Auckland, March 12, 2020 A key but often underestimated consideration for developers is the cost and impact of Development Contributions (DCs). These costs are confirmed by the City Council after lodgement of Resource Consent; however, getting a good idea of the likely cost of Development Contributions prior to lodgement of resource consent is vital to assessing the profitability of your…
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YEP, training our youth is an economic imperative
Auckland, March 13, 2020 An Auckland based organisation is advocating training young people as an economic imperative with a major role for businesses. Youth Employability Programme (YEP) helps 14-24 year-olds to gain the insight, confidence and skills to get work, keep work and create careers. An initiative of COMET Auckland- Te Hononga Akoranga, YEP is supported by Employers and Manufacturers…
Read MoreMoney transfer company fined $2.55 million for money laundering
Supplied content Jiaxin Finance Limited, assisted by its owner Qiang Fu and his mother Fuqin Che, have been convicted of offences under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Act. Between April 2015 and May 2016, Jiaxin Finance and its brokers were responsible for remitting over $53 million into New Zealand for an international customer. The charges Jiaxin…
Read MoreReforms and potential create fresh hopes for Indian Partnership
Venkat Raman New Zealand appears to have struck the right chord with India and if the statements coming from the Indian capital are any indication, there could be fresh hopes for closer ties. Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker have just concluded a four-day visit (from February 25 to 28, 2020) to India, which…
Read MoreTwo 100k donations to National in Auckland Court
Tim Murphy The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) prosecution of four people over donations to the National Party involves not one, but two $100,000 donations – in June 2017 and June 2018. Court charging documents released to the media by order of Auckland District Court Judge Edwin Paul on February 17, 2020 show that three of the four defendants – whose…
Read MoreJami Lee-Ross among accused in National donation case
Jane Patterson Former National MP, and now Independent, Jami-Lee Ross, has been named today as one of the four people facing Serious Fraud Office (SFO) charges in relation to two $100,000 donations made to the National Party. The three other defendants: Yikun Zhang, Shijia Zheng and Hengjia Zheng applied to have their interim name suppression lifted yesterday, and today in…
Read MoreParty Funding: New Zealand can learn from Canada and Seattle
Tim Barnett At a time when Party funding has become a media hot topic, with both New Zealand First and National Party funding under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), and prosecutions related to National Party funding, it is timely to take a broader view of the whole issue of political Party funding in New Zealand. The funding of…
Read MoreMedia apathy endangers democratic traditions
Gurbrinder Aulakh It is said that (Roman Emperor) Nero played on the fiddle while Rome burnt. I think that the New Zealand media is doing the same right now. Two of their own have been photographed and published on a blog to scare and unleash vitriolic online bashing; yet a majority of the media appears to have turned a blind…
Read MoreWHO’s exclusion policy isolates 23 million Taiwanese
Liu Yeong-Jainn In November 2002, the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), originating in Southern China, recorded 8098 cases and claimed 774 lives worldwide, including 73 deaths in Taiwan, the third highest toll next to mainland China and Hong Kong. Major omission When SARS broke out, due to international politics involving China, Taiwan was deprived of direct access to first-hand…
Read MoreWuhan 2020 brings scary reminders of Surat 1994
Some matters must be in public domain for better management of crisis Barjor Mehta During an exceptionally rainy August in 1994, pneumonic plague broke out in the city of Surat in Western India. A quarter of that city’s then population of a little over a million people, mostly poor migrant workers from other parts of the country, panicked and dispersed…
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