Best of Business

Joy Keene: NZ Game Developers Association executive director on New Zealand's 'booming' video game industry

It's been a breakthrough year for New Zealand’s video game industry. The sector hit its $1 billion annual revenue target two years early, and it's on track to double that figure by the end of the decade. NZ Game Developers Association executive director Joy Keene says there are quite a few factors behind this. "We're a very creative country, obviously, we have some number 8 wire kind of thinking. And couple that with the Government support that we've been receiving over the last few years, that has super-charged what our game developers have been able to do." LISTEN ABOVE   See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Don Braid: Mainfreight CEO on the company's full-year net profit taking a hit

Global transport company Mainfreight's full-year net profit is down 8.5 percent on the year earlier, despite an improved performance in the second half of the year end in March. Despite this, the company's hopeful that things can turn around, despite the conflict in the Middle East. Mainfreight CEO Don Braid explained further. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Robyn Walker: Deloitte tax partner on the tax changes included in Budget 2026

A tax expert says it's good to draw a line under recent changes to charity rules. This year's Budget tweaks the Research and Development Tax Incentive, simplifies the fringe benefit tax, and expands the Foreign Investment Fund rules to all taxpayers.  It also caps the tax credits that can be received on not-for-profit donations.  Deloitte tax partner Robyn Walker says it's still very generous by international standards.  She says you can still donate $100,000 and get a $33,333 tax credit - and only a small number of people donate above that.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I would argue Budget 2026 wasn't tight enough

Well, you would have done well to heed Nicola Willis’s warnings ahead of this Budget that there would be no spend-up, because there is no spend-up. There is no money for - well, there is money for the important stuff. You’ve got the schools and the classrooms, and the hospitals, and the Waikato Expressway, and Winston Peters’ pet projects. But everywhere else, there is just no new money. It is tight. Now, that is exactly how it should be. And in fact, I would say this still doesn’t go far enough. For the third Nicola Willis Budget in a row, it isn’t tight enough because we haven’t even hit our debt peak yet. We are still going up that peak mountain. That is still two years away, which means that interest payments are already at $9 billion and they’re only going to go up. It’s going to take us to about 2040, roughly, before debt is back to where Bill English left it as a proportion of GDP. And that is just the most optimistic scenario. The rest of the scenario is basically never getting back down to where Bill English left it. Nicola Willis is making a virtue today of the fact that she’s getting the books back in black by 2028/29, which she says is earlier than expected. But that is a little bit of game-playing that’s going on, because it was always going to be 2028/29 until December. Then in December it changed, then it became 2029/30. Now it’s just been brought back again to where it was about six months ago. And that is only, by the way, because Nicola Willis is using a made-up measure, OBEGALX, which makes surplus appear a year earlier than the standard old measure, which basically would have had surplus arriving only in 2030 or thereabouts. And by the way, all of this is a broken promise, because Nicola Willis promised the country that if you voted for National at the last election, she would have the books back in the black. When? Today. This year. But after three Budgets, I think we’ve learned to temper our expectations on that front. Now, on the bright side though, she has decided to borrow $6 billion less than she had planned to. I will take that. And while there is a lot of poor spending that continues, at least there isn’t new, more poor spending. And for that, I suppose you have to give the Budget a solid holding-pattern score of 6 out of 10. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Simon Bridges: Auckland Business Chamber CEO on his expectations for Budget 2026

Very few frills or surprises are expected to be in today’s Budget.   Auckland Business Chamber CEO Simon Bridges predicts a “sensible, prudent, boring, Presbyterian” Budget, with only a few goodies coming from reprioritised spending.  He told Ryan Bridge he was more interested in the "nuggets" that pointed to the Government's future policy direction.  He wanted Finance Minister Nicola Willis to “stake some strong positions, defend them and stick with them”, with details on how the Government planned to lift innovation, productivity and growth.  Bridges believed most people understood restraint was required, but said he wanted to see evidence the Government knew the difference between “frittering” on large social projects and “real investment” that would grow the economy.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.