Answer is you should be if your regional connecting flight was booked at the same time as your business ticket. I’m silver for a few more months yet, and looking at my boarding passes for tomorrow (WLG>AKL>PER - AKL to PER in C), the WLG>AKL pass says LNGE on it.

I’ve realised now that if you book trans Tasman economy via AKL and successfully use a recognition award to business premier for the AKL>wherever leg, you do not get lounge access at the departure airport, despite the webpage implying you do.

That seems to be because the original fare class for the domestic leg stays the same. Regional and domestic connections to international, pacific and trans Tasman business books into Y, which gets the “LNGE”
added. Other economy buckets don’t.

I’ve had several recognition upgrades and never noticed the difference, because I was either Gold or GE. I only realised last time because they snaffled one of my lounge e-vouchers and wouldn’t give it back.