The Week In Review

Friday 20th July 2001

GOVERNMENT

The Privacy Commissioner proposed two new draft privacy codes dealing with credit information and telecommunications. The code would restrict the type of personal information that credit reporting agencies could collect about people such as what they spend their money on and where, and limit access to the information. Credit agency Baycorp labelled it "unnecessary and unworkable," adding it would require too many major system changes. The telecommunications code followed those in Australia and the UK, and would also restrict the type, method and use of information gathered.

The government has granted a one-month extension for public submissions on the Tax and Charities discussion paper, from July 31 to August 31. Revenue Minister Michael Cullen said the government acknowledged the high level of interest in the subject, and the importance of getting the framework right. The discussion document calls for submissions on a number of proposals, including taxing trading operations, tightening the definition of a charity and improving accountability.

The first awards under the government's business incubator support programme were approved by Industry New Zealand. Twelve grants totalling $950,000 were made, ranging from $10,000 to $130,000. Funds were awarded for purposes as diverse as business planning, training of incubator management, development of IT capability, marketing of services and payment for mentoring.

ECONOMY

Business confidence rebounded, indicating the worst may be over for most businesses. There was a rise in business confidence from a net 10% pessimism in March to 14% optimism in late June was recorded in the latest NZ Institute of Economic Research quarterly survey. Investment intentions fell slightly, while employment intentions rose further from 6% to 8%. Manufacturers' growing exports had pushed business confidence back into optimistic territory and surveyed firms were expecting trading activity to strengthen in the September quarter. Retailers and the wholesale sector were also expecting domestic sales to increase while building and service sectors were pessimistic about the direction of business in the next six months.

Higher prices for petrol and international airfares pushed the consumers price index (CPI) up 0.9% in the June 2001 quarter after it fell 0.2% in the March quarter. Key upward contributors were a 6.4% rise in petrol prices, a 7.9% rebound in international airfares and another strong quarter for food prices, which rose 0.8%. The CPI is 3.2% higher than a year ago, the seventh consecutive annual increase in the index.

The New Zealand Electricity Market (NZEM) rejected allegations of power price manipulation in May and June when prices rose dramatically, causing heavy losses to some players. A month-long NZEM market surveillance committee investigation did, however, agree some participants have been, and are being, placed under financial pressure due to current spot prices, a thin financial hedge market and current retail prices.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Local authorities are still improving their clearance rate of resource consents under the Resource Management Act. A survey of the 86 local authorities showed 82% of RMA applications were processed within statutory time limits. Of the 48,045 resource consent applications last year, 5% were notified, less than 1% were declined and 1% appealed. The Environment Court, which handles appeals, has a backlog of over 3000 cases with most being well over a year old.

Online

Trade New Zealand joined emarketservices.com, a collaboration of trade councils that provides information and links to business-to-business e-marketplaces worldwide. It aims to provide independent information and help exporters find online markets suitable to their businesses. Trade NZ is also working with French company Kompass International, which runs a web-based worldwide database of 30 million companies' products and services, to develop unique classifications for New Zealand products.

The e-government unit has commissioned research from the NZ Institute of Economic Research about electronic billing services. NZIER has been asked to survey whose and what products and services are in the e-billing market, where it is heading and the optimum time for government to enter it, if at all. The unit plans to take its survey findings to its advisory board in early August. The board may then decide to move immediately, or wait for a more opportune time.

One of this country's largest IT resellers has joined with three others to form a new IT solutions company. Computerland New Zealand, which has an annual turnover of $150 million, has joined with application service provider AppServ, Microsoft systems manager SQL and Turing Solutions, a customised software provider, under the name Ceritas Group. Formerly SCS, the new company will lift its profile here with a series of new applications in early August.

The June AC Neilsen net ratings show newly merged XtraMSN as this country's most popular web property. Average time online for at home users has gone up from 18 minutes in May for Xtra to 45 minutes in June for XtraMSN. Just under 750,000 people online at home visit XtraMSN a month and general manager of Xtra consumer Rod Snodgrass said if work users were included the figure would be up past one million. The next highest rating property here is Yahoo! with a unique audience of just over 370,000.

Broadband links with the South Island are now possible after Telecom took its 200km 3.2 terrabits per second Cook Strait fibre-optic cable live. It is the only telecommunications cable linking the North and South Islands that has been deliberately diverted away from Wellington to avoid earthquake and other risks. The cable is part of Telecom's three-stage, $38 million infrastructure project. The second stage is a new cable between Greymouth and Christchurch. It will have the capacity to enable all South Island areas to be able to watch a separate high-quality digital video channel at the same time. In telephone terms, that is enough for 15 million simultaneous phone calls.

WORKPLACE

Industrial action continued at Timaru's Sanford fish processing plant, where workers finished their fourth week striking over a pay dispute. National Distribution Union (NDU) members were also striking at Bluebird Foods over pay rates, rejecting the company's latest offer of 3.75% increase. NDU members in Auckland, Timaru and Christchurch have been on strike for two weeks.

Latest figures from Statistics New Zealand show there were eight work stoppages in the March 2001 quarter, with an estimated loss of $900,000 in wages and salaries. This is up from five work stoppages recorded in each of the December and March quarters.

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