National MPs on how Kiwis will react to board members' pay hike, cost of living struggles
The increase, revealed by the Herald yesterday following the quiet
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NZ Herald
10 hours ago
- NZ Herald
SquareOne's Dragon's Ben competition helps kids turn ideas into businesses
A $10k prize gives young entrepreneurs real-world tools. Get a Grip. It could save you serious injury, reckons a crew of young basketballers from the Hawkes Bay. More than that, the team is blazing a trail where pre-teens are thinking well beyond the classroom or sports field – instead eyeing up the boardroom for long-term success. Get a Grip is making waves thanks to financial-services-provider-for-the-next-generation SquareOne. Cofounder Jamie Jermain is on a mission to teach young New Zealanders that a dollar earned is worth more than a dollar spent, and that creating value is the key to lasting success. 'We're a country of entrepreneurs and small businesses,' Jermain says, noting that upwards of 97% of Kiwi businesses are small to medium enterprises. 'And while Kiwis are renowned for having that entrepreneurial spirit, financial literacy hasn't always kept pace. That can be a major limitation in achieving dreams.' SquareOne's Dragon's Ben competition – run in partnership with The Hits Breakfast with Jono, Ben & Megan – sparks entrepreneurial spirit, builds financial smarts, and gets kids thinking like business owners long before they're old enough to regret a dodgy car loan straight out of uni. In days gone by, kids learned their first lessons about money by schlepping cash to the post shop through school. 'I realised that kids don't have this conceptual association with money anymore when someone said their child asked, 'what's cash',' Jermain explains. 'They see mum and dad tapping something like a magic wand, thinking there is an infinite supply.' SquareOne's platform teaches youngsters the value of earning, saving, and spending. There's an ATM card, of course, an app, and instead of just getting money, children are encouraged to earn it. Or, as Jermain notes, 'By earning and learning that money isn't free, young people gain an appreciation of creating and exchanging value.' The platform itself encourages entrepreneurship; for example, it has a nifty QR code feature for lemonade stands (or any other enterprise) that's more high-tech than most average childhood hustles. Then there's Dragon's Ben, named as a cheeky nod to the beloved TV show and to Ben Boyce himself. 'The idea is taking kids' amazing ideas, working with them and their families, and going from concept to reality,' Jermain explains. The winning Dragon's Ben entry scores a $10,000 prize package which includes some cash, but the real treasure isn't the money. 'Turning a good idea into a business, whether it works out long-term or not, is an exercise in how the real world works. So, the value is in the mentorship, the connections made, and the journey involved in going from drawing board to operations.' This year's winners are a group of five basketball-loving kids from Hawke's Bay: Arai, 10, Mila, 9, Conor, 8, Maia, 8 and Tia, 6. Their surprise and delight was clear when they found out live on air – a reminder that this is more than a business lesson; it's a big moment in a young person's life. 'Oh my gosh, actually?' Arai said on The Hits. 'Thank you so much! I'm like so happy, so thankful. Thank you.' Tired of slipping on the court and racking up injuries, the team wanted to protect themselves and their friends – so they dreamed up a spray that adds extra traction; an idea with soul, you might say. 'The best founders have lived the problem, and they know their market,' Jermain says. 'The Get a Grip team plays the sport, slip, get hurt. And now they've come up with a solution to what is a real issue for themselves and their peers.' Beyond a product idea, Get a Grip arrived with a brand, a proof of concept, and a plan to scale. SquareOne's support includes everything from website setup to retail connections, proving that even kids can tackle the big leagues with the right backing and encouragement. Last year's winner Ruby Grace is making strides with her card game FIX, which helps kids with learning disabilities. Now 17, Ruby's prototype is moving towards commercialisation, with SquareOne providing guidance on manufacturing, retail strategies, and introductions to the business world. 'Ruby's very capable and involved,' Jermain says, noting that support includes navigating the complex stuff, like manufacturing in China and setting up a B-to-C website. The Dragon's Ben journey isn't about instant success or even just about the finalists (there were six this year). Just learning about the competition and entering gets young folks thinking like entrepreneurs. 'It really is a mindset. The sooner our youngsters get into that mindset, the sooner they start thinking about solving problems and adding value, the better for their long-term prospects. And the better for the economy, too,' Jermain enthuses. Each idea might start small, but for these kids, it's personal – and that's what makes it powerful. SquareOne's partnership with organisations like MOTAT and the Young Enterprise Scheme is helping Dragon's Ben grow, with plans to expand the prize package and attract more interest, widening the field of entrants. 'It's growing in stature, and that's really quite rewarding,' Jermain says, excited about the future. 'The goal isn't just to churn out mini moguls, but to instil a mindset of value creation in exchange for financial reward. 'After all, the world is all about value exchange. If you want a paycheck, you have to think about how you can add value to society.' Visit to learn more or get your young entrepreneur started.
NZ Herald
11 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Auckland's Mint Innovation secures $18m to recycle EV batteries for Jaguar Land Rover in the UK
The required scale to hit profit He tells the Herald a demo plant has already been created: 'It's dealing with 500kg batches of material, which is not commercial, but enables you to design the kind of massive energy balances, all of the protocols, for a full-scale that is profitable.' What sort of scale are we talking? 'About 20,000 tonnes of batteries. Car batteries are somewhere in the order of half a tonne, so that's about 40,000 cars.' In global industrial terms, that's modest scale. 'The intention is that we build these smaller-scale plants that are able to be deployed everywhere where these waste streams exist, and create a circularity solution for every country that's demanding these critical metals,' Barker says. Mint Innovation is secret squirrel about its extraction process, but Barker says it's brand-agnostic. Under the £8.1m pilot, it will be used to extract materials that can be remanufactured into battery cells that go into new Jaguar Land Rover vehicles. Mint Innovation founder and chief executive Will Barker. Photo / Supplied But Barkers adds, 'We can drop into anyone's supply chain. We're super-excited to be working with one of the best-known car manufacturers in the world – and a super-attractive brand that really enables us to supercharge this project. But in reality, to get impact, we've got to solve a global problem.' While a number of start-ups are vying for the nascent EV battery recycling market, Mint has already proved its chops in other areas. The EV battery project represents a branching-out for the Kiwi firm, which at first focused on extracting valuable materials such as gold and copper from e-waste such as old cellphones and laptops. Mint built its first e-waste plant in Sydney, where commercial operation began last year. The Australian plant is currently being retooled so tin and silver can also be extracted. A second plant is on the way in the US, at a site in Texas. The expansion into EV batteries had its genesis in the pandemic, Barker says. 'All of my scientists were locked out of the lab for an extended period. So to keep the creative juices flowing, I asked them to focus on alternative waste streams – and one of those was lithium-ion batteries. 'As soon as we were allowed back in the lab, we split off a small team to start working on it and they quickly gained a lot of traction. So it was a fortuitous outcome from a pretty challenging time.' E-offshore Why does Mint not have a plant in its own country, especially given it's had Government backing in the form of $5m from Callaghan Innovation? It was drawn across the Tasman by larger clean-energy grants, e-waste recycling mandates and the larger market. Mint Innovation's e-waste "biorefinery" in Sydney. Photo / Supplied In New Zealand there are plans to regulate e-waste but it has so far been five years in the making despite a spate of recent lithium-ion battery fires. Environment Minister Penny Simmonds recently said the plan to regulate e-waste (and the likes of farm plastics and agrichemicals) was not stalled, but neither were there set dates for its implementation. 'I intend to progress schemes in a measured way to ensure they are well-considered and cost-of-living impacts are limited," Simmonds said. READ MORE: Barker says his firm will likely process e-waste in New Zealand eventually, it just makes economic and practical sense to open its first plants overseas. Meanwhile, his firm's R&D operations remain in Auckland, where that Callaghan money has helped create 20 high-skill jobs and a business that's generating export receipts. The electric car battery recycling plants will only be built where there's manufacturing demand and where, such as in the UK and EU, there are mandates for new EV batteries to have minimum amounts of recycled materials. Source / McKinsey Mint, founded by LanzaTech alumnus Barker in 2016, raised $60m in a 2023 Series C venture capital round, which came on top of a $20m Series B in 2020 and an earlier $6m Series A. Local backers include Icehouse Ventures, Movac, the Crown (through NZ Growth Capital Partners' Inspire fund), WNT Ventures, the ubiquitous Sir Stephen Tindall and Ngāi Tahu Investments. Source / McKinsey Barker says there is likely to be a Series D raise next year, 'somewhere north of US$50m [$83m]'. He cites a 2023 McKinsey report that found lithium-ion battery demand is expected to grow by about 27% annually to reach around 4700 gigawatt hours by 2030, or the equivalent of around 117 million batteries from small to mid-sized electric cars. McKinsey predicted a US$40m EV battery recycling industry by 2040, with a US$6b profit pool. Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald's business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
NZ Herald
17 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Councillor Christine Fletcher slams Bishop's Auckland housing plan as ‘bully-boyish'
'We normally value a centre-right Government,' said the pair, who are members of the National Party's de facto local government wing in Auckland, Communities and Residents. They warned their constituents of the consequences from Bishop's 'excessive', 'vain' and 'steamroller fix from Lower Hutt'. Housing intensificaiton is a hot issue in Auckland/ Photo Doug Sherring 'Bishop will be the political bully historians recall for destroying Auckland's character area, heritage, and ending the coast-to-volcanic viewshaft amenity our city had prided itself on. 'National's continued erosion of local governance and its setting of housing targets, driven by Chris Bishop, is as bully-boyish as it comes,' they said. The article represents the views of the two politicians, not the council or the local board. It comes as the city wrestles with high house prices and falling rates of home ownership. While some pundits warn that promoting more intensification could destroy the city's special character areas, others argue we need to free up land, loosen restrictions and build more affordable terraced-style housing to cater for demand. Bishop said it was easy to write a column, but Fletcher had never sought a meeting with him to discuss the matter, and when he met with the council recently, she didn't raise the housing issue. 'Hyperbole aside, the column is littered with factual inaccuracies,' Bishop said. 'For example, the Government has not set housing targets yet. 'The simple reality is that housing in Auckland is some of the most expensive in the developed world and is holding the city back. The answer is to build more houses - and that's what our planning reforms will enable. 'It's actually that simple. I hope one day she can see that,' Bishop said. Ōrākei Local Board member Troy Churton. The pair of local politicians were responding to directives from Bishop, who holds the housing and RMA reform portfolios, for greater density across the city, including 'much, much higher' buildings of up to 15 storeys around City Rail Link stations. The Government has given the council until October 10 to finalise a plan to enable greater density. As part of negotiations, Bishop has allowed the council to opt out of the previous Government's Medium Density Residential Standard (MDRS) for builds of three homes of up to three storeys high on most sites - a move supported by Fletcher, an MP from 1990 to 1999, and Churton. The pair noted that the Auckland Unitary Plan allowed for the development of about 900,000 new homes, but said Bishop was proposing a capacity for 2 million 'feasible' homes over the next century. They believed this was an excessive growth target that would require unlocking large areas of land with infrastructure constraints. Chris Bishop wants much taller buildings around the City Rail Link stations. 'Bishop's demand-based growth targets create a strong risk of oversupply and over-investment, ruining character areas in the process,' Fletcher and Churton said. 'His prescriptive RMA amendments are blunt and disproportionate, spawning intended consequences without quality.' Today, the pair said Auckland was supporting intensification through significant changes to the Unitary Plan, including along corridors. 'Auckland should be planned by Auckland councillors and local boards for Auckland, not by Lower Hutt and Wellington housing idealists like Bishop,' they said. In 2021, Fletcher landed herself in hot water after likening Labour and National's then housing policy for Auckland to 'gang rape'. 'Councillor Fletcher's views on housing are well known, given her previous use of disgusting and offensive terms to describe housing intensification in Auckland,' Bishop said. 'I am unsurprised that she believes more housing in Auckland could result in an 'oppressive, politically-imposed collapse'.' The Herald reported this month that 100,000 homes had been built since higher-density planning rules came into force in 2016. Auckland Council's chief economist Gary Blick said housing supply was showing good signs of meeting population growth, but affordability was still not great. Blick said the median price for a house in Auckland was now about $1 million, or 7.5 times the median household income. In 2000, houses cost about five times the median household income. Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
