Jump to-
Recent key developments in MAKE│NZ
•We’re back to introducing our directors, with only two left to go let me first introduce you to the last of our new faces – Natalie Smith, General Manager People & Culture at Kiwicare!
Can you share a quick summary of your background in manufacturing and what got you interested in the field?
I’ve spent the last few years working in manufacturing and really love it. It’s exciting to be part of a business that makes things and seeing the products we create, out instore and in peoples’ homes. It feels tangible and rewarding.
What got you interested in joining the MAKE│NZ board?
Joining the MAKE│NZ board feels like a chance to contribute to an industry that’s important to NZ. In my People & Culture role I get to do work that shapes the employee experience, supports leaders, and work on change projects. I love the opportunity to knowledge-share and doing what I can to bring a people perspective to conversations about business, growth and our broader industry.
What do you think is the biggest opportunity—or challenge—for manufacturing in the next 5 years?
Helping people adapt to change. Tech and automation are moving fast as we know, and the challenge is making sure we bring people along on the way; balancing efficiency, performance, and talent retention so businesses stay competitive.
If you could offer one piece of advice to emerging leaders in manufacturing, what would it be?
That people are key – creating a culture where learning and collaboration are a focus can help unlock performance.
Outside of manufacturing, what’s something you’re passionate about that people might not know?
Outside of work, my focus is my kids – trying new things together and learning through their eyes. Golf is our latest thing to try but that’s mostly just me driving around trying out new places. I love to travel – not being from NZ, it’s a chance for me to reconnect with my family and friends overseas and also explore new places and cultures.
•Hardware Meetup NZ are returning to Christchurch!*
If you’re interested in aerospace, hardware, or NZ’s innovation ecosystem, this is an event you don’t want to miss. You can join in person or register to watch the livestream. They’ll be having three speakers – Mark Rocket (Founder and CEO of Kea Aerospace), John Mann (An aerospace engineer and project manager with Tāwhaki National Aerospace Centre), and a third mystery speaker yet to be announced. If this is something you might be interested in you can find tickets and register HERE.
* Please note we have been sponsored by this event in the form of free ticket offerings, but that is not why we’re promoting it, rather because as MAKE│NZ it’s our job to share news of events that may be of interest to our community
Recent key developments in New Zealand
•Ever since the seminal 1967 article by Martin Seligman and Steven Maier, we have known about the psychological phenomenon of learned helplessness. Through their experiments with dogs, they discovered that if individuals or animals are repeatedly exposed to aversive situations they cannot control, they will later fail to escape or avoid negative situations even when escape is possible, because they have learned that their actions are futile.
Email from electricity provider from a few days ago: “We’re simplifying your plan … [oh, and by the way] … your electricity pricing is changing too.” – Daily Fixed Charges increasing by 21%. The reasons provided:
- Higher transmission and lines charges, set by the Commerce Commission to maintain and upgrade the network
- Rising wholesale energy costs
- Increases in metering charges and government levies
- General inflation
The latter is of particular interest, given that (for Christchurch, as an example), Domestic Electricity Prices for the four quarters Aug. 2024 to Aug. 2025 have risen by 13% (usage) and 25% (line charges), respectively. Eelectricity expenditure accounts for around 4% of total household spending as measured in CPI construction. Just a hint of a circular argument there …
When consulting POWERSWITCH, it turns out that the new rate after the increase is still lower than the cheapest alternative offered there …
From a 2005 paper by Victoria University economists Geoff Bertram and Dan Twaddle: “Price-cost margins in nominal terms have increased from around one cent per kWh (about a 30% markup over variable cost) in the early 1990s to nearly three cents per kWh by 2002 (a 70% markup). … An alternative approach that uses as counterfactual a standard rate-of-return regulatory framework shows that allowed annual revenues since 1999 would have been nearly $200 million per year lower under a so-called “heavy-handed” regime. Given that the prevailing level of electricity network revenues has recently been accepted as legitimate by the Commerce Commission, this figure of roughly $200 million per year provides a benchmark estimate of the ongoing cost to electricity consumers of New Zealand’s switch from a heavy-handed to a light-handed regulatory framework, as those terms have been interpreted by the New Zealand Government and its main regulatory agency.”
From a detailed 2009 report by Stanford University economist Frank Wolak, commissioned by the NZ Commerce Commission: “This report provides three main lines of evidence consistent with the view that the four large suppliers in the New Zealand electricity market have both the ability and incentive to exercise unilateral market power, and that this exercise of unilateral market power has resulted in substantial wealth transfers from consumers to producers during several sustained periods of time between January 1, 2001 to June 30, 2007.”
From a 2012 NZIER study: “For the first 2-3 years after ownership unbundling in 1998, retail prices fell in all three sectors, with the commercial sector experiencing the biggest reduction. However, since the early 2000s, all three sectors have experienced retail price increases, with the biggest price increase in the residential sector. Compared to the residential retail price in 2000, the residential price in 2009 has nearly increased by 50%.”
From a December 2022 NZIER report: “This means that the New Zealand electricity sector is not working as intended for the benefit of small electricity consumers. In fact, this has resulted in significant downside consequences on the equity for those consumers as they are facing an increased risk of energy poverty due to their limited capability to make demand responses, especially during peak demand times.”
From the 2025 Frontier report, commissioned by MBIE: “We are aware that there has been significant debate in New Zealand about whether the gentailers are misusing market power and if they should be broken up or regulated. However, the real issue is not competition, it is investment. It is the lack of investment in new firm capacity over recent years, including for firm capacity to address dry year risk, that has been the driver for market outcomes rather than anti-competitive behaviour.” One might question, of course, whether a collective lack of investment in additional generation capacity by all players in the market does not constitute anti-competitive practice in itself?
•Interesting also an observation shared by an Australian colleague with strong links into their defence sector: “Because only Australian and New Zealand citizens can get the security clearance required to work in defence industries and we are really short on skilled workers; there are great opportunities for Kiwis here at very attractive salary packages …”
Alongside the output, employment in the Australian defence industry grew by 9.1% in the year 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024 (latest available data).
New Zealand citizen departures are up 8 per cent on last year, with almost 73,000 people leaving the country in the 12 months to September 2025. Arrivals were 23,600, resulting in a net loss of 46,400. In the year to March 2025, almost 60 per cent of New Zealand-citizen migrant departures were to Australia.
Recent key developments in the World
•A sobering reminder of the potential cost of a lack of attention to detail: The initial findings of the US National Transportation Safety Board [NTSB] into the collision of the containership Dali with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland on March 26, 2024, and the subsequent bridge collapse into the Patapsco River, identified the root cause of the accident; it was “caused by a series of electrical-related events that began when a signal wire (Wire 1), one of many in the main switchboard, electrically disconnected from its terminal block. Installed on each signal wire were labeling bands (wire-label banding), which were small silicone sheaths made of thermoplastic material that was heat-shrunk around the wire and had its associated terminal block printed on it. We found that Wire 1’s label band (wire-label banding) covered all of the ferrule’s blue insulated collar, increasing the ferrule’s overall circumference, preventing the wire from being fully inserted into its terminal block—leaving Wire 1 vulnerable to becoming electrically disconnected.”
It is worth reading the entire report to see how a ‘minor malfunction’ like this could trigger a cascade of events: “The loss of power to the low-voltage bus led to a loss of lighting and machinery, including the main engine cooling water pump and the steering gear pumps, which resulted in a loss of propulsion and steering. The as-built configuration of the Dali’s main engine to automatically shut down due to low cooling water pressure met classification standards at the time the vessel was constructed; however, it endangered the vessel because it prevented the main engine from being available following the initial underway blackout, thus reducing the vessel’s maneuverability.”
The accident caused the death of six highway maintenance workers on the bridge, and serious injuries to a seventh one. Plus, damage to the Dali exceeding $18 million and estimated replacement costs for the bridge of between $4.3 billion and $5.2 billion – not to mention the cost of re-routing traffic until at least 2030, when the new bridge will have been constructed at the earliest.
The NTSB already made a series of recommendations to prevent a similar incident from occurring in the future, including to the ship engine’s manufacturer: “To HD Hyundai Heavy Industries: Incorporate proper wire-label banding installation methods into your electrical department’s standard operating procedures to ensure that wire-label banding installed on a wire does not impede the proper insertion of the wire into a terminal block.”
Couldn’t happen to one of our products …? Hopefully not!
•“Decoupling supply chains from China” is a policy priority not only in the US, but also in Europe. Whether that is in health care (Pharmaceutical products), rare earth metals, materials and equipment for the transition to renewable energy, or defence procurement. As the German Chancellor Friedrich März stated in a speech recently: “Leading in innovation comes with the power to shape outcomes. … We must not let the US and China alone decide on technologies of the future.”
Starting with defence, a recent UK’s Royal United Services Institute [RUSI] study, for example, found that “NATO allies seeking to develop MUAS [Multi-rotor Uncrewed Aerial Systems] production will be hindered in their efforts by near-term material shortages. Some dual-use material, and particularly permanent magnets made with neodymium iron boron (which are critical for motors), have extremely high and competing civilian demand … At present, China supplies approximately 80% of the global MUAS market, including complete systems and components. Components are vital for adaptable, modular drone construction.” The study illustrates the dependence on supplies from China in a diagram:
Another challenge for governments keen to re-shore the production of strategically relevant inputs and products is the fact that this desire usually increases cost, takes time to implement, and often runs contrary to commercial reality:
- Cost: The 2026 US Army budget estimate for the 2026 fiscal year calls for 1,057 ‘red-free’ bundle packs of two 10-inch FPVs and four 5-inch drones, including a ground controller and goggles, for $34,846 – amounting to several thousands of dollars per drone
- Time: In response to the recent Nexperia chip crisis that we reported on earlier, Matthias Zink, CE at German automotive component manufacturer Schaeffler AG and President of the industry’s European trade group, CLEPA, warned that “The minimum is three, four or five years to install a new kind of disentangled supply chain. We should have no illusions on this.”
- Commercial reality: Both as a production site, and as a product market, China remains an important partner for European business. A 2024 study by the US research company Rhodium Group found no evidence of a decline in Foreign Direct Investment [FDI] from Europe into China, with Germany as the leader:
The authors added that “Our estimates likely understate the true value of European FDI in China. We identified roughly 80 investments over the past two years whose values were not disclosed (and therefore not included in our total value estimates).”
And in spite of the continuing decline in European car makers’ market share in the Chinese car market, their share of the total China FDI remains dominant …:
… with Germany ‘the last man standing’, at least when it comes to investment into automotive OEMs:
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.