The year of Zoom Welcome to the November 2020 edition of the TDB Digest. For many of our readers, lockdown life this year saw just about everything moved to Zoom or other video-conference providers, from client meetings to team chats to Friday work beers. Despite the drop in physical contact, TDB members [...]
Market studies by the Commerce Commission The government has stated it will progress legislation to allow the Commerce Commission to undertake “market studies” of various sectors. But what are market studies; what will be the scope of such studies; who will be able to initiate them and who will pay; and which [...]
Funding fire and emergency services On 1 July last year, fire and emergency services in New Zealand were amalgamated into one entity, Fire and Emergency Services NZ (FENZ). The amalgamation was accompanied by a remarkable 40% increase in average levies. In a recent report for the Property Council, TDB reviewed the funding [...]
Georgia - The Public Sector Balance Sheet The New Zealand government currently owns thirteen state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The Georgian government on the other hand owns approximately 160 SOEs with a further 70-plus owned by local government. Over the last year, TDB director Phil Barry has had the opportunity to work on behalf [...]
The Mixed Ownership Model Between 2011 and 2014, the government sold down its ownership in Meridian, Mercury and Genesis Energy and listed 49 percent of each company’s shares under the “mixed-ownership model” (MoM). In a recent report, TDB reviewed the performance of these three MoM companies since their sharemarket listing. We found [...]
Funding New Zealand's fire-services TDB is pleased to have contributed to the work of the Property Council that has led to the government announcing a review of the funding of fire services in New Zealand. The government has said it recognises the problems with the current regime’s reliance on property insurance levies [...]
Improving local government funding The Productivity Commission is undertaking an enquiry into ways to improve local government funding. As part of a submission for Foodstuffs NZ, TDB analysed the use of development contributions (DCs) by local councils. Development contributions are a fee charged by councils on new developments to contribute to the [...]
Becoming smoke-free It is looking unlikely that New Zealand will be smoke-free by 2025. Although smoking rates have declined since 2011, they still remain high, particularly among Maori and Pacific. At the current rates, we predict smoking will persist well into the second half of the century. The effectiveness of ever-rising tobacco [...]
Risk-based regulation in aviation Risk-based regulation is not only a catchy term, it is an important principle – especially in the transport sector. Some risks can be difficult to assess (such as those related to highly unlikely occurrences), however failing to undertake risk analysis can result in regulation which is not fit-for-purpose. [...]
Gas Governance Review The gas sector is currently co-regulated by the Government and industry-owned Gas Industry Company (GIC). This co-regulation has been the case since 2004, though major gas outages last year have raised the question, do we need to rethink this governance model? In our recent report for the Major Electricity [...]