talked seriously about shutting rather than transitioning. Others said they are passing costs on to customers, but worry those customers will simply go offshore – a wider risk of deindustrialisation.

Major employers such as pulp and paper mills, wood processors and food plants are deeply woven into local economies. If they close, the knock-on effects hit ports, trucking firms, engineering workshops, schools and shops. Once those jobs are gone, they are hard to replace.

Green Building Council chief executive Andrew Eagles says leaving it to the market is an unnecessary risk.

“You’ve either got a considered transition or a disruptive one that will damage people’s lives – kids leave schools, people move towns, regional economies shrink,” he says. “This isn’t about abstract ideas – it’s real people’s lives.”

BCG estimates that once big users like Methanex and Ballance have exited, every petajoule of additional gas demand destruction hits GDP harder and harder – about $400m for the first PJ, up to $700m for the tenth. Losing 5 PJ could wipe out around $3b of GDP a year; 10 PJ, around $7.3b, or nearly two percent of total GDP.

By contrast, the report suggests that with about $200m of co-funding, New Zealand could displace 10-20 PJ of industrial gas use over the next decade by helping firms switch to electricity and biomass.

“$200 million is a one-off,” Hobbs says. “The cost of not managing the transition is in the billions every year. The benefits to the economy outweigh the costs by quite some margin.”

Effectively, they’re arguing to restart some form of GIDI, which co-funded dozens of projects at an effective support level of around $1.10 per gigajoule saved spread over 15 years.

RNZ asked Energy Minister Simon Watts whether the Government would consider supporting businesses with some kind of transition grant. Watts said he was “aware of the challenges” industrial gas users have been facing with increased costs and difficulties securing contracts”, and outlined several initiatives underway.

The most significant is the procurement process for a liquefied natural gas import terminal, which the minister says is intended to bolster security of supply in dry years, support electricity generation during peak periods, and “potentially act as a fuel source for industrial users”.

Alongside exploration incentives, the minister said work was underway to “remove barriers” to growing biogas and biomass as alternative fuels.

Watts also highlighted broader financing tools that businesses could access – such as bank sustainability loans – and said the Government was working to “de-risk investment in thermal fuel and capacity”, including by improving transparency in the gas market. He did not directly address further questions about demand-side support.

The path ahead

The analysts argue New Zealand does not have to chart such a difficult path.

Other countries facing gas shortages have taken a more deliberate approach both for businesses and in residential areas. When the gas crisis hit in Europe during the Russia-Ukraine war, there was a rapid push on energy efficiency, leading to major technological leaps.

In Victoria, Australia, where about 60 percent of homes use gas, the state government has moved to stop new gas connections in subdivisions and require electric hot-water heat pumps when systems are replaced.

But New Zealand has no equivalent national framework to either stop new demand locking into a fuel that is already running out, or managing the current demand.

Instead, the government has only intervened on the supply side – investigating LNG imports and putting money on the table to extend gas drilling – while demand-side tools have stalled.

“If the government is prepared to look at co-funding LNG and more drilling, they should be prepared to look at co-funding transition for industry,” Gummer says. “You need several strategies – that’s how you disperse risk.”

The experts are clear: the transition is coming any way you look at it.

They say the argument is not about pipes and boilers, or heat pumps and hot water. It is about who carries the costs and risks of an inevitable shift away from fossil fuels.

For Rainbow Park, an early grant and willing partnership from lines companies and power providers turned a looming risk into a triumph of innovation.

For Whakatāne Growers, and dozens of other firms trying to read the tea leaves, the story is very different.

“It’s pretty daunting,” Simpson says. “You’re always thinking about it. Always working on it at home. But without some certainty, there’s not much point making big investments – you don’t know what the right thing to invest in is, or when the right time is.”

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The highly anticipated opening of Swedish furniture company IKEA in New Zealand comes as a rural community worries about the fire risk from pine plantations.

Since 2020 IKEA has converted six Central Hawke’s Bay farms into pine forestry, which they believe makes them the largest forestry owner in the district.

This move, combined with the sale of at least four other Hawke’s Bay farms to overseas forestry companies this year, is sparking concerns from locals about the loss of productive farmland and the risks associated with converting large areas into pines.

At least four other Hawke’s Bay farms have been sold to overseas forestry companies this year. Photo: RNZ / Alexa Cook

‘Dumbest thing NZ has done in agriculture’

To better understand the scale of this land-use change, Porangahau farmer James Hunter and pilot Joe Faram flew RNZ over thousands of hectares of new pine trees that now cover what had been traditional farmland for generations.

“This is the dumbest thing New Zealand has done in agriculture,” Hunter said.

He wants New Zealanders to witness the extent of farmland being planted in forestry.

“It’s not just one farm, it’s farm after farm and I think it’s the scale of it that people don’t understand.

“Suddenly we’ve got a district that’s been swallowed, and this is apparently good for the country,” he said.

A newly planted forestry block in Central Hawke’s Bay near Pourere, each sprayed circle is a pine tree. Photo: Nick Monro

• More than 1.8 million hectares of New Zealand is planted in pine trees with many farms having been converted since 2008 to earn carbon credits after the Emissions Trading Scheme was introduced.
• This resulted in more ‘carbon farming’ where forests are planted for carbon credits and permanently locked up rather than being harvested for timber.
• Swedish furniture company IKEA has bought 28,000 hectares of New Zealand farmland since 2021, with another 10,000 currently pending approval in Northland.
• However, IKEA told RNZ none of its trees have been planted for carbon credits, although they may look at ‘some form of offsetting in the future’.
• A recent report from the Climate Change Commission estimated another 900,000 hectares of land will be converted to forestry by 2050.
• Most of IKEA’s 4300 hectares of forestry in Central Hawke’s Bay is near the village of Porangahau, where about 200 hectares of its pine trees went up in flames in October and took days to extinguish because of the high winds grounding helicopters.

It’s fires like this that have rural communities on edge, because they say even if the blaze starts on nearby farmland, the forests contain the fuel that feeds them.

“So the question for the forestry owners is how confident are they that they can stop New Zealand haemorrhaging money chasing fires?” Hunter said.

“They’ve brought basically the equivalent of petrol tankers into these rural districts. Why should we pay for the cost of fighting something while they’re making extraordinary money?”

Porangahau farmer James Hunter took RNZ reporter Alexa Cook up in a helicopter to get a clearer view of the extent of pine plantings across the region. Photo: Nick Monro

Hunter believed there’d been ‘no thought to firefighting’, especially in high winds.

“I want to see them have to put in their own water supplies. And I want some confidence that they can fight a fire when the helicopters are not able to fly – and if the helicopters are not able to fly, what happens to the rest of us downwind?”

He’s concerned that Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) didn’t have the resources to deal with major blazes. FENZ said it’s primarily funded through the Fire and Emergency levy, which is collected on contracts of fire insurance. However, there is no mandatory requirement for foresters to insure.

“We do not have a separate breakdown of levy contributions from forestry companies,” a FENZ spokesperson said.

“Other than funding from the levy, Fire and Emergency does not receive any additional dedicated funding to fight forestry fires.”

The organisation said it was “confident in its ability to respond effectively to forestry fires”.

About 200 hectares of IKEA’s Central Hawke’s Bay forestry went up in flames in October. Photo: RNZ / Alexa Cook

IKEA’s forestland country manager Kelvin Meredith told RNZ the company, like many other forestry owners, did not have fire insurance.

“We don’t insure for fire. It’s prohibitively expensive in New Zealand,” he said.

The Forest Owners Association said about 30 to 40 percent of plantation forest estate was insured. It varied year to year as owners reviewed their risk management.

“Standing crop insurance is becoming increasingly unaffordable, so – like other rural landowners – forest owners weigh the cost, risk and benefits each year,” it said.

“Some companies choose to self-insure and invest heavily in their own firefighting capability, which in turn strengthens rural fire response more broadly.”

Meredith agreed that there is a lot of fuel in a forest but said it provided fire plans to FENZ and worked closely with it to mitigate the fire risk.

“What we can do is have decent fire breaks and decent fire plans in place so if it does break out, the key consideration is that no one’s life is in danger.

“I can’t speak for all forest owners, but I think we’re relatively well prepared in the event of a fire,” said Meredith.

Hunter said if forest owners weren’t contributing financially to FENZ, or properly mitigating the fire risk, then it’s unfair on farmers who did pay fire insurance levies and were investing in fire protections.

“So you want to go and plant your trees? Cool. Don’t leave me with the costs.”

Farmer James Hunter is worried forestry companies aren’t taking the fire risk seriously. Photo: Nick Monro

There’s also currently no mandatory requirement for forestry owners to reduce or mitigate fire risk, but the Forest Owners Association said $21 million a year was spent on fire protection.

Nationally, FENZ had 15 formal service-level agreements with major forestry companies that outlined resource sharing arrangements and joint responsibilities during wildfire events, and said three more were being finalised.

FENZ wouldn’t provide forestry fire plans to RNZ, but said there was ongoing investment in training and technology to ensure they remained well-prepared as fire risks evolved “due to climate and land-use changes”.

“Fire and Emergency remain committed to working with all stakeholders to protect people, property, and the environment from the growing threat of wildfires.”

IKEA said it would consider supporting calls for legislation requiring all landowners, from farmers to foresters, to mitigate fire risk and invest in fire protections.

“If it’s practical and effective and can be implemented in an effective manner. It’s no good writing a piece of legislation that only half the population is going to follow,” said Meredith.

‘I’m embarrassed to be a New Zealander’

Pilot Joe Faram has been fighting forestry fires for decades. He’s had a front row seat witnessing Hawke’s Bay’s landscape steadily change from farms to pines.

“The transition has been very vast over the last 15 years … a lot of that mindset has been detrimental to the betterment of New Zealand.

“I’m embarrassed to be a New Zealander, it’s shameful,” he said.

Pilot Joe Faram has been fighting fires from the air for decades and worries the risk is increasing. Photo: Nick Monro

As a pilot, he said there was a lot of pressure on aerial fire-fighting resources because it’s often the main tool for containing a forestry blaze.

He’s concerned the increase in pine trees is creating a bigger fire risk.

“Because there’s more material, there’s more fuel. We’re certainly putting ourselves in a dangerous situation, so you’re managing risk control.

“By a little bit of good fortune and luck, we have had fires, but we’ve managed to suppress them quite effectively. But one day, the Swiss cheese will line up and we will have a fire that, instead of putting it out in two or three days, it could be up to a month,” he said.

It’s a fear shared by Porangahau hapu Ngāti Kere. Chairperson David Tipene Leach has been in discussions with IKEA since 2022.

“They came to the marae, they talked to us, they told us what they had to offer.

“When you look back on it a couple of years later, actually there’s not much to offer.”

David Tipene Leach feels the spread of forestry in Hawke’s Bay is like another wave of colonisation for Ngāti Kere. Photo: Nick Monro

Since the fire in October, he’s written to IKEA on behalf of the hapu, urging it to remove the pine trees planted closest to the village in an area known as Stoneridge.

“If you look around the world, and certainly in this day and age, we look into Canada and into the States and other places, and you see the huge forest fires that are occurring in these big plantations, we’ve got to be worried about that sort of stuff.

“With regard to exit and entry from our little isolated town, they’re planting, planting all along the road. You can’t get out of our town if the forests are burning,” he said.

However, IKEA said it’s unlikely it would remove trees.

“As far as taking the whole Stoneridge face out of trees, I can’t see that happening. What we need to do is meet with the community and understand what are the real concerns here related to fire,” said Meredith.

An area of new pine plantings in Central Hawke’s Bay. Photo: Nick Monro

For Tipene Leach, there’s a sense of sadness around seeing farmland planted in pine.

“It’s kind of like this is just another, you know, I don’t want to sound silly, but another wave of colonisation that Ngāti Kere has to deal with.

“Us small hapu, we’re fighting for survival here. We’re not really fighting to change the world. We’re just fighting to maintain our little bit of the world.”

He worried the pine problems seen in Tai Rāwhiti with slash and community loss were creeping down the East Coast, and Hawke’s Bay was set to make the same mistakes.

“The forestry people will tell us, don’t worry, we’ve all learned since then.

“But they are commercial operators who are out there to make a buck where they can, and so I’m not sure that we have any reason to trust them,” Leach said.

Forest Owners Association chief executive Elizabeth Heeg said commercial foresters did want to make a return on their investments, but the returns were slow to be realised and forest owners were highly motivated to protect the environments and communities their trees grew in.

“Part of this is adapting to climate change and with increasing numbers of significant storms, foresters are very focused on adapting their forest and harvest management plans to prevent and prepare for incidents where forest waste leaves their land.

“Our forests are a vast resource and with greater collaboration across the industry and other sectors, using woody biomass for energy generation, more timber in construction, and increasing domestic processing, New Zealand has a significant opportunity to gain far greater value from them,” said Heeg.

Pine forestry in southern Hawke’s Bay Photo: Nick Monro

IKEA said while it couldn’t answer for all foresters, the company was “pouring cash into the country”.

“We’re planting forests … we’re buying native seedlings, we’re employing local contractors, employing planting crews … and we won’t realise a return for 28 years.

“We’re not extracting a lot of cash out of the country for the benefit of an offshore entity, that’s for sure,” said Meredith.

He said IKEA had put a “little bit of a pause” on buying farmland at the moment and was buying existing forests instead.

The timber grown in New Zealand would be used in IKEA’s furniture, however, it’d be shipped overseas for manufacturing.

“The sad situation we’re in is you can actually send logs to places like China and bring back products made in those countries cheaper than we can do it here.

“We’d love to manufacture here. We’d love to support local processing but it’s just the economics are tough.”

Government taking forestry fire risk ‘seriously’

Forestry Minister Todd McClay told RNZ the government took the risk of forest fires seriously and had strengthened its approach in recent years.

“There has been a wide package of work across prevention, readiness, and response. This includes updated guidance for landowners and councils, better coordination between the New Zealand Forest Service and Fire and Emergency New Zealand, and ongoing investment in research, risk mapping, and seasonal forecasting,” he said.

Forestry Minister Todd McClay. Photo: Nick Monro

When asked if the government was considering legislation changes so that it’s mandatory for all landowners to reduce or mitigate fire risk, the minister said they already have responsibility for managing their property against the risk of fire.

“It’s important to note that 98 percent of wildfires in New Zealand are caused by human activity and often spread into forests.

“It’s also important to note that under the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act 2017, FENZ have the authority to require a landowner to create and clear a firebreak on their property if it believes this is needed to help control fires.”

He believed forestry owners were doing enough to reduce the risk of fires on their land.

“Large forestry companies often have their own firefighting teams, equipment, and water supplies. Getting full insurance against fire damage is difficult, so some forestry owners choose to self-insure or buy partial coverage.

“Ultimately, the financial risk of losing trees to fire sits with the forest owner,” McClay said.

*RNZ was taken up on the flight by farmer James Hunter to give a snapshot of the land use change in the area.

Forestry in Hawke’s Bay Photo: Nick Monro

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

A market “surprised” by the government has failed to buy a single carbon unit at the final Emissions Trading Scheme auction of the year.

Not a single bidder registered for Wednesday’s auction, making 2025 the second calendar year in which all four quarterly ETS auctions have failed.

The first was 2023.

The managing director of commodities broker Marex, Nigel Brunel said recent climate policy announcements were “primarily responsible” as they signalled that the government was backtracking on climate change.

Emitters captured within the ETS still have to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions – but at the moment it is significantly cheaper to buy carbon units from elsewhere, such as forestry owners.

The minimum price carbon units could be sold for in the auction was $68, but emitters have been able to buy units elsewhere for as little as $40 recently.

Brunel said the market had been spooked most recently by the government’s decision in November to ‘de-couple’ the ETS from New Zealand’s Paris Agreement pledges.

“They could have done it quite differently, instead of just going, ‘Surprise!’”

Markets “hate uncertainty”, he said.

“It was announced without a lot behind it, [or] the rationale for doing it, so it gave the market concern that there were changes happening to the ETS that weren’t well-telegraphed – and the market reacted accordingly.”

However, the market had been weak all year.

“There’s been a number of things that have fed into it…. The fact that [the government] reduced the methane target, the fact that mandatory reporting requirements were weakened, just the continual mantra that we’re not going to do anything in offshore mitigation to meet our [2030 Paris target] kind of sent the signal to the marketplace that …the government was weakening overall on climate change policy,” Brunel said.

That had not been helped by “quips from minor parties that we should withdraw from Paris”.

The units from all 2025 auctions will now be cancelled out of the ETS, meaning they will not be available to emitters in subsequent years.

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

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has labelled the conduct of Labour MPs “unbecoming” after a fiery Scrutiny Week appearance which saw accusations of name-calling and conspiracy-thinking.

Under questioning in the meeting, Willis also confirmed the government had no intention of buying offshore carbon credits to meet the 2030 Paris agreement as part of a “performative awards ceremony” even if that meant it would breach its commitment.

Christmas cheer?

From the meeting’s outset, the exchanges were heated. Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds asked Willis to explain why she claimed infrastructure spending was increasing despite that not being the case in the most recent financial statements.

In response, Willis said the coalition had budgeted a record amount for public infrastructure over the next four years and finished with a dig at Labour.

“The last government was good at doing press releases, but not so good at getting shovels in the ground.”

Both Labour’s Deborah Russell and Megan Woods immediately objected: “Oh, that’s fine? It’s fine to take shots at the opposition? Anything’s on is it?”

The two sides also had a back-and-forth over a table in the Crown accounts which Willis claimed the Labour MPs had misinterpreted.

Again, it prompted a chorus of overlapping questions from the opposition: “Which table? Which table? What’s the table number? Which table, please? Which table?”

Labour MPs also openly laughed as Willis took credit for the more-than-7000 new built social homes since the election. Russell pushed Willis to confirm that those houses were funded under Labour’s previous Budgets.

“This is outrageous,” Woods said. “They cut the funding for housing and she’s claiming credit.”

Willis: “Everyone’s very excited today, Mr Chair. It’s the Christmas cheer, I suppose.”

The government and opposition side sparred over their respective fiscal strategies and records. Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick accused the coalition of “reckless cuts” and “a doom loop”.

Willis, meanwhile, took aim at Labour’s “disgraceful” increase in debt while in power.

“It was wrong for your government to increase spending dramatically right when the Reserve Bank was begging you to put on the brakes.”

Russell fired back: “That increased spending was, of course, backed by the National Party … [which] called for even more spending.”

Russell also asked Willis whether the government had changed the way the Emissions Trading Scheme operated in order to make its books look better.

“When you’re a conspiracy theorist, you see conspiracy everywhere,” Willis responded.

“Oh, for goodness sake. That’s a ridiculous thing to say,” Russell said. “When you can’t answer the question, you resort to insults.”

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Willis said she accepted the committees could be robust, but thought some of allegations levelled at her were “unbecoming”.

“They’re all a bit tired, a bit ratty,” Willis said. “In general, they behave better than that, but everyone has an off day.”

Climate change commitments

Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick also pressed Willis over whether the government remained committed to its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris agreement.

Willis said that remained a priority but the government was not prepared to “spend billions of dollars sending money offshore to meet that NDC”.

Swarbrick requested that Willis take into account the potential fiscal impact of that NDC in its books for the “sake of financial responsibility” and “transparency” to which Willis simply responded: “No.”

Afterwards, Willis described the call as “a lot of fluff and noise” and noted that the previous government never recognised those obligations as liabilities either.

She said the government would make “best efforts” to uphold its 2030 Paris commitments, but would not buy offshore carbon credits even if that was required to achieve it.

“We do not think it’s in New Zealand’s best interest to send cheques for billions of dollars offshore,” she said.

“New Zealanders who are struggling to put food on the table are not going to thank us for having a performative awards ceremony.”

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

The Government is making progress on transitioning New Zealand’s 3.6 million light petrol vehicles to road user charges (RUC), today launching a Request for Information (RFI) on paying for RUC electronically, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says.

“We want to hear from innovators and private companies on how we can make paying for road use as easy as paying your power bill or streaming service”, Mr Bishop says. 

“Our transport funding system must keep pace with the way Kiwis pay their bills today. The current RUC framework is out of date and still relies on manual paperwork and paper licences. 

“Modernising RUC will allow for more technology options, including systems already built into modern vehicles. Road users will be able to opt in to using this technology to make it easier for them to pay RUC, but they will also have the option of manual alternatives. 

“We know data privacy is important to New Zealanders. Any technology solutions will be required to comply with the Road User Charges Act which contains strong privacy safeguards and strictly limits what information can be accessed.

“The Land Transport (Revenue) Amendment Bill which is currently before Parliament, will pave the way for new technology and open up the RUC market to wider competition. 

“We’d like to see a mix of businesses get involved and be part of this opportunity. This could include: 

• tech-focused companies offering software, telematic and electronic systems to manage RUC on behalf of road users
• companies that could combine payment for RUC with other services, such as banks, vehicle insurers, and utilities
• companies that could sell RUC to people over-the-counter, such as fuel companies, and supermarkets.

“New services could include very simple solutions that enable people to keep track of their odometer readings and receive purchase reminders, through to full electronic solutions enabling automated purchase.

“This work is part of a broader reform programme to future-proof transport funding. As our vehicle fleet changes, so too must the way we fund our roads.

“Responses to the RFI will inform Government decisions on next steps for the transition to a modern, user-friendly, and competitive RUC system.” 

Notes to editor: 

• The Ministry of Transport will conduct the market engagement through an open request for information (RFI) on the Government Electronic Tenders Service (GETS) to test and gauge market interest in providing RUC services.
• For more information, visit www.transport.govt.nz or contact RUC@transport.govt.nz
• The final day for responses to the RFI is 13 February 2026.
• The RFI documents are available  here.

MIL OSI

Mr President, colleagues.

Tēnā koutou katoa. It is an honour to address you today on behalf of New Zealand.

When the Paris Agreement was adopted ten years ago, Parties committed to goals that limit the impacts of climate change on lives and livelihoods.

Ten years on, we have seen significant progress, and we are firmly in the era of implementation. 

But we need to press forward, and we must keep 1.5 alive. 

Mr President, New Zealand is committed.

We were one of the first eight countries in the world to have submitted a second Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), that is ambitious, achievable, informed by the Global Stocktake, and in accordance with Paris Agreement rules. 

We are committed to transparency arrangements, which are critical to mutual trust.

And we provide high-quality, grants-based, accessible, partner-responsive climate support, with over half going to adaptation action.

We urge all Parties to follow suit and implement. All Parties must submit NDCs that reflect the urgency of the movement, and all Parties with the capacity to do so must provide support to those who need it most.

We recognise economies are under strain, but every step of progress helps us maintain momentum.

Mr President, the Blue Pacific Continent has long led the world with its climate ambition.

In the Pacific, climate change is not a distant threat; it is a lived reality.

Next year, COP31 in the Pacific would be an opportunity to deliver global climate solutions, built on the experience of some of those on the front lines.

New Zealand proudly supports Australia’s commitment to host COP31 in partnership with the Pacific and calls on others to confirm their support. 

Mr President, a low-emissions and climate-resilient economy is central to economic prosperity. 

New Zealand is accelerating the deployment of renewable energy at a faster pace than ever before. 

In October, we saw weeks where our electricity was 98% renewable. We have commissioned more renewable generation in the last 18 months than in the previous 15 years, helping us double that capacity by 2050.

Our farmers are among the most carbon-efficient globally, and we are leading in agricultural innovation.

Our Emissions Trading Scheme is one of the most comprehensive globally.

And in the last month, we agreed to legislate a climate adaptation framework to address long-term strategic factors, including clear roles, investment in risk reduction, and cost-sharing. This is one of the world’s first of its kind.

Mr President, the response to climate change must be inclusive and supportive of all voices and leadership, as we cannot solve this challenge alone.

I am proud that a delegation of New Zealand’s young Māori leaders is here at COP30 – sharing their stories and commitment to action.

Mr President, you introduced us to ‘mutirao’, which speaks to the shared work that builds up our people.

This resonates with us. New Zealand – our young people, business, and civil society – stand ready to partner with all Parties to take action: at home, in the Pacific, and globally.

Thank you.

MIL OSI

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Nov. 17, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — IperionX Limited (IperionX) (NASDAQ: IPX, ASX: IPX) notes the short seller report released by Spruce Point Capital Management. Consistent with recommended disclosures on short-selling campaigns under ASIC’s guidance in Information Sheet 255, IperionX’s response is focused on material, verifiable facts relevant to investors and continuous disclosure obligations.

IperionX maintains confidentiality, data-security and intellectual-property controls that meet the stringent contracting requirements of the U.S. Department of War (DoW). IperionX remains focused on executing the commercial scale-up of titanium production and manufacturing in Virginia.

Spruce Point Capital did not engage with IperionX management at any time before releasing its short seller report, and the Company has no record of any attempted outreach by phone or email. Spruce Point Capital has never visited, or requested to visit, IperionX’s titanium manufacturing operations in Virginia.

IperionX will continue to update the market as required in accordance with ASIC, ASX and SEC obligations.

VALIDATION OF IPERIONX’S PATENTED TECHNOLOGIES AND U.S. GOVERNMENT SUPPORT

IperionX’s titanium technologies have been evaluated and supported through multiple U.S. Government programs including ARPA-E, DPA Title III, IBAS and, most recently, a U.S. Army led SBIR Phase III contract for procurement-ready titanium products.

These funding programs involve competitive selection processes, detailed technical due diligence, and ongoing reporting to DoW subject-matter experts who assess process performance, production quality and technology maturity. IperionX’s advancement through successive U.S. Government awards reflects the increasing readiness of its technology platform and its strategic relevance for the U.S. titanium supply chain.

IperionX’s multi-year U.S. Government support and third-party validation includes:

ARPA-E Program (2014)

ARPA-E, the U.S. Department of Energy’s advanced research agency, provided funding to the University of Utah to scale the titanium technologies from laboratory bench scale to pilot-scale production.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) ‘Reprocessing of Metallic Scrap and Waste Powders’ Grand Challenge (2023)

IperionX won the AFRL Reprocessing of Metallic Scrap and Waste Powders Grand Challenge, for technology and processes that could transform scrap titanium into high-quality titanium metal powders.

Winner of R&D 100 award (2023)

IperionX and the HAMR technology inventor Dr. Zak Fang were recognized with the R&D 100 Award, acknowledging the breakthrough potential of their titanium production process. Assessed by an independent panel of leading experts, the R&D 100 Award is among the most respected global innovation accolades, awarded only to technologies that demonstrate exceptional technical merit, differentiation, and measurable advantages over existing processes.

Defense Production Act Title III / DPA Investment Program (2023)

IperionX received a U.S. DoW award of US$12.7 million “to increase titanium production for defense supply chains,” specifically to commission and scale its Virginia facility to 125 metric tons per annum (tpa) of titanium.

IBAS (Industrial Base Analysis & Sustainment) Program (2025)

IperionX received a U.S. DoW award of US$47.1 million to strengthen the U.S. Defense Industrial Base by accelerating development of a resilient, low-cost, and fully integrated U.S. mineral-to-metal titanium supply chain.

Under the IBAS program, the DoW allocated US$5 million to accelerate the Titan Critical Minerals Project, funding a Definitive Feasibility Study to achieve ‘shovel-ready’ status by mid 2026. With all major development permits received, Titan Project stands as a potential near-term, strategic source of rare earths, titanium and zircon critical minerals for the United States.

The DoW has since obligated multiple tranches of funding under this IBAS award, including US$12.5 million (August 2025), US$25 million (September 2025) in addition to the US$5 million for the Titan Critical Minerals Definitive Feasibility Study.

SBIR Phase III Program (2025)

IperionX was awarded a U.S. Army Phase III SBIR IDIQ contract of up to US$99 million, applicable for procurement-ready technologies that U.S. Government agencies can utilize for procurement task orders, on a sole-source basis without further competition. IperionX’s first U.S. Army task order under the SBIR III has already been issued. 

The SBIR program is executed under open competition and routinely applies standards more rigorous than those used in traditional acquisition programs. Phase I and II agreements focus on the competitive development, testing, and evaluation of commercially relevant technologies. SBIR Phase III represents the program’s most advanced phase. During Phase III, the U.S. Government transitions into production contracts to facilitate commercialization. Attainment of Phase III status typically signifies that a company has met extensive technical, testing, and competition requirements, secured recurring funding support from U.S. Government end-users over multiple selection stages, and demonstrated operational or near-operational performance.

OPERATING FOCUS AND NEAR-TERM PRIORITIES

IperionX reiterates 2026 priorities as previously disclosed.

Virginia: Commission industrial scale titanium production capacity

The Virginia Titanium Manufacturing Campus has completed commissioning, with titanium products advancing through customer qualification phases. Process and operational enhancements have recently increased projected nameplate capacity from 125 tpa to 200 tpa.

Virginia: Titanium production capacity scale-up to ~1,400 tpa by mid-2027 (U.S. DoW co-funded)

The IBAS-funded expansion of IperionX’s Virginia operations to lift nameplate titanium capacity by 7x to ~1,400 tpa by mid-2027 is now underway. The estimated US$75 million cost of the program is supported by IBAS funding commitments already secured.

Customer programs and revenues

IperionX is actively working on SBIR Phase III task orders for manufactured titanium components, drawing on its integrated powder metallurgy, forging, and additive manufacturing technology platform to deliver high-performance, low-cost titanium solutions for the U.S. military.

Cost curve and competitiveness

IperionX is advancing a structured process optimization program to continue to drive down projected unit costs and further increase yields. Current cost targets and timelines remain consistent with prior disclosures.

Titan Critical Minerals Project (Tennessee)

The Titan Definitive Feasibility Study continues to advance with U.S. Government funding support, accelerating work toward ’shovel-ready’ status. Titan Project is positioned as a potential near-term strategic supplier of rare earths (including heavy rare earths), titanium and zircon, supporting U.S. critical mineral security. Progression to development will be dependent on completion of the DFS, expected by mid-2026, and the arrangement of appropriate project finance.

ADDRESSABLE MARKETS AND PRODUCT SALES STRATEGY

While spherical titanium powder remains a product offering for select customers, IperionX’s largest addressable market and core growth opportunity is high-performance, near-net-shape and finished titanium components for high-volume end markets such as fasteners, automotive, consumer electronics, and defense.

Leveraging low-cost HAMR titanium powder and advanced HSPT forging technologies, the Company aims to deliver high-value components at materially lower cost structures. This vertically integrated approach supports competitive U.S. production across the full titanium value chain – from scrap or minerals through to finished titanium parts – addressing growing demand for resilient, sustainable and domestically sourced titanium.

IperionX has already manufactured and delivered titanium fasteners at the request of U.S. Army leadership. This successful initial deployment provided third-party validation of both the technical performance and cost advantage of HAMR and HSPT processes, and is driving additional commercial opportunities across the defense, oil & gas, automotive, and aerospace sectors.

SALES CONTRACTS

IperionX has secured multiple commercial agreements for its manufactured titanium products, as set out in the Company’s ASX and SEC disclosures. The prioritization of each program shifts over time to reflect customer scale, strategic importance, and alignment with U.S. Government funding and capability objectives. Representative agreements include:

• A disclosed Ford program with an expected value of ~US$11 million over 45 months. Automotive production schedules are inherently tied to vehicle platform launch schedules, so commencement may shift in line with integration milestones and manufacturing ramp-up decisions.
• Production and sale of titanium components for Panerai’s eTitanio Brabus and Submersible GMT Titanio Mike Horn watch collections.
• Production and sale of titanium fasteners to the U.S. Army Ground Vehicle Systems Center for testing and installation on an operational platform.

In parallel, the Company is advancing a deep commercial pipeline across titanium and critical minerals, encompassing more than 200 NDA-backed opportunities, over 90 active customer programs, and 22 engagements in final prototyping or commercial negotiation. As a U.S. DoW-supported company, many of these product workstreams are governed by ITAR requirements and therefore receive priority focus and stringent confidentiality obligations.

During the ramp-up of the Virginia Titanium Manufacturing Campus, a limited number of potential partnerships associated linked to the Titan Critical Minerals Project were paused. With Titan development now re-initiated and supported by U.S. DoW funding, the Company expects partnerships to advance as the project progresses toward development.

TITANIUM SCRAP FEEDSTOCK STRATEGY

The U.S. titanium supply chain generates substantial volumes of titanium scrap each year, including bulk weldable material, powder, processed turnings and grindings. A significant proportion of this scrap cannot be efficiently processed by incumbent titanium processors and is instead downcycled to the lower value ferro-titanium market. The bulk weldable material has historically been the preferred feedstock for the incumbent industry and IperionX generally does not compete for this material. IperionX‘s strategy is to procure and upgrade this underutilized titanium scrap feedstock using its patented technologies.

IperionX’s technologies have been independently validated by multiple third parties, including the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory Grand Challenge), to deoxygenate and upgrade these titanium scrap feedstocks into high-quality titanium metal products.

This feedstock strategy is already being successfully implemented. IperionX has procured more than 70 metric tons of titanium scrap, now held in inventory at its Titanium Manufacturing Campus, to support 2026 production requirements. In the medium term, IperionX plans to utilize upgraded titanium mineral feedstocks from the Titan Project to support multi-decade, fully integrated domestic titanium production.

IPERIONX MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE

IperionX’s Board and management team bring extensive senior-level experience from leading natural resource, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing organizations. The team has a demonstrated track record in delivering major mineral developments in iron ore, gold, coal, and titanium minerals, as well as in managing complex industrial programs spanning military aircraft production, commercial aviation platforms, and high-performance materials manufacturing.

IPERIONX OFFICE LOCATION

IperionX established its administrative office in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2020. As the Company has expanded, nearly all operations, workforce, and administrative activities have shifted to the South Boston, Virginia Titanium Manufacturing Campus. The operational address is 1080 Confroy Drive, South Boston, VA 24592, with mail received at 1092 Confroy Drive. IperionX’s physical footprint in the region totals ~100,000 square feet of secure, IperionX-exclusive titanium production and manufacturing facilities.

FINANCIAL AND OPERATIONAL REPORTING

IperionX prepares its consolidated financial statements in accordance with Australian accounting standards, ensuring fair presentation of the Company’s financial position, operating performance, and cash flows. The Company has implemented and maintains effective internal controls over financial reporting, including the appropriate selection and consistent application of accounting policies.

All material reconciling items were identified and included in management’s reconciliations, with necessary adjustments made to the consolidated financial statements. There were no material unreconciled differences that required further adjustment or reclassification.

RISK FACTORS

IperionX notes the inherent risks and uncertainties in advancing large-scale titanium production and commercialization, as outlined in its annual report, 20F and other regulatory disclosures to the market. Notwithstanding these factors, the Company continues to advance against its stated strategic objectives and will keep the market informed on any material developments in accordance with its continuous disclosure obligations.

LIQUIDITY

As set out in the most recent quarterly report, IperionX held US$79.2 million in cash and equivalents as at 30 September 2025.

Beyond this reported cash balance, ~US$43 million has been obligated under U.S. DoW programs and remains available to be drawn upon milestones. IperionX also has access to over US$97 million of additional funding capacity under its SBIR Phase III contract vehicle, which enables the U.S. Government to issue sole-source task orders for qualifying procurement task orders.

IperionX confirms that it is in compliance with its continuous disclosure obligations under Listing Rule 3.1, including in relation to the status of contracts, agreements and memoranda of understanding.

ABOUT IPERIONX

IperionX is a leading American titanium metal and critical materials company – using patented metal technologies to produce high performance titanium alloys, from titanium minerals or scrap titanium, at lower energy, cost and carbon emissions.

Our Titan critical minerals project is the largest JORC-compliant mineral resource of titanium, rare earth and zircon minerals sands in the United States.

IperionX’s titanium metal and critical minerals are essential for advanced U.S. industries including space, aerospace, defense, consumer electronics, hydrogen, automotive and additive manufacturing.

Forward Looking Statements

Information included in this release constitutes forward-looking statements. Often, but not always, forward looking statements can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as “may”, “will”, “expect”, “intend”, “plan”, “estimate”, “anticipate”, “continue”, and “guidance”, or other similar words and may include, without limitation, statements regarding plans, strategies and objectives of management, anticipated production or construction commencement dates and expected costs or production outputs.

Forward looking statements inherently involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company’s actual results, performance, and achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance, or achievements. Relevant factors may include, but are not limited to, changes in commodity prices, foreign exchange fluctuations and general economic conditions, increased costs and demand for production inputs, the speculative nature of exploration and project development, including the risks of obtaining necessary licenses and permits and diminishing quantities or grades of reserves, the Company’s ability to comply with the relevant contractual terms to access the technologies, commercially scale its closed-loop titanium production processes, or protect its intellectual property rights, political and social risks, changes to the regulatory framework within which the Company operates or may in the future operate, environmental conditions including extreme weather conditions, recruitment and retention of personnel, industrial relations issues and litigation.

Forward looking statements are based on the Company and its management’s good faith assumptions relating to the financial, market, regulatory and other relevant environments that will exist and affect the Company’s business and operations in the future. The Company does not give any assurance that the assumptions on which forward looking statements are based will prove to be correct, or that the Company’s business or operations will not be affected in any material manner by these or other factors not foreseen or foreseeable by the Company or management or beyond the Company’s control.

Although the Company attempts and has attempted to identify factors that would cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those disclosed in forward looking statements, there may be other factors that could cause actual results, performance, achievements, or events not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended, and many events are beyond the reasonable control of the Company. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward looking statements. Forward looking statements in these materials speak only at the date of issue. Subject to any continuing obligations under applicable law or any relevant stock exchange listing rules, in providing this information the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any of the forward-looking statements or to advise of any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.

Competent Persons Statement

The information in this announcement that relates to Exploration Results and Mineral Resources is extracted from IperionX’s ASX Announcement dated October 6, 2021 (“Original ASX Announcement”) which is available to view at IperionX’s website at www.iperionx.com. The Company confirms that a) it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information included in the Original ASX Announcement; b) all material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning the Mineral Resource Estimate included in the Original ASX Announcement continue to apply and have not materially changed; and c) the form and context in which the relevant Competent Persons’ findings are presented in this report have not been materially changed from the Original ASX Announcement.

Contacts

Anastasios (Taso) Arima, Founder and CEO
Toby Symonds, President
Dominic Allen, Chief Commercial Officer

Investors: investorrelations@iperionx.com
Media: media@iperionx.com
+1 980 237 8900
www.iperionx.com

– Published by The MIL Network

A bill to make road tolling easier and shift Road User Charges (RUCs) towards a digital tracking system has been introduced to Parliament.

In a statement, Transport Minister Chris Bishop said the Land Transport (Revenue) Amendment Bill‘s changes to road tolling would enable drivers to be charged for driving on new, better roads where there was an alternative.

“Tolling helps us bring forward investment and build the roads New Zealand needs sooner,” he said.

“Corridor tolling… allows tolling on parts of an existing road where users receive clear, demonstrable benefits from a new project in the same corridor.

“The bill also introduces new tools to manage diversion from toll roads, including the ability to restrict heavy vehicles from using unsuitable alternative routes.”

Councils would be able to use the money to help maintain the alternative routes, and costs would be tagged to inflation.

The changes to RUCs shift from a system of matching odometer readings to paper labels on the windscreen, towards using subscriptions through private companies.

Bishop said the digital devices used to track distance travelled would future-proof the system “and separates New Zealand Transport Agency’s regulatory role from its retail role so third-party providers compete on a level playing field”.

“These changes are the first step towards replacing petrol tax with RUC for light petrol vehicles. We’ll assess the improved system in 2027 before deciding on next steps for transitioning the remaining 3.5 million vehicles.”

The minister’s statement also confirmed a procurement process via the government tendering service GETS would be undertaken later this month “to test options with potential market providers on the design of new third-party RUC payment services”.

The government last March expanded the distance-based RUC charging system from applying to diesel and heavy vehicles, to also include light electric vehicles.

EVs had been exempt from the scheme since 2009, but multiple governments had proposed bringing in the charges for EVs once they accounted for 2 percent of vehicles on the roads.

EV owners pay the same $76 per 1000km rate as diesel vehicle owners, while plug-in hybrid owners pay $38. The money raised goes towards the National Land Transport Fund.

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

The Government has introduced the Land Transport (Revenue) Amendment Bill to Parliament, taking the next step towards a fairer, simpler, and more modern transport funding system.

Transport Minister Chris Bishop says the Bill makes important changes across both the road user charges and tolling frameworks, ensuring New Zealand is ready for the next generation of road building.

“A core principle of our transport funding system is fairness: that all road users should contribute in proportion to their use of the roads,” Mr Bishop says.

A stronger, more flexible tolling system to deliver new roads

Mr Bishop says the Bill makes important improvements to tolling – a key tool for delivering the Government’s Roads of National Significance programme.

“Tolling helps us bring forward investment and build the roads New Zealand needs sooner. The Bill provides the flexibility required to support major projects, including our new Roads of National Significance.

“Key changes include enabling ‘corridor tolling’, which allows tolling on parts of an existing road where users receive clear, demonstrable benefits from a new project in the same corridor.

“The Bill also introduces new tools to manage diversion from toll roads, including the ability to restrict heavy vehicles from using unsuitable alternative routes, and allowing toll revenue to help fund maintenance of alternative roads when councils are unable to do so.

“To make tolling fairer and more predictable for users, the Bill mandates annual CPI adjustments instead of ad-hoc increases. And to improve collection efficiency, liability for paying a toll will shift from the driver to the registered person.

“These changes will give us a more consistent, more flexible tolling framework so that we can deliver big road upgrades faster and support regional economic growth.”

A modernised RUC system

“The Bill also provides improvements to the outdated RUC system. It was designed in the 1970s and still relies on manual paperwork and paper licences,” Mr Bishop says.

“Right now, drivers paying RUC have to track their odometer readings and stick paper labels to their windscreen. 

“This Bill enables new payment models like subscriptions or post-payment, and allows private companies to offer easy, set-and-forget billing options – similar to how many of us already pay for power or streaming services.

“It also future-proofs the system by allowing accurate in-vehicle technology to record distance, and separates NZTA’s regulatory role from its retail role so third-party providers compete on a level playing field.

“These changes are the first step towards replacing petrol tax with RUC for light petrol vehicles. We’ll assess the improved system in 2027 before deciding on next steps for transitioning the remaining 3.5 million vehicles.”

Next steps

Following its first reading, the Bill will be considered by the Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee. The legislation is expected to pass in 2026.

Notes to editor: 

A Request for Information (RFI) will be released on the GETS website later in November to test options with potential market providers on the design of new third-party RUC payment services.

The RUC system currently applies to all diesel vehicles, heavy vehicles (over 3.5 tonnes), and light electric vehicles, including plug-in hybrids. These changes will improve the system for existing users and prepare it for the eventual transition of 3.5 million light petrol vehicles.

MIL OSI

Farmers have welcomed the government’s new “science-based” biogenic methane targets for 2050.

It’s dropped the reduction target for biogenic methane from 24 to 47 percent below 2017 levels by 2050, to 14 to 24 percent – saying it reflects the findings of the independent Methane Science Review released in 2024.

Agriculture and Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay said the government had worked closely with industry and accepted a range of advice to determine a “practical target”.

“We’ve accepted a range of advice and worked closely with industry to agree a practical target that protects food production whilst substantially reducing New Zealand’s farm emissions.”

Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford said the new targets were backed by science and had landed in a “solid” place.

He said the targets set under the previous government had felt “political[ly] and ideologically driven”.

“I think what’s important to understand is just how far off the last lot of targets were,” he said.

“So, 24 to 47 percent was going to put well over 20 percent of sheep and beef farms out of business, 6 or 7 percent of dairy farms. It was literally going to destroy rural communities.”

Langford also welcomed confirmation there would be no tax on agricultural emissions like methane.

“This is a major step forward and will be a huge relief for farming families who have had the threat of a massive tax hanging over our heads threatening the viability of our businesses.

“A methane tax would have achieved the opposite of its intent – forcing the closure of Kiwi farms, driving production to less efficient countries, and increasing global emissions.”

However, Langford said the changes don’t mean farmers are being let off the hook – farmers were already working hard to reduce their methane emissions and had made huge improvements in the last decade.

A dairy farmer himself, he said he had faced huge pressure from processors to improve.

However, last week Nestlé, announced it was withdrawing from an international partnership aimed at reducing dairy emissions.

Langford said this was more a reflection of the cost-of-living pressures facing consumers.

He said a growing range of technologies to better calculate and reduce emissions on farm would only help farmers further improve.

Beef and Lamb chairperson Kate Acland also welcomed the new targets which she felt better reflected the science, but said it would still be a stretch for the agriculture sector to achieve.

“The previous targets were arbitrarily based on ranges used in an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that explicitly stated those ranges should not be used to set national targets.

“The revised targets better reflect the science around the different warming impact of short- and long-lived gases. Methane should only be asked to do what is expected of other gases, which is to achieve no additional warming.”

Acland said New Zealand’s red meat was already among the most climate-efficient in the world.

“While our sector has made significant progress on reducing warming emissions, the revised targets, particularly the upper end of the range, will still be very challenging. This is by no means letting agriculture off the hook.”

It was important to avoid stock number reductions seen in recent years, which Acland said was being driven by afforestation caused by New Zealand’s ETS settings.

She said it was important to work towards reducing methane by investing in efficiencies on-farm, genetic improvements and tools and technologies that could help farmers.

Acland said tax on agricultural methane emissions being ruled out was especially welcome news for the sector

“Emissions from our sector are already coming down – the threat of a price was draining confidence from the rural sector and was just not justified.”

Victoria University of Wellington Professor James Renwick said the government’s decision was “disappointing” as it represented a “major step backwards in ambition and in climate action”, but he was not surprised.

“The climate is currently changing rapidly and we need to be doing all we can to slow the warming and avoid catastrophic impacts from extremes and from tipping points crossed.

“Yes, carbon dioxide emission reductions are the number one target, and we must get to zero as soon as possible.

“But methane emissions are the next most important, and emissions reductions there would quickly translate into reductions in atmospheric concentrations (because of the short lifetime of methane in the atmosphere), providing a cooling effect in the short-medium term.”

Professor Renwick said the idea of ‘no additional warming’ seemed to influenced the scientific advice to Government.

“This approach goes easy on the agriculture sector and in no way does it represent our ‘highest possible ambition’ as laid out in Article 4 of the Paris Agreement, to which New Zealand is a signatory.”

He said this was likely to concern some trading partners.

Others like Canterbury University’s Associate Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry Laura Revell said biogenic methane emissions in New Zealand had “largely stabilised so far this century”.

Revell, who was part of the independent methane science review, said the group had modelled the methane cuts needed to ensure no additional warming relative to 2017 levels.

She said they found the level of cuts needed depends on global methane emissions.

“Because atmospheric methane concentrations are continuing to increase – driven largely by emissions from other countries – steeper cuts to New Zealand’s emissions alone would have little impact on total atmospheric heating.

“If the rest of the world makes steep cuts to methane emissions, then New Zealand would need to make steeper cuts too to ensure the no additional warming target is met. Periodic reviews of the target seem sensible.”

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