Westpac economic confidence survey: NZ Post delivers thousands of Christmas parcels as consumer confidence picks up
20 Dec, 2020 03:00 AM
5 minutes to read
NZ Post Bay of Plenty regional manager Jenny Nikora says staff delivered about 132,000 items across the region during the second week of December. Photo / Zoe Hunter
Thousands of Christmas parcels are being delivered across the Bay of Plenty each week as NZ Post hires more staff and courier vans to cater for the demand. One Tauranga courier delivered more than 300 parcels to one residential area in just one day while Rotorua staff had their busiest day with 146 cubic metres of freight for its customers.
Covid 19 coronavirus: Liam Dann - Content or complacent? New Zealand s happiness dilemma
19 Dec, 2020 04:00 PM
5 minutes to read
OPINION:
I feel like we are heading into this summer break a happier nation than we were last year.
That s a bit nuts, but I guess it s just the way human brains are wired. The secret of happiness . is a variation on the general principle of banging your head against a wall, and then stopping, wrote author Stef Penney in the novel The Tenderness of Wolves.
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That s one of my favourite quotes and I confess I have used it in a year-ender column once before.
Liam Dann: Content or complacent? New Zealand s happiness dilemma nzherald.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nzherald.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Brian Fallow: Covid s clouds look less gloomy
17 Dec, 2020 04:00 PM
6 minutes to read
Lockdown s empty streets and closed businesses proved less costly than expected. Photo / Dean Purcell
OPINION:
The economic forecasts we got from the Treasury on Wednesday could be described as not so bad: not so bad as they were, and not so bad that they can t get worse. It is a less grim outlook than in the pre-election economic and fiscal update three months ago and much less scary than in May s Budget.
The hit to economic output during the June quarter s lockdown was less than expected and the subsequent recovery has been swifter, encouraging the Treasury to conclude it had overestimated the impact of the various alert levels.
Aussie regulator ASIC has
investigated school banking programs. It found these programs claim to help children develop long term savings habits; however, providers were unable to demonstrate that in and of themselves they improve savings behaviour. They also found payments to schools for implementing school banking programs incentivise schools to encourage greater participation in the programs. Another finding is that young children are vulnerable consumers and are exposed to sophisticated advertising and marketing tactics by school banking program providers. And finally, ASIC said school banking program providers failed to disclose that a strategic objective of these programs is customer acquisition.