User Profile

Pattrick Smellie

Pattrick Smellie is co-founder of BusinessDesk and has reported the New Zealand economy and business since 1983.

‘Here’s how you could tax capital gains’

A capital gains tax on the sale of investment property, businesses, shares and other assets such as farms is a step closer if the interim report of the Tax Working Group leads to firm recommendations in its final report next February.

Sep 20 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Business

Meridian axes “unjustifiable” discounts

Meridian Energy has axed “unjustifiable” prompt payment discounts, effectively cutting its power prices to all customers by the 10-to-16 percent discount it has traditionally offered to those who pay their electricity bills on time.

Sep 17 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Business

Fletcher invests on prefab

Fletcher Building plans to invest “tens of millions” of dollars in a ‘panelised’ housing plant in South Auckland to coincide with the KiwiBuild programme’s call for the establishment of new prefabricated housing capacity.

Sep 17 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Government

Ardern reasserts coalition leadership

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has used an invitation-only political rally involving all three government parties to reassert both her leadership and to re-establish the government’s political agenda after a fractious few weeks in relations between coalition partners Labour and New Zealand First.

Sep 17 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Newsroom Pro

Website traffic from search engines/social media

New Zealand news organisations depend on search engines and social media - mainly Google and Facebook - for around 53 percent of the total traffic to their websites, according to research by the Auckland University of Technology’s Research Centre for Journalism, Media, and Democracy.

Sep 06 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Newsroom Pro

Govt’s wellbeing focus a work in progress

The future of work, climate change and inequality are the “defining economic and social issues” for the Labour-led government, Finance Minister Grant Robertson told a three-day international conference on wellbeing economics, but the wellbeing focus it brings to those challenges remains a work in progress.

Sep 05 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Newsroom Pro

Z Energy investment in Flick Electric ‘unconvincing’

Z Energy appears to have paid a full price for its 70.1 percent stake in start-up power retailer Flick Electric without a clear path to making “a return on its (substantial) investment that will be material to its business,” says Woodward Partners energy analyst John Kidd in a note to clients, published this week.

Sep 05 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Newsroom Pro

Methane needs special ETS rules

The Productivity Commission’s final report on achieving a low carbon economy makes concrete recommendations on how to treat methane under the Emissions Trading Scheme, says the ETS should be administered by a new, independent government agency, and says tradeable New Zealand Units of carbon should be regulated as financial instruments.

Sep 04 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Newsroom Pro

Trees, EVs and new ways of farming key to a low carbon economy

A rapid transition to electric vehicles, sustained tree-planting on a scale seen only once before, and major changes to farming methods are the key to New Zealand meeting its obligations to the global pact on climate change, the Productivity Commission says in its final report on becoming a “low carbon economy”.

Sep 04 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Newsroom

Top 10 ways to reach net-zero carbon

The Productivity Commission argues we have to make big changes now if we are going to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Here are 10 things that may get us there.

Apr 27 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Newsroom

ComCom worries about airport monopoly profits

The Commerce Commission says Auckland Airport is planning to make $47 million more profits than it should, and that customers may get overcharged.

Apr 26 2018

Pattrick Smellie and Nikki Mandow

Newsroom

Govt firm on budget responsibility targets

Finance Minister Grant Robertson says he can meet fiscal responsibility targets, despite CTU pressure and escalating demands from health and education infrastructure.

Mar 29 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Newsroom

Govt to include social factors in electricity inquiry

Included in the draft terms of reference for the review is whether electricity suppliers can extract excessive profits over time.

Mar 28 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Newsroom

NZ’s fossil fuel transition will take decades: Minister

Energy Minister Megan Woods told the annual oil and gas conference in Wellington there would be a “long transition” to renewables.

Mar 27 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Newsroom

Warning: electric cars could overload our power network

The heater or the car? Power companies are worried that a battle for peak tea-time electricity is looming as electric cars gain popularity. Not to mention a $4 billion network upgrade.

Mar 13 2018

Pattrick Smellie

Newsroom

Outdated copyright law stymies investment: Deloitte

A new Deloitte report says growth areas of the digital economy - from data mining and cloud computing, to innovation in music and film - are stymied by our outdated copyright laws.

Mar 13 2018

Pattrick Smellie

boardroom

Joyce quits; deadline passes for NBR apology

Steven Joyce, the National Party’s chief political strategist since the mid-2000s will retire from Parliament on April 6, after new leader Simon Bridges did not offer him the finance spokesmanship in a shadow Cabinet reshuffle. His move clears the...

Mar 06 2018

Pattrick Smellie