Latest news with #SouthIsland
RNZ News
12 hours ago
- Climate
- RNZ News
Power cuts in Southland, Otago could run into Monday
Strong winds have been making it difficult for lines crews responding to power outages in the lower South Island. Photo: Supplied/ MetService Extended power blackouts are affecting thousands of people in parts of the lower South Island, after strong winds, and for some, the outages will continue for the next two days into Monday. On Saturday, electricity network company PowerNet said three of its networks were badly disrupted by stormy weather overnight. They were OtagoNet, Electricity Invercargill and The Power Company, which services Southland. PowerNet said teams worked to restore power, but faced challenging conditions, and the safety of crews came first. Some customers could remain without power into Monday and people who were medically dependent on electricity should plan accordingly. Strong winds overnight and into Saturday kept firefighters busy in the lower South Island , including calls for help with roofs lifting off houses and fallen trees. MetService forecasters issued strong wind warnings, with gusts up to 130kph in places, although the orange warning was due to expire at 3pm on Saturday. In the North Island, an orange strong wind warning for Hawke's Bay, Napier and down to the Tararua District was still in place until 10pm Sunday, and a heavy swell warning was in place for parts of Wairarapa, from 1am Sunday until late Monday. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
19 hours ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Countdown on for 2025 ski season as first operators begin to open doors
Mt Hutt is not ruling out opening next weekend if conditions play ball. Photo: NICOLE HAWKE The countdown is on for the 2025 ski season with a North Island ski field opting for a soft launch this weekend while snow guns are blazing down in the south. Staffing and accommodation shortages have hampered ski fields in recent years, but operators said their luck had turned around and scores of people had applied to work on the slopes. Nestled on Mount Ruapehu, Tūroa Ski Area was ready to open its cafes and offer snow play and sightseeing on Saturday. Chief executive Jono Dean said people could enjoy a day in the snow before the snow bunnies started hitting the slopes next month. "There's a little bit of snow in and around bottom of the mountain just in the base area, which is really exciting and it's a good precursor to what we think is coming next week, which looks like a nice, healthy storm to get the snow off and running for 2025," he said. "As we start to snow on the ground and snow on the forecast, we'll be progressively opening lifts and facilities over the coming month of June and we anticipate readiness for the 28th of June and the start of the school holidays." The ski area had almost 1200 applicants for 200-250 jobs and was fully staffed. "It's actually a real blessing against previous years where we have really struggled in our part of the world for availability of staffing and, of course, skilled staffing," he said. In the South Island, Cardrona Alpine Resort's new Soho Express chairlift opens this season, offering 150 hectares of new terrain. Cardrona and Treble Cone Experiences general manager Laura Hedley said they had been hard at work over the warmer months to get the ski fields ready. Speaking on Friday afternoon with snow falling outside her window, she was feeling positive for the season ahead, especially with a strong group of staff - half of whom were returnees. There was less pressure on finding accommodation as they had a 120-bed backpackers they renovated about three years ago to fall back on and rentals were not quite as hard to come by, she said. "We've got staff, they've got good accommodation and we've got all these upgrades. I'm touching wood that it's going to be a good season and that mother nature comes and helps us as well." Mt Hutt was expected to lead the charge and open its slopes on Saturday after receiving more than a metre of snow in April. NZSki chief executive Paul Anderson earlier said he was pretty confident it would stick around but those hopes were dashed by nor-wester winds. "The snow around the base area just wasn't enough to get access to the lifts so we wanted to give it every chance and we threw everything at it but that early season snow can disappear early," he said. Anderson was not ruling out opening next weekend if the conditions played ball, but said Mt Hutt could always fall back to its original opening date of 13 June. Further south around Queenstown, the picture was not looking so promising earlier in the week, but he said some good wintry weather had settled in so it could crack on with snowmaking. NZSki had invested in three new groomers, about $750,000 on improving its rental equipment, more 4WD buses in Queenstown and about a million dollars spent on snowmaking across the mountains, Anderson said. After a bumpy few years for staffing, it had a record staff return rate and plenty of newcomers which he put down to people feeling more confident travelling here with memories of border closures fading and tougher economic times meaning more people were looking for work. NZSki had previously taken the plunge into accommodation, buying a hostel and offering just under 100 beds. It had also built apartments for staff and planned to build another 12 in the coming years, he said. He believed some landlords might be getting tired of offering short term rentals and putting them back onto a fixed tenancy basis, which had also eased the pressure. Looking at the forward bookings, the Queenstown slopes were getting plenty of aroha from locals and Australians, he said. The Remarkables celebrates its 40th birthday this year, and Paul Anderson said there would be a 1980s themed party in late spring so people should prepare their perms, straight skis and retro ski suits. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
a day ago
- Climate
- RNZ News
Strong wind warnings for lower North Island, parts of South Island
Strong wind warnings and watches are in place in parts of the South Island and lower west North Island. Photo: MetService Firefighters have attended multiple weather callouts overnight as strong winds batter the lower South Island, including for fallen trees and roofs lifting off houses. Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) said it had received 10 callouts in Invercargill since 2am on Saturday, and a few in Dunedin since 5am. A strong wind warning was in force for southern Fiordland, Southland, Stewart Island, Clutha and Dunedin until Saturday afternoon, where severe gale southwesterlies could gust up to 130km/h in exposed places. MetService said the strongest winds were expected overnight on Friday and during Saturday morning. Squally thunderstorms were also possible near the coast during Saturday morning. It said the possible impact was damage to trees, powerlines, and unsecured structures. Motorists were warned that driving may be difficult, especially for high-sided vehicles and motorcycles. "Prepare your property by securing items that can be picked up by strong winds. Drive cautiously" A wind warning was also in place for part of Hawke's Bay and the Tararua District until Saturday night. The weather warnings follow a tornado in Hamilton on Thursday night that caused property damage including a trampoline lifted into powerlines, and a hailstorm that pelted Cambridge that afternoon. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Insane amount of money baby boomer has in his self-managed superannuation fund - and how he did it
A software billionaire has a breathtaking $1.7billion in his superannuation fund - and he's set to be one of those hit hardest by Labor's new super tax. Charles Gibbon, 76, a director of software developer WiseTech, could be as one of Australia's most enthusiastic investors in self-managed super. His family's Fabemu No. 2 self-managed super fund has 15,594,630 shares in WiseTech - but will be thumped by Labor's new tax if it becomes law on July 1. If his stock rises 10 per cent during the next financial year, taking its price to $119.65, the value of the super fund would increase from $1.696billion to $1.866billion. Labor plan to bring in a new 15 per cent tax on unrealised gains - based on purely notional profits, not real ones - in super accounts with balances above $3million That $169.67million increase in value in Mr Gibbon's super fund would land him a tax bill of $25.4million just on those notional him selling a single share. The reclusive entrepreneur, originally from New Zealand 's South Island, has been a WiseTech board member since 2006. He made his eye-watering $2billion fortune as an early investor in WiseTech, founded in 1994. During the early days of the internet, the company started writing code for the freight industry. It is now the 21st biggest firm on the Australian Securities Exchange and a world leader in supply chain software. Mr Gibbon was instrumental in the success of the $36billion firm and stood by embattled WiseTech founder Richard White when others directors quit in February, following a string of revelations and allegations about White's lovelife. He splits his time between Sydney's eastern suburbs, where he lives in a Woollahra mansion with his wife Claire, and the NSW South Coast, where he has a six-hectare weekender at Bellawongarah, near Berry, and beachfront land at Gerringong. He grew up in Invercargill before studying a Bachelor of Science majoring in pure maths at the University of Otago and becoming a London-based stock analyst. Despite his wealth, he shuns the spotlight and rarely makes an appearance on Australia's glamorous social circuit for the well-heeled wealthy. Mr Gibbon joined The Australian Financial Review's elite billionaire Rich List in 2022 after his company's share price surged from $11.80 in March 2020 to $55.95. As of Thursday, WiseTech's share price had climbed to $108.77 - almost doubling in just three years despite some hiccups earlier this year during boardroom turmoil. The share price has catapaulted his super fund portfolio through the billion-dollar mark - and left him in the crosshairs for Labor's new super tax, which is aimed at the super rich. But experts warn the tax could have unintended consequences and punish budding start up companies before they have a chance to flourish like WiseTech did. Tax planning accountant Ben Johnston, a director of Johnston Advisory, predicts that tech start-ups would be worse off if the the new law comes into force on July 1. Wealthy self-managed super funds may be forced to sell-off assets to avoid paying the new tax on the notional unrealised gains, hampering the growth of young firms 'They rely on those big backers to have their investment in there to see them through the start-up phase,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'If they start cashing out of them in response, to free up liquidity within their SMSF, that will potentially be an issue for start-ups.' Tax office data showed that of the start-ups with more than $50million in assets, 23.2 per cent invested in listed shares on the Australian Securities Exchange while 7.5 per cent had investments in unlisted entities, which can include start-ups that aren't on the share market. Australia was home to 616,941 self-managed super funds at the end of June last year. They had 1.142million members with multiple people allowed to be members. The Greens want the threshold reduced to $2million but indexed for inflation. Labor is proposing a $3million threshold that isn't indexed for inflation. Overall earning taxes would double to 30 per cent above this threshold, which includes the new 15 per cent tax on unrealised gains, based on the change in a total superannuation balance. The total headline tax take includes a 15 per cent tax on earnings over a financial year, including income from a self-managed super fund investment like a house that is being rented out, proceeds from an asset sale or appreciation in the value of an asset. Earnings would only be taxed at the accumulation but not the retirement phase of super when someone can access their superannuation at 60. The re-elected federal government now only needs the Greens to get its legislation through the Senate. But until that occurred, Mr Johnston said it was hard to give advice to clients about whether they had to sell high-performing assets to avoid Labor's proposed new tax. 'I'm just telling them to review their liquidity first and foremost because a lot of it's crystal ball,' he said. 'The problem with this too is the uncertainty - it's hard to truly respond to it because the taxes on the unrealised gain. 'If you're going to take really fundamental action around it, not knowing on what gain you may make; again you're assuming you are going to make a gain in the first place. 'To then go and sell property or shares in potentially profitable companies just for the sake of a potential tax problem down the track, it's also a big call and not necessarily the right one.' The problem would be more pronounced in self-managed super funds that have a higher concentration of assets like farms that were lucrative but harder to sell to have cash to pay a tax bill. 'If you've got a self-managed super fund with $10million in say real estate or in rural property or land or whatever, and you've got very limited cash reserves, you've got a real problem then,' Mr Johnston said. After new senators take their seats in July, Labor could pass the Treasury Laws Amendment (Better Targeted Superannuation Concessions and Other Measures) Bill in 2023 after that date, with support from 11 Greens senators, and backdate it to July 1. Labor would no longer need the support of moderate, left-leaning crossbenchers like Jacqui Lambie or David Pocock, who have expressed concerns about taxing unrealised gains. Fabemu sold 1.5million shares for $200million in early December.
Telegraph
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Under the Vines, review: no fizz, no excitement and decidedly non-vintage
At what point does nice become insufferable? One way to find out is to binge-watch Under the Vines (BBC One), an odd-couple comedy-drama set in the world capital of normalised niceness, New Zealand. When an old vintner leaves his South Island vineyard split between his nephew, a stuffy middle-aged Brit (Charles Edwards) and his stepdaughter, a flighty, spendthrift Aussie (Rebeca Gibney), they both descend on Central Otago to check out their inheritance. They quickly decide to sell it – they don't like each other, neither of them knows anything about wine-making and anyway, the vineyard's a bust. We all know what happens next. Louis (Edwards) and Daisy (Gibney) inevitably end up falling in love with the place, the quirky locals and, in the fullness of six episodes, each other. It is a tale as old as TV time – the town mice and the country mice; Northern Exposure, Green Acres, Death in Paradise and many more, whereby simple living leads to personal discovery with a healthy dose of fish-out-of-water chuckles on the way. Both Louis and Daisy's lives back home needed fixing – he is an overworked lawyer who was about to split up with his wife and lose his child if he didn't get his act together. She was a Sydney socialite reliant on handouts from the now dead stepfather to sustain her Jimmy Choo habit. Wine and grapes and careful husbandry are used as an overarching metaphor for them both slowing down and paying attention to the things that matter. Once Louis and Daisy start to realise what those things are – family, good people, nature – they begin to revel in their new life. It presents writer Erin White with a problem about halfway through the first series, because Louis's beloved son Julian is back in London. He is flown down for a convenient holiday and a dubious plot twist later on in the run, but the fact remains that, were Under the Vines anything approaching half-credible, Louis would never have gone to New Zealand in the first place. It leads you to ask in what reality this show is set, and the answer comes in learning that it is a series that is nearly five years old. It was first aired on Acorn TV, a British-American streamer that specialises in nice British telly, just after the pandemic. In that context Under the Vines makes a lot more sense: it offers the lure of getting away from it all, the idea of working outside, of actually interacting with strangers at all and seeing hills and mountains and rolling fields. This was all we really wanted from television in 2021. But while wines may improve with age, Under the Vines has not. A few years ago, there was also a vogue for what was then called 'slow' television in which nothing much happened, and Under the Vines is slow, gently sozzled, sundowner TV served with a few gigglers and some idiosyncratic characters as ballast. Great for the New Zealand tourist board, great for the wine industry, but expect only to be tickled, never engrossed.
