John Bishop

Labour's new president is calling for government intervention to regulate executive pay and bonuses.

Andrew Little, who is also secretary of the Engineers, Printing and Manufacturing Union, wants the state to intervene "to avert excessive and extreme rewards."

He cited cases of multi-million dollar payouts to bank CEOs and others in the USA even after the bank had been bailed out by taxpayers.

"While the excesses apparent overseas have not been replicated in New Zealand the culture in many companies here is for excessive and disproportionate rewards unrelated to performance to be paid to a small group of executives," Mr Little said.

A study of internal communications practices in New Zealand organisations has found that the communicators rely on anecdotal evidence rather than scientifically gathered data to show the value of their work.

Under these circumstances, the study's authors say," it is difficult to prove that the communications activities are making any real contribution to organisational goals."

The findings of the study by Massey University communications students Kate McDavitt and Bruce Faull were presented to communicators in Wellington last night.

Three quarters of the 78 communications professionals who completed the online survey were from central and local government.

The Commerce Commission is gearing itself to receive an increase in companies applying for clearance to merge on the basis of a "failing firm" argument.

"In the current economic climate the Commission expects more firms to put forward an argument that they are failing and that the only option is to sell to a competitor that already has a substantial degree of market power", commission competition branch director Deb Battell says.

She made it clear to a business audience in Wellington last week that while failing firm arguments would be appropriate in certain circumstances, firms would still be expected to put a robust case to the Commission.

Published in the National Business Review of 27 July 2007

Greater use of wind power is likely to mean more uncertainty in the electricity system, an issues paper from the Electricity Commission says.

Ironically for advocates of green electricity and those seeking to reduce greenhouse gases more wind turbines could result in more use of thermal stations.

The Electricity Commission and Transpower modeled four scenarios with the amount of wind power ranging from 420 MW to 2 250 MW. Increasing use of wind power would increase "the variability and unpredictability" in the system, according to the commission's paper.