Treasury has revealed the state of the Government’s finances, and it's been revealed that spending has dropped.

The country's still in an operating deficit of $9.3 billion, but tax take has gone up and growth in total expenses has slowed.

Infometrics principal economist Brad Olsen unpacks what's behind this recent data.

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Global dairy giant Nestle has withdrawn from the Dairy Methane Action Alliance, prompting speculation.

This follows other companies backing out of climate initiatives, with the Net Zero Banking Alliance confirming it was set to shut down earlier in the week.

Agribusiness expert Dr Jacqueline Rowarth says it's likely the Alliance didn't move fast enough for Nestle, and they're taking their support elsewhere.

"The Alliance has not worked as well as they thought - and remember, Nestle's done some really good work around the world with regenerative agriculture, with cropping... so they're putting their money where they're actually getting action."

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The Reserve Bank's continuing to walk a fine line, with its move to cut the OCR 50-basis points to 2.5%.

Economic data suggests inflation has now hit 3%.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis is blaming rising rates, saying they’re having a disproportionate impact on overall inflation, whereas other sectors are stabilising.

NZ Herald Business Editor Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham we almost seem to be in a self-fulfilling negative spiral.

He says we should be feeling better, but we aren't, and then we start questioning ourselves and the economy.

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The biggest upshot of the latest OCR cut is likely to be the boost to consumer confidence.

The Reserve Bank's slashed the cash rate by 50-basis-points to 2.5%.

Major banks are responding by lowering floating and flexible rates after already lowering their fixed-term rates in recent days.

ABC Business Sales Chief Executive Chris Small told Mike Hosking businesses will benefit more indirectly from increased consumer spending, than directly from falling interest rates.

He says interest costs are only a small portion of a person's actual business costs, and businesses will always prefer for revenues to rise than for costs to fall.

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The Reserve Bank today slashed the OCR by 50 basis points to 2.5 percent, prompting markets to make readjustments.

This recent cut wasn't full priced in, and it's got some experts re-thinking their OCR outlooks ahead of the end of the year.

Milford Asset Management's Remy Morgan explains further.

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Good news - the Reserve Bank has finally done the thing many of us thought was necessary, and they've gone for a double cut in the OCR of 50 basis points.

That's the good news. The bad news is that they've been forced to do it because they didn't do it earlier, as in, they haven't cut as quickly as they should have.

I mean, think back to July when they actually chose not to cut at all, which was clearly a mistake at the time - but became even more of a mistake when we saw the shock GDP number that followed.

We saw that in the three months before that decision, the economy had actually contracted by a whopping 0.9 percent and the Reserve Bank hadn't really noticed at all.

And the bad news, I suppose, again, is that they could have done a double cut last time when two of them on the Monetary Policy Statement said we should go double cut. But more of them said, no, let's just go with the single cut.

So they've gone with a double cut today - vindication for two, it would seem.

We're gonna stick to the good news though, which is that, finally, the Reserve Bank has caught up with the rest of us. The economy is cooked, and we need to do something, so they have delivered it. They admit that this is a signal.

The signal is it's okay to go out and spend and invest - because they've realized, finally, that people are freaked out, right?

There have been too many predictions of green shoots just before the economy falls again, which freak people out, and there have been too many bad surprises which freak people out.

Business confidence is shot, look at the QBSO yesterday. Consumer confidence is also slightly increasing, but still really negative.

People are holding on to their money, they're saving instead of spending, they're worrying instead of investing. And this cut is a circuit breaker that's supposed to snap us out of our fear.

Now, there are some who worry that we are actually already so freaked out that even this cut, given how big it is, could spook us all over again.

It's possible, maybe it could happen. But I think what's more likely is that it's going to give the assurance that people need.

And the assurance is that the people in charge of the economy actually realize how bad things are - and are prepared to be bold. And I'll tell you what, it's better late than never.

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Queenstown Airport is flying high, thanks to a surge in visitors.

It's been named Large Airport of the Year at the national awards - with judges praising its strong safety record, commercial success, and community engagement.

They were also impressed with its new end-of-runway safety system.

Chief operating officer Todd Grace says the airport's seen strong growth since Covid.

He says they're the only airport in New Zealand operating back past pre-Covid levels.

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Today's 50 basis point OCR cut could go some way to getting our economy growing again.

The Reserve Bank's slashed the cash rate to 2.5 percent.

ANZ has lowered its floating and flexible rates, on top of all major banks already lowering fixed term offerings.

Kiwibank chief economist, Jarrod Kerr, says he's been calling for a 2.5 percent cash rate for two years.

"We knew it needed to go below neutral, which is three, and we needed to get some stimulus into the economy to really ignite the recovery."

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