Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

The government has announced plans to increase fines from $600,000 to $5 million or more for breaching the Fair Trading Act.

It is also backing away from a ban on directors taking out indemnity insurance, and proposals to expand infringement fees and unfair contract terms provisions.

Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Scott Simpson said the change would be made through a bill to be introduced to Parliament in early 2026.

The legislation would increase the fines to whichever was highest – three times the value of the commercial gain made, the total value of the transactions or $5m for body corporates and $1m for individuals.

The current penalty is a maximum $600,000 for body corporates or $200,000 for individuals.

It would also introduce a new civil penalties regime for most breaches of the Act, allowing the Commerce Commission to take action on the balance of probabilities, rather than meeting the higher criminal standard of proof.

Serious or deliberate offences – like demanding payment without intending to supply, serious product safety breaches or obstructing the Commerce Commission – would remain criminal.

Penalties for breaching a management ban would also increase from $60,000 to $200,000. Penalties for other conduct – like breaching consumer information requirements, consumer transaction rules and impeding enforcement – would also increase from $10,000 for individuals and $30,000 for body corporates, to $60,000 and $200,000.

Gains from breaching the Act under the current system could sometimes outweighed the penalties, Willis said.

“The new regime will eliminate the financial incentives for breaching the Act,” she said.

“They will also help to ensure businesses who play by the rules are not disadvantaged by competitors using unfair means to woo their customers away from them. The existing rules do little to prevent large retailers from further entrenching their market dominance.”

The changes would bring New Zealand more into line with similar countries. For example, Australia hands down penalties for fair trading laws of up to three times the commercial benefit, 30 percent of turnover, or AU$50m (NZ$57.74m).

Willis and Simpson pointed to a 23 percent increase in the number of fair trading complaints made to the Commerce Commission in the past five years.

The same businesses had in some cases breached the law more than once, Simpson said.

“These changes will ensure the law provides stronger incentives to comply and stronger consequences for those who don’t.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Police have arrested a person and launched a homicide investigation in the Far North, after reports of an assault.

Emergency services were called to a property on Okahu Road in Kaitaia at about 12.35pm Sunday.

Detective Inspector Geoff McCarthy said the victim was found in a critical condition and died at the scene, “despite emergency services’ best efforts”.

A person was arrested at a different address a short time later and police were not seeking anyone else at this stage,

Cordons were in place and a scene examination was due to take place on Monday.

A 57-year-old woman is also due to appear in Kaitaia District Court on Monday, with charges to be confirmed.

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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 political party founded by businessman Gareth Morgan almost 10 years ago has unveiled a new leader and new look.

Touted as a builder of sustainable businesses, Aucklander Qiulae Wong will lead Opportunity – formerly The Opportunities Party – into the 2026 election.

The party has been leaderless since 2023 and the announcement follows a nationwide search for the role.

To date, it is yet to reach the five percent threshold to enter parliament.

In 2023, it scooped 2.2 percent of the vote – 0.2 percent shy of its best election result of 2.4 percent in 2017 – under Morgan.

The party says Wong has founded and supported several start-ups in the fashion sector in London, “working to build ethical and sustainable practices into global brands like Vivienne Westwood and Stella McCartney”.

She returned to New Zealand in 2022 and has most recently worked at financial consultancy firm KPMG.

Wong said the party stands for transformative system change and would break the gridlock of left-right bloc politics.

Opportunity has also revealed its “tax reset” policy, which includes a Citizen’s Income, a Land Value Tax and Flat Income tax.

Wong said New Zealand needed a tax reset.

“We can’t keep patching and tinkering with the foundations that hold up this country,” Wong said.

“Our addiction to high house prices is robbing young Kiwis of security, and locking capital away from the innovators and community champions, who are building our future.

“It’s time to modernise tax.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Privacy commissioner Michael Webster says the country’s laws must be modernised to protect better New Zealanders.

Privacy complaints have risen by a fifth in the last financial year and serious privacy breaches notified by organisations have risen more than 40 percent, the commission’s 2024/25 annual report said.

One case study in the report included screenshots of a school teacher’s messages to their colleagues being sent to the principal, after their Google and Facebook accounts were left logged in on their work laptop, despite leaving the job.

At first, the school resisted the commission investigation, but later conceded it had breached the collection principles of the Act and interfered with all three teachers’ privacy.

“We assisted the parties to reach a suitable resolution,” the case study said.

Webster said, in the recent survey, 80 percent of respondents wanted more control over collection and use of their personal information, and about two-thirds worried for their or their children’s privacy.

It was “easy to see why”, Webster said.

“People are right to worry, as more needs to be done to improve New Zealander’s privacy. The Privacy Act currently provides insufficient incentives for many organisations to understand or meet even the most basic privacy requirements.”

The annual report said financial incentives were lacking “to take privacy seriously”.

“This situation means that many agencies have a low level of understanding of the Act.”

Webster’s office is seeking amendments to the law in an attempt to up incentives and give people more power to make agencies delete their personal information.

“Our 2025 survey also showed strong support for strengthening the Privacy Commissioner’s powers.”

The annual report showed a 21 percent jump in complaints to almost 1600 and serious privacy breach notifications up 43 percent to almost 600.

The rise in volumes slowed down their response time since the year before.

“The key challenge facing us is the increasing volumes, and complexity of privacy breaches and complaints we are receiving.”

However, almost 90 percent of complaints were still closed within six months. Its “fast resolve” track, which handled 1200 complaints, had helped.

All its investigations that were externally reviewed scored higher than 3.5 out of five.

One goal was to crack down more, the report said.

“Continuing to strengthen our compliance and enforcement function is a key area of strategic focus”, alongside educating organisations about the law.

The report gave an example of holding Oranga Tamariki to account this year for “grievous” breaches, as RNZ reported, based on a review only released publicly almost a year after it was completed.

The office’s government funding had dropped from $8.1m to $7.6m.

“Even when our funding was [previously] increased, it was to a level below what we had recommended to implement the significant new responsibilities and powers that the Act provided us.”

Inflation and cost savings since had “subsequently diminished our funding in real terms”.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Drivers are being asked to avoid Central Otago’s Kawerau Gorge after a two-vehicle crash left a car in a bank.

Police said several people were injured in the crash on State Highway 6 between Gibbston and Cromwell, which happened around midday on Sunday.

The New Zealand Transport Agency said the road may need to be closed and asked people to avoid the area.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

• General Practice Owners Association moves to set up another PHO after big corporates do likewise
• GenPro says it’s responding to demand from members fed up with red tape and costs
• PHOs say GPs already get 100 percent of patient funding but they have a bigger mandate

Frustration among general practice owners with what they call “bloated bureaucracy” is behind a move to set up a breakaway nationwide primary health organisation (PHO).

The General Practice Owners Association (GenPro), which has made an application to Health NZ, said it would ensure more money for frontline patient care.

Its chair, Dr Angus Chambers, said the new entity would be a standalone organisation, enabling GenPro to continue to advocate for its members without any conflict of interest.

“GenPro is not and will not be a PHO. But we’d welcome a lean, cost-effective PHO for GenPro members that reduces the bureaucratic burden on the health system and facilitates greater funding for high-quality, sustainable, accessible, and equitable front-line patient care.”

PHOs are not-for-profit organisations, funded by Health NZ to oversee primary care, including general practices.

There are currently about 30 PHOs, made up of practices working together to care for the patients enrolled with them.

GenPro’s move comes in the same week that Green Cross became the second big corporate to receive approval from Health NZ to set up its own PHO.

Its 54 practices – which are currently distributed among multiple PHOs – will shift to a stand-alone entity, Community Care Ltd, from 1 July 2026.

Another corporate provider, Tend, started operating its own PHO in July after receiving approval in May.

Chambers said his members feared this would give the corporates a competitive advantage.

“There’s a lot of concern among our members that we’re heading towards a duopoly like the supermarkets in primary healthcare, and we want to see the settings changed to prevent that because it’s not good for consumers.”

A report by retired accountant Murray Lilley earlier this year highlighted the growth in “bureaucracy” within PHOs, and suggested they were siphoning off too much government funding before it reached frontline GPs.

The Lilley report was criticised for ignoring PHOs’ role in population health, including programmes for mental health, diabetes, immunisation, sexual health, smoking cessation and community radiology.

Chambers said while he was not sure that all the conclusions drawn from the report were accurate, it did “mirror concerns” among some GPs regarding PHOs, especially around “transparency”.

“Many feel we’re struggling, some have borderline viability, and we see PHOs growing and that really concerns our members.”

Current policy settings and existing PHO structures had significant problems, he said.

“These include conflicts of interest between patient care and commercial operations, bloated governance and management costs, a focus on accumulating reserves instead of funding front-line services, regional variations creating a postcode lottery, and trust issues.

“The new PHO will aim to address these challenges head on.”

PHOs respond

General Practice NZ, which represents PHOs, said as registered charities, they were set up for transparency and obliged to publish audited accounts.

Its chair, Dr Bryan Betty, a Porirua GP, said PHOs were not simply responsible for passing on capitation funding (the funding for enrolled patients), but also for delivering wider population health activities.

“At the moment 100 percent of capitation gets passed through directly to practices and the majority of what we call ‘flexible funding’ [for mental health, diabetes and a range of other services] also gets passed through to general practices.

“But what remains in the PHO is for things like practice support: data and digital, supporting high needs practices that may be marginally sustainable, to ensuring things like interpretation services, transport for rural patients – a whole range of services that practices may not be able to provide on their own.”

There were some problems with the current funding mechanisms, he conceded.

“There is a need for more funding to be flexible to support patients across a region to access timely medical care, to access immunisation, screening, and other primary care services.

“Most individual practices can’t afford specialist diabetes nurses or podiatrist, for instance, they need to work across a group of practices.”

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