Category: Business

Source: Radio New Zealand

Insurance company Tower has reported record profits, as increased numbers of customers drove premium income, while it had a low level of big-claim events.

Key numbers for the year ended September compared with a year ago:

• Net profit $83.7m v $74.3m
• Underlying profit $107.2m v $83.5m
• Gross written premium $600m v $595m
• Large event costs $7.2m v claim back $2.3m
• Full year dividend 24.5 cents per share v 9.5 cps

The New Zealand-owned company extended its recovery and return to profit, as it sold more policies, boosting its premium income, and benefited from below-average large claims.

“This is an exceptional result, underpinned by Tower’s transformation, driven by investment in our digital platform and continued focus on underwriting discipline, technology, data and efficiency,” chief executive Paul Johnston said.

The company added 5000 new customers to 318,000, as it concentrated on lower-risk policies and competitive pricing, which boosted its housing-insurance revenue.

The bottom-line result was affected by increased Canterbury earthquake claims cost estimates, the ongoing cost of customer remediations and a provision for software impairment.

The company said the Dunedin floods of October 2024 and Cyclone Tam in April were treated as big events, costing $7m.

Storms that hit the country in late October were expected to cost about $4.5m and would be accounted in the coming year’s accounts.

Johnston said the past couple of years had been out of the ordinary and were not likely to continue.

“We expect conditions that influenced the FY24 and FY25 results, such as relatively benign weather and prior-year rating flowing through the portfolio, to normalise in the coming year.”

The company forecasted an underlying profit for the coming year between $55m-65m and has set aside $45m to cover big-disaster claims.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A new wind farm makes it possible for the diesel-reliant Chatham Islands to go green and run entirely on renewable energy.

Locals hope it will slash astronomically high power prices with some saying the costs are deterring others from moving there.

The three new wind turbines at the Point Durham wind farm can generate more energy than the current peak demand.

The power price is expected to drop by more than 20 percent to about 89 cents per kiloWatt hour.

Currently, diesel fuels the power supply on the Chatham Islands, but it is costly and vulnerable to supply chain issues with an ageing ship and price fluctuations.

Hotel Chatham owner operator Toni Croon said the current exorbitant power prices limited growth.

Her monthly power bill for the hotel was roughly $13,000, she said.

“It’s just horrendous. Horrendous as a business owner, horrendous for anyone on this island. It’s survival of the fittest and we basically just live in debt because of our power prices,” Croon said.

She could not wait to be less reliant on diesel, saying the wind farm would be good for the environment and their wallets.

“It’s going to be everything. Even your family steals fuel off you because when times get tough, when there’s no fuel, you’ve got every bottle, everything filled up that you possibly can,” she said.

“This is going to be a game changer to every business and not have to rely on the ship.”

A previous wind turbine project fell over more than a decade ago after hitting financial difficulties.

She hoped this one would not be a lot of hot air and would make a sizeable difference to their bills.

If it did, she expected the Chathams would grow.

“I can think of five businesses that I’d like to start with the power prices being a lot more reasonable,” she said.

“People will move here for a start. No one will move here [currently]. Most households are $1000 to $1200 [a month]. That’s no hot water, just absolutely ridiculous, so we’ll get growth in the population.”

The mayor of the Chatham Islands, Greg Horler, said the cost of living – including power bills – hit hard on the Chathams.

“People are struggling on the mainland. People here [have] to do the same thing, they’ve got to slap another 30 percent on so if you’re struggling on the mainland, smack another 30 percent on and that’s how they struggle over here. It’s actually quite tough,” he said.

Locals were looking forward to a greener, cheaper and more stable energy source and opportunities for growth, he said.

In 2023, a $10 million government grant was earmarked to develop a renewable energy system.

Chatham Islands Enterprise Trust led the charge for the wind farm, and added a further million dollars to the pot.

Trust chair Hamish Chisholm said they were looking forward to a more reliable, sustainable power supply that would reduce the cost of living and doing business.

“We’ve only got limited capacity for storage on the island and we’ve had a couple of shipping outages in recent years so that’s brought us pretty close to the lights going off,” he said.

He hoped that cutting the tariff price would help to encourage businesses to invest more.

There was a lot of fishing done around the Chathams but he said the current cost of electricity meant it was mostly too expensive to process them there.

“With lower electricity prices, we’d hope that that would open up the range of fish species that could be processed here on the island viably and then that sort of just helps grow our economy from there,” Chisholm said.

The 225 kilowatt turbines generate power when wind speeds hit between 12 and 90 kilometres an hour.

A new grid balancing plant means the diesel generators can shut down when the turbines are covering the island’s demand and a battery can provide an hour of peak power load if wind speeds fluctuate.

Diesel burn would be reduced by the equivalent of 500,000 litres per year with carbon emissions dropping by around 1300 tonnes a year, he said.

The system also allowed for new renewable energy supplies to be added to the grid in the future, which would bring the costs down further, he said.

He expected the prices would start to drop soon.

“It had been feeding into the grid. There’s been days when the power station has been completely silent which isn’t something that’s been heard down here probably for 20 or 30 years,” he said.

The Point Durham wind farm will be officially opened on Thursday.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A property manager says he was shocked to be handed a $2000 fine for including a QR code rather than a stated rent amount on the sign outside a property available for rent.

David Faulkner is general manger for property management at Property Brokers.

He said the company had been fined after being investigated by the Tenancy Compliance Investigation Team (TCIT) for not advertising a rent price on the signs.

The Residential Tenancies Act requires that landlords must not advertise or offer a tenancy without stating the rent in the advertisement.

Faulkner said this had been driven by concerns about rent bidding, where landlords drive up rent by asking tenants whether they are willing to pay more to secure a property.

“I think that’s fine, it’s transparent. It does stop that from happening.”

But he said problems arose when it was argued the rent sign itself needed to display the rental amount, rather than simply a way for tenants to find the information.

He said his solution had been to put a QR code on the rental sign which directed people to more details about the property, including the price.

Tenants would be required to apply to rent the property via the website, anyway, he said. “Where the price is clearly displayed.”

Complaints were often driven by other property management companies rather than tenants, he said.

“There’s been a lot of debate in the industry thinking that’s ridiculous and most companies have just turned a blind eye to it… but others haven’t and they’ve complained to tenancy compliance.”

He said some properties were located a long way from the property management offices, and when the asking rent needed to change, it would mean someone had to drive out and change the sign.

“There’s a cost, there’s a carbon footprint. A QR code is common sense as the price adjusts on the advert, which is happening quite a lot at the moment with rents going down.”

He said some tenants did not want to have the rent displayed on an ad in front of their neighbours, either.

The company had been fined $2000 although that had since been revised down to $1000.

“You need regulation and you need government but you don’t need overreach which prohibits how you run your business.”

In a letter to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development he said it was an overreach by a government department and provided no tangible benefit.

“I do not believe TCIT was established to police such minor and unworkable issues. Their role is to hold landlords accountable for failing to provide warm, dry, and compliant homes. To my knowledge, New Zealand is the only country that enforces such a strict stance on rental pricing signage.”

Sarina Gibbon, director of Tenancy Advisory, said the market was very different from when there were concerns about rent bidding.

“Rent is trending down, sometimes weekly in certain areas, where it’s being repriced and repriced every week in order to get a tenant, you then have to ask yourself, in this environment, why aren’t we just operating with a QR code or a website address that’s printed on the physical sign, which would be a more fit for purpose solution to the intent behind the rule, which is to not gouge tenants.”

She said it could put a lot of stress and demand on property managers who were already handling a lot of compliance.

“I’m still hopeful that we can explore some pathways directly with the Housing and Urban Development Ministry to just get some guidance out there and just clarify the government’s position that when they interpret the word state, they mean they’re looking at the totality of that piece of advertisement, that they’re not treating a sign as a standalone piece of advertisement.

“If they treat the sign as merely an extension of a Trade Me advertisement, for example, which seems to be an appropriate, reasonable approach, because you don’t see any single for rent sign out there listing absolutely all the details of their rental property to the extent Trade Me would… this is all very, very silly.”

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development said in a statement it was aware of cases where QR codes or links were used in advertising, and the discussion around the issue.

“While there are no plans to amend the legislation at this time it is something that could be considered in a future review.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The official cash rate might have been cut – but how much further can we expect home loan rates to fall?

The Reserve Bank cut the OCR on Wednesday by 25 basis points (bps), taking it to 2.25 percent.

That was widely expected, but what was a little more surprising was how little room the bank left itself for further cuts to come. It said it would cut again if it needed to, but only if the economy was likely to really underperform its latest forecasts.

It forecast a bottom for the OCR of 2.2 percent, indicating little room for downward movement, and for increases to 3 percent around the end of 2028.

While banks responded with cuts to floating rates, commentators said the indication that the Reserve Bank probably thought it had done enough in terms of interest rate cuts meant fixed rates might not have much further to fall.

Markets had already priced in the 25bps reduction, and a trough in the forecast of 2.15 percent. One-year swap rates have fallen from more than 3 percent in August to less than 2.5 percent.

Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr noted that swap rates rose by a little more than 5bps after the announcement.

Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan said there could be pressure in the near term for the bigger banks to match the one-year rates being offered by banks such as SBS and the Bank of China.

SBS has been offering 3.99 percent for one year and the Bank of China 4.28 percent. The big banks are all advertising 4.49 percent.

“However, today’s statement means there’s little likelihood of wholesale rates heading much lower unless we get a bad run of economic data or the market’s AI bull run suddenly ends,” Kiernan said.

“Having said that, with the OCR expected to hold around current levels for about a year, I don’t think there’s a massive hurry to rush out and lock in a fixed rate – it’s probably not until mid-2026 that any upward trend might start to emerge in most of the retail rates.”

BNZ chief economist Mike Jones agreed that if the OCR had fallen as far as it would go then there was limited scope for mortgage rates to keep falling. He said Wednesday’s move had been more than 100 percent priced in by markets.

“We probably thought it was on its last, or that downtrend was on its last legs anyway, and the statement today was probably more of a shift towards a neutral bias.

“They are not quite there, but more of a shift than people might have expected. So I think the scope that perhaps was there to keep cutting mortgage rates has been reduced a little bit because we’ve seen wholesale interest rates jump up a bit. That may not stick around because, of course, the bank has given itself that optionality to respond if some of the signs of life in the economy don’t get established over the summer.”

He said what happened internationally would also play a part.

It could mean it was time to lock in a longer rate, he said. “People sort of dipped their toes into long-term fixes if you look at bank data a few months back but then kind of backpedalled into the shorter fixed terms… I think we are going to see more of a debate from here about fixing terms and whether it’s time to push out the average term of borrowing a bit further into the future.”

ANZ economist David Croy said the bank had for some time been of the view that the low point in the mortgage rate cycle was approaching and borrowers could benefit from locking in a longer term.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The retail sector is still hopeful it can convince the government to ease its hardline stance on banning card surcharges.

The government plans to ban surcharges on in-store card payments like Paywave by May next year, a move that has alarmed industry groups like Retail NZ, the Auckland Business Chamber, and several other chambers of commerce.

“Our members have been really unhappy about it. We’ve surveyed all our members and we’ve been talking about it for a while and they’re really clear that it’s not something that they support,” Retail NZ chief executive Carolyn Young said.

Young hoped to convince the government to compromise by capping surcharges instead of banning them entirely.

“What we’re trying to do is provide a solution that’s a middle ground that should appease everyone,” she said.

Her proposal was for surcharges on debit card transactions to be capped at 0.5 percent, and for credit cards to be capped at 1 percent.

“You could review it in a year or two years’ time. You could do a full consultation with the whole sector, but at least in the interim, we’d have a solution that the minister would be able to have the certainty of what consumers would be [paying] and merchants would understand fully what they could charge,” she said.

Young said the consensus among retailers was that they would raise the price of their products to offset the loss of revenue from surcharges.

“If [customers] weren’t getting surcharged, they’d get a price increase. So, regardless of how they pay, our members have told us that they would increase prices.”

The government has stood firm on its decision to ban surcharges outright, but Carolyn Young hoped that position could thaw.

“We’re really hopeful that we can get a little bit more airtime with the minister to go through and discuss this more fully,” she said.

“I know from Select Committee that a significant portion of submissions did not support the surcharge ban. So, we want to be part of the solution and we want to find a way in which we can say to the minister, ‘how about we look at this as a solution?’, and it’s a road that could keep everybody happy from consumers to business to government.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A Hamilton company has done a deal to supply its virtual reality (VR) training systems to a multi-billion-dollar defence contractor.

The deal between Company-X and UK-based Babcock follows on from the New Zealand Navy using the systems.

Company-X’s head of training and simulation, Lance Bauerfeind, would not put dollars or jobs figures on the deal as it had just been done, but said it was the biggest they had done in the VR training space.

“That’s going to enable us to take our VR simulation training to the world.”

It was in line with the government’s push to develop a local defence export industry.

“They are supporting and encouraging you know these large multinational contractors to work with us local businesses here in New Zealand, and that’s great for the economy and it’s great for us … and also it’s great for the defence and tech sector.”

Without the Defence Capability Plan that bankrolls tech developments, the deal would probably have taken “a lot longer” to secure, Bauerfeind said.

The 13-year-old company’s VR headgear and software is used to train for chopper landings on ships and rescuing divers from the seafloor.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Class action has been filed against national grid operator Transpower and its maintenance contractor Omexom over the toppling of a power pylon in mid-2024 that cut power to the entire Northland region.

The legal action is being taken on behalf of the roughly 20,000 businesses affected by the outage and, if successful, could end up costing the two companies millions of dollars.

Hannah Brown, a partner in Sydney-based law firm Piper Alderman, said no specific sum was mentioned in the legal papers filed late on Wednesday – but an estimate last June by economic consultants Infometrics put the cost to businesses at $60 million while the Northland Chamber of Commerce gave a figure of $80m.

A report last year by Transpower found the pylon at Glorit, northwest of Auckland, fell over on 20 June last year when contractors removed the nuts from at least two of its legs at once.

Brown said a subsequent review by the Electricity Authority concluded the collapse was caused by “entirely avoidable” factors including inadequate procedures and training.

“This wasn’t just another power outage or an accidental or unforeseeable event like a weather event or a storm. It was something that was completely avoidable, and for that reason, we think those responsible should be held to account, and if they aren’t, that just breeds a sense of complacency in the future.”

The power cut affected about 180,000 people.

Most homes had power restored within seven hours but some large businesses, such as timber mills and dairy plants, lost more than three days’ worth of production while restaurants had to throw away spoiled food.

After pressure from Northland MP Grant McCallum and the local Chamber of Commerce, Transpower and Omexom each contributed $500,000 to a “resilience fund” for projects designed to lift the region’s economy.

However, Brown said that amount was “completely disproportionate and insufficient” given the actual losses suffered by Northland businesses.

Along with Piper Alderman, the class action was being run by New Zealand law firm LeeSalmonLong and bankrolled by litigation funder Omni Bridgeway.

Brown said it was intended to be an “opt-out” lawsuit, which meant all affected businesses would be included unless they chose not to take part.

There was no cost to businesses taking part, but if the “no win, no pay” class action was successful, the law firms and funder would take a commission.

Without class action, Brown said it was hard for individual businesses to take on the might and resources of a state-owned enterprise like Transpower or a large multinational such as Omexom.

Omexom’s France-based parent company, VINCI Group, declared net income of just under $10 billion last year.

“This is about giving businesses access to justice and an opportunity to group together to fight for compensation,” she said.

Class actions have been rare in New Zealand, and reputedly hard to win, in the past.

However, Brown said that was changing thanks to recent reforms making class actions more accessible.

Successful cases, such as the ASB’s settlement in a banking class action over disclosure breaches, showed the legal landscape was evolving.

She said the law firms were confident they had a strong case, much of which was built on Transpower and Electricity Authority reports.

“We wouldn’t be pursuing this if we didn’t believe it had strong prospects,” she said.

Northland businesses affected by the outage would be invited to register and provide information about their losses.

Some were already on board but now that the class action had been filed, it would be much easier to engage openly with affected businesses across Northland.

If the class action was successful, Brown said compensation would be distributed among those businesses in proportion to their losses.

A Transpower spokesman confirmed legal papers had been served on the company late on Wednesday, but would not comment given that the matter was before the courts.

Omexom could not be contacted.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A new government rule aims to reduce hurdles for businesses developing new drones and other aviation technology.

It is part of a set of regulatory changes intended to cut red tape and help with setting up ‘sandboxes’ for rapid testing.

The government says strong safeguards will stay in place, but firms will no longer need approval for small changes to their technology from the Civil Aviation Authority.

“This will provide clearer pathways for the sector to test, trial, and grow, while ensuring strong safeguards remain in place,” Space Minister Judith Collins said in a statement on Wednesday.

It would directly benefit Tāwhaki National Aerospace Centre, which set up Special Use Airspace south of Christchurch earlier this year.

Other changes to regulations aimed to make it clearer when drones and similar technology can and can not be used.

For instance, some night operations would shift to a lower-risk category from a higher-risk one.

“They clarify that drones can be used for low-risk work like surveying and mapping without certification, and they provide clarity and certainty for technical and higher-risk activities like agricultural spraying and top dressing,” said Associate Transport Minister James Meager.

The rules comes into effect next month.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

As AI changes how we find information, New Zealand businesses are feeling the impact.

Over the past 20 years, search engines like Google replaced the Yellow Pages and changed the way information and services are found.

But AI overviews and chatbots are now ready to answer anything from “best time to travel to Japan” to “good local plumber”.

To Kiwi businesses, the change has not always been positive.

Greg Whitham – general manager for market engagement at Datacom – has decades of experience in digital communication.

He has watched the online presence of companies growing from a minor part of its strategy to something critical in capturing customers, and he is also familiar with how tech evolutions can affect businesses.

“We’ve definitely seen a dip in traffic coming onto our site, and I would imagine that there would be very few businesses or brands out there that haven’t sort of seen a significant drop off in traffic coming all the way through to their website.”

Whitham said the company’s website traffic changed dramatically this year, and they quickly adjusted to get AI’s attention.

“We’d certainly also seen an uplift in what we call zero-click impressions, so people were still seeing our content, but they were seeing it as it was being presented back to them by their AI agents. The new focus is almost less around servicing the customer and servicing the customer’s agents because it’s the customer’s agents that are effectively going to be presenting your brand, presenting your content back to what will hopefully become your end customer.”

Grant Johnson, chief executive of website company Rocketspark, said traffic from ChatGPT more than tripled this year.

It was growth that corresponded to the shift in how people seek information.

Johnson said in the age of AI-driven searches, online reputation was more important than just having the right keywords to get into Google’s top search results.

“What the LLMs are doing is they’re aggregating from so many different sources to build up a picture about you. It’s almost like, what’s your online reputation? Are you inviting your customers to leave reviews? Do you just provide a great service and a great product?”

He said reviews and recommendations in online discussions were playing an important role in AI-generated answers.

“It seems platforms like Reddit get referenced quite a bit in the AI summaries. So in some ways I feel like it’s leveling the playing field. If you’re a good business, it’s like the cream rises to the top.”

MoneyHub head of research Chris Walsh said his site was benefiting from artificial intelligence, as click rates grew.

“I don’t think this is taking anything away from us. I see the percentage month on month grow. But also, I’d say they’re quality visitors. I mean, they’ve gone to the AI, they’re engaged, and now they want to learn more and they’re probably going to spend about 10 minutes on our website.”

In September, links from AI tools sent more than 3000 visitors to the MoneyHub site – about one percent of their total traffic.

Walsh said while the percentage was low, the growth was promising.

Bret Gower – director of law firm Smith and Partners – said it was working to be quoted in the AI overview when people ask Google a legal question.

“We’ve done our own research into how Google’s AI overview references legal questions, and I’ve seen evidence of it citing our articles as a source of the basis of their answer. So I think that’s what we’re expecting. We’re going to continue to be doing it, hoping to be the cited source so that those clients that need a fact-specific answer or some certainty or even representation, they will be coming through to us as the provider of their answers in the first instance.”

Some other uses of AI were also causing other problems for businesses such as travel agents.

Travel Agents Association New Zealand chief executive Julie White said AI-generated travel plans or recommendations could ruin holidays.

“Just make sure you are well-informed and double-check and re-check the information that you’re getting (from AI) is correct. The White Lotus is a great example of people getting caught out booking through an AI. So they travel all the way to Thailand, they turn up for this magical experience to live the White Lotus experience, only to find out that the accommodation doesn’t even exist.”

And as Gower said, the trend towards AI DIY solutions was also causing headaches for lawyers.

“Anecdotally, we’re seeing a lot of clients coming to us with their own AI generated answers, I suppose in the same way that doctors were facing the Dr Google situation where the clients are turning up with a prior assessment of what their situation is.

“It’s making the work of advising clients more complicated because rather than them coming to us with an outline of what they think their issue is, they’re quite often coming to us now with an outline of what they think the solution is going to be as well. It’s interesting times.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

• RBNZ delivers expected 25 basis point rate to 2.25 percent
• It says patchy economic recovery justifies cut
• RBNZ expects inflation to ease towards 2 pct target next year
• Door left open for possible further cut
• Monetary committee voted 5-1 for a cut against hold

The Reserve Bank has cut the official cash rate to its lowest level in three years to support economic recovery.

The central bank dropped the rate by 25 basis points to 2.25 percent, the lowest since June 2022.

The bank’s rate setting committee says the economic recovery is patchy and slow but inflation is expected to ease next year, allowing another reduction.

The cut was expected and brings the OCR to a three-year low.

The cut was another split decision, which may be the last in the current cycle.

The central bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) voted five to one for a smaller cut after October’s outsized 50 point reduction.

But it noted it did not want a delay in getting inflation back into the target band mid-point, and there was “low tolerance” in the achieving that.

“The committee noted that a reduction in the OCR would help to underpin consumer and business confidence and lean against the risk that the economy recovers more slowly than needed to meet the inflation objective.”

It said inflation – which is at the top of the RBNZ’s 1-3 percent target band – was expected to ease back given the spare capacity in the economy.

“Risks to the inflation outlook are balanced. Greater caution on the part of households and businesses could slow the pace of New Zealand’s economic recovery.

“Alternatively, the recovery could be faster and stronger than expected if domestic demand proves more responsive to lower interest rates. “

Door ajar for more cuts

Most economists expect the RBNZ has now finished its rate cutting, which has seen the OCR slashed by more than 3 percentage points from 5.5 percent in just over a year, but generally agreed that the RBNZ would leave itself flexibility if the economy continues to struggle.

The MPC said it looked hard between a cut now and staying on hold.

“Leaving the OCR unchanged at this meeting would provide the optionality to lower the OCR in the future if required.”

But it did not close the door to further easing.

“Future moves in the OCR will depend on how the outlook for medium-term inflation and the economy evolves.”

The next decision is due on 18 February, when the new governor Anna Breman will have taken up her role.

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