Dileepa Fonseka

Auckland

Senior Correspondent at BusinessDesk

Senior correspondent for @Businessdesk_nz. Voyager Business Journalist of the Year finalist 2023. Ex-press gallery for @NewsroomNZ & ex-@NZStuff

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Articles

Investing to save NZ's farming and food production system

2 weeks ago | businessdesk.co.nz | Greg Hurrell |Dileepa Fonseka |Denise McNabb

Pacific Channel sees a viable future for New Zealand’s existing agriculture system, as it invests around a third of its funds into the future of food production.Although focused on the long-term, the company prefers to stay out of transformative technologies such as lab-produced food. That comes from a need to generate returns for its investors in a reasonable timeframe.The Auckland-based venture capital firm wants to drive better on-farm productivity and profitability.
Entain allowed a New Zealander to deposit and withdraw almost $10m without proper checks, watchdog alleges

3 weeks ago | businessdesk.co.nz | Gregor Thompson |Dileepa Fonseka |Maria Slade

A New Zealand businessman deposited and withdrew millions of dollars in betting accounts without proper checks says an Australian watchdog alleging potential money laundering.The Australian subsidiary of the offshore company operating the TAB allegedly failed to gather sufficient information about a New Zealander who deposited nearly $15 million into his sports betting accounts.
Workplace safety shake-up: Compliance equals protection under new system of Approved Codes of Practice

3 weeks ago | businessdesk.co.nz | Dileepa Fonseka |Pattrick Smellie |Oliver Lewis

The Government is attempting to put a hard limit on some health and safety liabilities, saying compliance with guidance means obligations have been met. Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden said the Government will change health and safety rules so that if a business complies with approved codes of practice (ACOPs), it will have met its health and safety obligations.
Off-the-shelf AI leading the way

3 weeks ago | businessdesk.co.nz | Peter Griffin |Andrew Body |David Chaplin |Dileepa Fonseka

The debut of ChatGPT back in November 2022 didn’t just mainstream artificial intelligence. It co-opted the freemium and subscription models that had already proven integral to the rise of cloud computing platforms and software as a service.
The cost and excuse of living in a long, lean and small country

3 weeks ago | businessdesk.co.nz | Dileepa Fonseka |Denise McNabb |Victoria Young

When it comes to the role New Zealand’s geography plays in the high prices NZ plays at the supermarket, even the supermarket duopoly disagrees with itself.In its market study, the Commerce Commission noted Foodstuffs South Island had submitted that NZ’s low density and population size affected the returns that could be made on supermarkets, while on the other hand, Foodstuffs North Island and Woolworths had said geography and size did not make a material difference to whether new entrants...
Govt proposes clearer divide between directors and managers on health and safety responsibilities

3 weeks ago | businessdesk.co.nz | Dileepa Fonseka |Pattrick Smellie |Oliver Lewis

The Government says it will make it clear managers, not directors, are responsible for managing day-to-day health and safety risks at businesses. Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden said she was proposing the change to reduce the danger of “overcompliance” by directors when it came to health and safety.Van Velden said current health and safety rules had led to duplication between managers and directors when it came to health and safety work.
Closer communities: Rātā tests trust boundaries with fund buy

3 weeks ago | businessdesk.co.nz | David Chaplin |Dileepa Fonseka |Simon Robertson |Cameron Bagrie

Community trusts are a law unto themselves.Or a law unto the Community Trusts Act 1999 that set the current ground rules for the 12 semi-autonomous charitable investment entities spread across New Zealand.The community trust dozen was originally seeded in 1988 from the sale of government shares in a string of regional banks with a brief to fund local good works (and not blow the capital).But despite creating what is now a circa $5 billion sector out of public money, the legislation affords...
First tranche of health and safety reforms exempts small businesses, more coming this week

3 weeks ago | businessdesk.co.nz | Dileepa Fonseka |Gregor Thompson |Pattrick Smellie |Ian Llewellyn

Workplace Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says the Government will make announcements around several tranches of health and safety reform this week, but a tranche she announced on Monday has already attracted the ire of professionals in the area.On Monday afternoon, van Velden announced the first round of changes to the Health and Safety at Work Act agreed to by the Cabinet, which included a “carve-out” exempting small and “low-risk” businesses from some health and safety requirements.“This...
The roundabout politics of Resource Management Act reform

3 weeks ago | businessdesk.co.nz | Dileepa Fonseka |Simon Robertson |Cameron Bagrie |Peter Griffin

There was an audible groan along Shortland Street and Lambton Quay last week when the Government unveiled its plans to reform the Resource Management Act. The groan is perhaps best summed up in four words: Here we go again.Or as Russell McVeagh’s lawyers put it in a note, the proposed Resource Management Act (RMA) changes mark the “return of the RMA reform roundabout”.
Supermarket competition lessons from the last time NZ broke up a monopoly

3 weeks ago | businessdesk.co.nz | Dileepa Fonseka |Cecile Meier

When Finance and Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis gave a speech in February promoting the Government's eagerness to disrupt the supermarket duopoly and other oligopolies, the man who broke up Telecom’s monopoly was in the audience.“Competition between grocery retailers is muted, profits are high, product ranges are limited and shoppers pay higher prices than people in many other countries,” Willis told her audience at the University of Waikato's 2025 New Zealand Economics Forum.“In this...