New card lets employees save on public transport
Photo:
Supplied
Public transport fares got a hike last week - largely as a result of a government direction to regional councils to increase the private share of the service delivery costs.
One company though, has been working through a way to save commuters money - by using their pre-tax income.
Fintech business
Extraordinary
- which was formally known as HealthNow - has
used a Fringe Benefit Tax ruling from the IRD to set up a platform
that lets employers offer their workers the ability to pay for public transport through their pre-taxed pay.
Previously FBT rules meant employer-subsidised transport came with tax penalties.
Extraordinary
founder Steven Zinsli joins Kathryn to explain how it works - and how much employees could save.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

RNZ News
10 hours ago
- RNZ News
Wanganui-Manawatu Sea Fishing Club leader raises alarm over seabed mining project
Jamie Newell, diving off South Taranaki, says large areas of one of New Zealand's most important fisheries could be wiped out by seabed mining. Photo: Supplied The commodore of the Wanganui-Manawatu Sea Fishing Club is raising the alarm over a seabed mining project he never believed would happen. "With it being turned down by the Supreme Court and there being a court-ordered environmental hearing, I never, ever thought it would get to this point," Jamie Newell told Local Democracy Reporting. The Whanganui diver, fisherman and business owner said large areas of one of New Zealand's most important fisheries could be wiped out by an Australian miner's desire to mine minerals off the South Taranaki coast. Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) wants to extract up to 50 million tonnes a year of seabed material a year. It would recover an estimated 5 million tonnes of vanadium-rich titanomagnetite concentrate and then dump unwanted sediment back into the sea. TTR withdrew from an environmental hearing to apply for marine consents via the coalition government's new fast-track approvals regime. Newell, who manages family-run fishing and outdoors business Marine Services Whanganui, said low reefs in the South Taranaki Bight would be smothered by the dumping of 45 million tonnes a year of "dredge tailings" for 20 years. Recreational fishers and local businesses could be left reeling for decades, he said. "That's extremely concerning. I'm extremely worried for what that sediment would do to our marine environment and how dramatically it could change recreational fishing off there." Newell said he feared the impact of silt pollution on precious reef life. "I was brought up diving the coastline and my father dived it as well. I've done a lot of exploratory diving out to 45m. I've seen personally how clear it is out there - and I'm worried. "We have some very diverse ecosystems off this coastline - some of the most scenic you could ever hope to see. The reef life is some of the best in the world. "It's a very unreal place, one of the only places we have like this in the whole of the North Island. "You can be out there with 60 to 100 kingis swimming around you, being inquisitive. No movie could ever replicate that." Wanganui-Manawatu Sea Fishing Club commodore Jamie Newell. Photo: Supplied Over the past six or seven years, Newell has mapped many of the reefs he's dived using new marine electronics. "The detail we can see now is far beyond what we've been able to see before. You can know every rock and gully and face on those reefs." Pumping 90% of the extracted materials back into the ocean would result in a huge volume of displaced sediment, he said. "Niwa and TTR have done research around and inland of that area, but I've yet to see any research on the reefs downcurrent of there - the ones that will be affected. "Most of the tailings will follow the east to west currents and flow back to Whanganui. "TTR knows there will be problems in those areas, so they've left that research undone." TTR proposes mining from waters 20m to 50m deep, between 22km and 36km offshore. While inner reefs were quite tall, with faces 5m to 15m high, and would not be as affected by the dredging, some deeper reefs were low and flat, lying only about a metre and a half high. "It won't take much at all to cover them." Ocean contours dropped off into a hole about 30-40m lower than the dredging zone, he said. "That's one of our main reef structure areas. The silt's going to settle on that area between the mining zone and the back of Graham Bank, and it will hit all the reefs there." Jamie Newell and partner Melissa Churchouse. Newell says dredging tailings will wipe out a swathe of the area's reef fisheries. Photo: Supplied Newell said from a depth of around 30m, wave action did not disturb the seabed. "Pumping silt back onto it will silt up reefs that don't naturally get silt on them." Niwa had reported that tailings dumped into water 35-70m deep would move up to 20km from the mining site and Newell feared the sediment would cover a swathe of low-lying reef structure. "Reef life will lose its habitat. The tailings are going to wipe out a large part of our reef fisheries, the likes of our blue cod, terakihi and hāpuka. It's where 90 percent of our terakihi get caught. "Our numbers of snapper and crayfish and kingis are recovering and growing faster than ever. We have an exceptional recreational crayfishery here. What's this going to do to them?" Newell has been with the sea fishing club in Whanganui for more than 10 years. "At no point has TTR engaged with us. We have more than 250 members, all fishing in that area. We would be the largest recreational user of the fishing grounds east of the seabed mining zone. "They've never talked to us. As part of a consent process, I would have thought that would have been part of what you'd need to do." Newell said smothering reef fisheries would affect his and other businesses. "If people can't go out to catch a feed of fish as easily, they're going to stop trying. We'll lose customers if the habitats are no longer there, and there will be flow-on effects for other businesses. "We've been a family business for 34 years. We employ 22 staff - that's 22 families that rely on our business." Newell has raised his concerns with Whanganui MP Carl Bates. He called a fishing club meeting on Thursday to discuss the issue and spoke with Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop during the Minister's visit to Whanganui on Friday. Bishop is one of the ministers overseeing the Fast-track Approvals regime. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air

RNZ News
11 hours ago
- RNZ News
Covid-19 Inquiry: Business leaders detail struggle with vaccine mandates and finances
Auckland CBD during the level 4 lockdown. Photo: RNZ / Robert Smith Business leaders from Auckland and Northland have spoken about the profound impacts on small to medium businesses coping with public health restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. They spoke at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the government's response to Covid-19, with one leader saying they didn't think vaccine mandates would work in the future. The legal challenges for businesses to implement the mandates, and the enduring financial repercussions that are still felt today were among some of the issues raised. These are the first public hearings of the inquiry's second phase, which was called for by the coalition government last year. The hearings concentrate on the impact of the extended lockdown in Auckland and Northland in 2021, vaccine mandates and safety, and the effects of the public health measures on social division, isolation, health, education, and business activity. Auckland was in lockdown for 17 weeks, and Northland and parts of Waikato for 12 weeks, after community transmission of the Delta strain in August 2021. Auckland's Heart of the City's CEO Viv Beck said the pandemic was the "perfect storm" for CBD businesses, with the loss of tourists, international students, large events, and leaving many working from home. She said this left businesses dealing with the "eye of the storm" - particularly for the 1300 consumer facing businesses facing a 95 percent drop in sales during the level four lockdowns. Beck cited data from banks which also showed a 38 percent drop in spending at CBD businesses during alert level two, and a 19 percent drop under alert level 1 restrictions. She said many are still trading below pre-Covid levels as of today. Beck said wage subsidies at the time had helped, but didn't cover businesses' operating costs and rent. Meanwhile, the Employers and Manufacturers Association's (EMA) employment relations and safety manager Paul Jarvie told the inquiry that vaccine mandates had created legal challenges for businesses. "You've got conditions of employment, running in parallel to that you got the Bill of Rights, so people to have the right to say yes or no to treatment, and treatment includes injections. Those businesses that were mandated to have vaccines, that immediately creates employment law issues, if someone doesn't get mandated [sic] what do you do with them?" he said. When asked by the chairperson of the inquiry, Grant Illingworth KC, whether employment legislation during the Pandemic was adequate, Jarvie said it was "fit for purpose" at the time, but added that it would be helpful if there was a caveat under the employment law which allowed for certain public health measures under exceptional circumstances. Both Jarvie and Beck told the commissioners that if there was another similar event, they hope businesses can be involved from the very beginning. Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic response chair Grant Illingworth KC. Photo: Screengrab / Covid 19 Inquiry Beck said while she'd liaised with central government agencies from February 2020, she pointed out that being given information was different from being able to participate in decision making. "We got to a point where we were actually getting asked about a decision about to be made, often at the last minute, but that's the point, if it happens from the start, businesses have to be a trusted voice in decision making," she said. A manager from the National Field Days Society also in her evidence spoke of feeling of the events industry not being listened to by decision makers during the pandemic. Its head of customer and strategic engagement Taryn Storey said they'd spoken to government agencies multiple times about how they could host field days safely, but felt ignored. She said they were willing to integrate vaccine passports into its ticketing system, and thought their venue was well equipped to support the pandemic response. However, Storey said multiple visits by decision makers to their venue - including by district health officials - had led nowhere. Storey said while they felt they had weathered the pandemic, the impacts were "exceptionally profound" and they're still financially trying to claw their way back. Representatives from Northland's Chamber of Commerce said in their evidence on Monday that a community based approach would've worked better than the hard handed vaccine mandates, in persuading people to get vaccinated. Its president ,Tim Robinson, said rather than the "authoritarian" mandate path, he felt it would've been more effective to engage with Whānau Ora providers to talk to Northland communities and businesses about the vaccine. "Anybody that I dealt with or worked with during that whole period, said look, I got a much better chance of convincing somebody that the vaccination's a good idea, if there's no threat attached to it," he said. A worker on the frontline of Auckland's Jet Park Hotel quarantine facility being vaccinated against Covid-19 on 20 February 2021. Photo: Supplied / Ministry of Health Robinson said the mandates made businesses feel that they were not trusted. When asked by commissioner Anthony Hill whether vaccine mandates would ever be a valid tool in future events from a business perspective, Robinson said no. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

RNZ News
11 hours ago
- RNZ News
Inquiry into the Government's response to the Covid-19 pandemic
Business leaders, community groups, health sector workers and churches are among those due to give evidence at public hearings held by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Government's response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The first public hearings of the inquiry's second phase got underway in Auckland today, with commissioners hearing from business people hit hard by the Covid lockdowns. Amy Williams reports. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.