Hypocrite Gets her Comeuppance

Well well well. It turns out that those who use the law to shut out competition have trouble complying themselves. A new coffee caravan at Piha Beach has been shut down by the Waitakere City Council because it has no food licence and may need a resource consent. It was launched at the weekend by…

Resource Managment – Yea Right

Imagine this. You’re trying to open a business. You’ve spent a 6 figure sum on building up a proposal for a cafe that will benefit the community. But there are objectors. There’s even a group setup to oppose you. One of the foundation members states in their submission: “a cafe would make Piha less unique,…

Spotless – No Sympathy from Me

If a company agrees to increase the pay of the workers, it has to fork out. If you can’t pay an increase, you just don’t agree to it in the first place. It’s unimaginable that Spotless is now backing out of a signed agreement. I’ve never heard of such a thing before, it’s an incredible…

More on Bunnings

Firstly, Andy points out that their quality is crap. If you agree, go to Mitre 10. Most stuff I’ve bought there is ok, so I’ll keep going. Frog Blog point out a few things. Bunnings workers, who belong to the National Distribution Union, and their boss have been negotiating now for nearly a year. Well,…

Don’t Work at Bunnings

NRT has a post entitled “Don’t shop at Bunnings“. Apparently, I should show my disapproval by not shopping there. I love his reasoning.  In Australia, it pays well above the minimum wage – NZ$18.44 / hour, which will increase to NZ$19/hour in July (the Australian minimum wage is A$13.74 or NZ$15.80 / hour). The reason…

Skirting around the Supermarket Duopoly

I always gape in wonder every time the left open their mouths of monopolies. Here they praise the ability of the open market to provide choice. Today and tomorrow many thousands of New Zealanders will be visiting their local farmers markets around the country, neatly skirting around New Zealand’s supermarket duopoly, and trading directly with…

The Rules Change When You Cross the Border

It’s amazing to me just how many people don’t understand simple facts about life – like foreign roaming costs. Upper Hutt mum Natalie Reid is warning parents to be careful about guaranteeing the payment of their children’s mobile phone bills without making sure they know the costs involved, after she was billed $2296 for text…

Gutherie Bowron – 35% off from now on!

Gutherie Bowron must be closing down. Well, if they weren’t before, they are now (and before they do, they need to kick the idiot who approved this very, very hard). In case you haven’t noticed, there’s no date expiry on this add. That means that anyone with a copy of this add can walk into…

PM up in arms over… ???

The Prime Minister is targeting wastage of taxpayers money. The Independent obtained Paris hotel records that it said showed up to 39 people in the official tour party. “They can’t be all physiotherapists, can they?” Clark said. The trip had cost taxpayers, she said. “Clearly, if it was sponsored by Air New Zealand, that is…

Government Messing in Business

Looking at the business pages, I realised just now that all three top stories are to do with companies the government has screwed with, most quite recent. Auckland Airport – the government put the skids on the buyout deal. Telecom – Gattung left because the government suddenly decided to unbundled the local loop, knocking billions…