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Malaysian airline Air Asia X Service Pty Limited (AirAsia) has agreed to end its preselection of checked baggage and change how it discloses its processing fee when selling flight tickets to New Zealand customers online.
The Commerce Commission believes that in preselecting luggage at an extra cost to the advertised flight price, and not properly disclosing a mandatory processing fee, AirAsia was likely to have misled consumers over the price of its services. The Commission has issued AirAsia with a formal warning.
AirAsia introduced flights from Auckland to the Gold Coast in March 2016. The Commission became aware that, in selling those flights, AirAsia was advertising a price that did not include a pre-selected checked baggage allowance. It was also charging a payment processing fee that was not avoidable for New Zealand consumers. The Commission wrote to AirAsia at that time advising it of these concerns.
AirAsia subsequently agreed to change its online booking process to sell checked baggage on an ‘opt in’ basis. It also now discloses the processing fee early in its booking process and has introduced an alternative payment method that enables customers to avoid the fee entirely. These changes were made in July 2016.
Chair Dr Mark Berry said AirAsia had cooperated fully with the Commission’s investigation and a warning was appropriate in this case.
“We have been proactive about tackling opt out pricing, with the travel industry a particular focus for us. We are pleased that AirAsia has moved to improve their pricing practices, including how they disclose their processing fee, after we contacted them with concerns when they re-entered the New Zealand market earlier this year,” Dr Berry said.
“Since we began investigating opt out pricing last year we have now seen seven companies put an end to this practice, which is great for consumers. We have made our position very clear on this issue and expect businesses to stick to an ‘opt in’ sales approach to avoid any possibility of breaching the Fair Trading Act.”
Last year the Commission called for all New Zealand businesses to end the use of opt out pricing, with Air New Zealand, House of Travel, Dash Tickets, Ticket Direct and Naked Bus all agreeing to do so. In March this year Jetstar gave court enforceable undertakings to the Commission ending its preselection of a range of services. The Commission does not have any further ongoing investigations into this issue at this time.
Industrial property occupiers wanting to move or up-size their premises do not have many options left in Wellington's more popular business precincts. An article posted on Stuff's Business Day quotes a real estate agent who says that the supply of industrial property is falling andthe demand is high. "[But] there isn't enough land left to construct many new buildings in Petone, Lower Hutt, Ngauranga and Grenada, which are the suburbs businesses want to be in."
The Reserve Bank today confirmed that new rules tighten restrictions on bank lending to residential property buyers throughout New Zealand.
From 1 October, residential property investors will generally need a 40 percent deposit for a mortgage loan, and owner-occupiers will generally need a 20 percent deposit. In both cases, banks are still allowed to make a small number of loans to borrowers with smaller deposits.
Confirmation of the new rules is in the Reserve Bank’s response to submissions to its public consultation about changes to Loan to Value Ratio (LVR) rules.
The Reserve Bank is modifying its proposals in response to public consultation, and also through meetings and workshops with banks that are subject to the rules.
The new rules take effect on 1 October 2016, but banks have generally chosen to start following the new limits already.
Existing exemptions to LVR restrictions will continue to apply under the new rules and have been extended to make it easier to borrow for a newly built home or to do work needed for a residence to comply with new building codes and rental-property standards.
Summary of changes to LVR rules
Business leaders have a new tool on their hands to help them develop their leadership skills.
The Leader’s Digest app is a free resource developed specifically for leaders, enabling them to access answers to their leadership problems, tools to improve their skills and the latest leadership trends, from the comfort of their smartphone or device.
The app was developed by New Zealand-based leadership blogger and executive coach Suzi McAlpine, is designed to help business leaders feel more supported, informed and inspired in their roles.
McAlpine says the app was created in response to feedback from clients and readers of her leadership blog, The Leader’s Digest.
“Through my work as an executive coach and leadership blogger, I have found there’s a real need for leaders to feel more supported in their roles,” says McAlpine.
“Often leaders - particularly senior leaders and C-suite management - can feel isolated in their roles,” she says.
“A recent survey by Stanford University showed that more than 90% of CEOs find the process of receiving coaching and leadership advice highly effective and rewarding, but almost two-thirds do not receive support from outside consultants or coaches - and almost half of senior executives are not receiving any either,” explains McAlpine.
“Getting help and solutions to their issues as they happen is not always easy,” she says.
“The Leader’s Digest App is designed to help people access information as and when they need to, enabling them to feel more empowered and effective in their leadership positions.”
The Leader’s Digest App is available now for free download from the App Store or Google Play.
BusinessNZ is disappointed the Government has failed to heed submissions and is allowing goods to be dumped in NZ if it is deemed to be in the "public interest", via a new public interest test.
Executive Director of ManufacturingNZ, Catherine Beard says New Zealand manufacturers want a level playing field. "We want a vibrant competitive economy. Our manufacturers are globally competitive or they would not still be in business – but we can't compete against dumped product."
"It sends the wrong signal to manufacturers in New Zealand that any investment they make in building a business can all be wiped out by dumped product flooding the market and killing off their local business."
Students will repay taxpayers for their tertiary education through “time worked” under a New Zealand First proposal, says Education Spokesperson Tracey Martin.
“Students would still have a debt to their country but we would shift this to a debt of their time and skills – they will use their talents to repay their country’s investment in their education.
“A year worked in New Zealand will reduce the skill debt by a year. “It’s time to change the mindset from a financial debt to a skill debt to your country. “We cannot continue to load students up with financial debt. It is unsustainable. The financial, social and personal cost is too high.
“This fits with our existing policy of debt write off for those spending five years in the regions working in critical skill shortage areas. “New Zealand First will put much of the tertiary education focus on workforce planning, career advice and competitive course entry.
“We can cut education costs by over a billion dollars by fitting the education of each person to the requirements of the workplace. “Students will compete to get into courses, to ensure a better fit between the student and the field of study.
“New Zealand First will also widen the apprenticeship scheme to include non-traditional areas, such as truck driving which will minimise skill shortages and unemployment rates.
In addition we will:
Widely used technology routinely ignored in New Zealand claims process engineer.
European technology that converts milk and meat processing plant effluent into self- contained waste consuming and energy generating plants is now available in New Zealand.Napier industrialist Ken Evans said the technology allowed milk and meat processing plants to become their own standalone waste treatment units with the added advantage of these plants using the waste so consumed as their own source of energy.
As an example he cited large scale milking centres in Europe that were self sufficient in power simply because all the waste they generated was converted into electricity.He said that the era in which factories could discharge their waste in any volume or in any proportion into the public domain should have ended many years ago. It was now time to apply a readily available solution, and one widely used internationally, he said.
The problem he said was that there had not been the concerted nationwide will to do something about process waste finding its way into the water system.This he said was itself a by-product of uncertainty about the ability of technology to cope with the problem.
“You look at the situation today in which vehicles that drive themselves are now on the roads. Yet we still have copious amounts of concentrated waste matter allowed to penetrate the nation’s water system.”
He said that waste-to-energy plant technology in primary processing had been allowed to be placed in the “too hard” basket.
He said that the conservation lobby had allowed itself to become over-focused on international issues at the expense of seeking solutions to problems in what he described as the nation’s “back yard.”
He said that he would now ensure that milk and meat processors in New Zealand were acquainted with this waste-to-energy solution that was so widely used in Europe. His objective he said was to make New Zealand’s processing plants their own waste consumers, and thus their own energy suppliers.
It was he said a relatively low cost solution, and one with its own pay-back. This proven technology was now readily available in New Zealand backed by his specialists with the experience to install it.
From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk - Monday 5 September 2016Ken Evans can be contacted on phone 64 6 843 0632 , mobile 64 027 293 2678 and by email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Vehicles, parts, and accessories, including more than 260,000 cars, accounted for 10 percent of our $67 billion of imports. This was the second-largest category of goods imports for the June 2016 year. Vehicles were our largest goods import from Japan, the European Union (EU), and Australia, and our third-largest from the United States (US).
We also imported vehicles, parts and accessories from some smaller trading partners. In the June 2016 year, vehicles were our largest import from Thailand, our second-largest from Korea, and our fifth-largest import from Taiwan.
“Vehicle imports from Thailand have tripled since 2012, and we now import more cars from Thailand than from the US or Australia,” international statistics senior manager Jason Attewell said.
“While we still import cars from Japan and Europe, home to many large car brands, as they restructure their global operations many of our cars are rolling in from other countries. Thailand has become the ‘Detroit of the East’, with producers such as Toyota, Honda, Ford, and Mercedes shifting gear and opening factories there in recent years,” Mr Attewell said.
Electronics from China our top import category
Our largest single import from one source in the June 2016 year was electrical machinery and equipment from China. We imported $2.0 billion worth of electronics (mainly cellphones) from China in the June 2016 year.
“Historically, vehicles were our biggest goods imports, but since December 2015 we’ve imported more electronics from China than vehicles from either Japan or the EU,” Mr Attewell said.
Service imports mainly from Australia
Australia was the main source of services imports in the June 2016 year. Nearly half this $5.0 billion of services came from New Zealanders travelling to Australia. Other services imported from Australia in the June 2016 year included management fees, research and development, and transportation services. The EU provided significant transportation services (eg sea and air transport), and the US provided considerable business services (eg management fees, and research and development services) in the June 2016 year.
Trade shows annual surplus
New Zealand’s trade with the rest of the world was a $1.7 billion surplus for the June 2016 year. Total exports of goods and services were $70.9 billion, while total imports were $67.2 billion.
New Zealand recorded trade surpluses with 16 of our top 25 trading partners in the June 2016 year, including Australia, China, the US, and Japan.
Goods and Services Trade by Country: Year ended June 2016 – for more data and analysis
SESCOC President Paul Campbell says SESOC has been prompted to make these comments following reports in the media that a law firm is proposing a class action in relation to mesh that may not meet The New Zealand Standard.
Before changes to the Building Code following the Canterbury earthquakes, many residential slabs were unreinforced. Even if slabs were reinforced, they generally used mesh that was not very ductile. Ductility, or stretch, is a critical steel property for many commercial applications, particularly multi-storey buildings.
Mr Campbell says: “Obviously engineers are concerned if mesh that is below standard has been circulated and used in residential buildings. But even if the mesh is only half as good as the current Standard requires, it is still at least 10 times better than what was used in the past, and infinitely better than unreinforced slabs.
SESOC and the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand (IPENZ), which represent the majority of structural engineers in New Zealand, are concerned that unnecessary public alarm could be generated over this issue.
“We are concerned that people, particularly homeowners in Christchurch who have been through years of emotional turmoil already, will experience unnecessary stress.
“In virtually all residential construction where mesh has been used to reinforce slabs, the reduction in capacity due to the mesh not meeting the required standard will be insignificant.
“For a small minority of homes that have been specifically designed and engineered, there may be some potential impact, but the designers of those buildings should be quickly able to advise whether this is significant.
“For commercial developments and larger residential properties that have used elevated concrete floors, there may be a very small number of cases where the mesh may affect the performance of the buildings in future earthquakes. The structural engineers responsible for the design should be able to advise whether this may be significant. In many cases where the strength of the mesh may be critical, it will have been augmented with regular reinforcing bars, which are not generally affected by these issues.
“We believe it’s important to point out that that the mesh supplied and used since the Canterbury earthquakes will still perform significantly better than the mesh that was used in the majority of floor slabs prior to the earthquakes, even if it does not fully meet the Standard.”
More than 160 people gathered at Auckland’s Villa Maria Estate last night, to find out who made the cut for the 2016 New Zealand Food Awards, in association with Massey University. Sixty-five products developed by 63 companies have been named as finalists this year. Competition stepped up a notch, with product entries up 62 per cent on last year; a record for the long withstanding and prestigious awards. Finalists, from niche operators to large-scale food and beverage manufacturers, will compete to take out the top spot in various categories including the popular Artisan Food Producer Award, BITE Gourmet Award and the Export Innovation Award, as well as the ultimate accolade of the Massey University Supreme Award.
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
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