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The article focuses on the proposal about consumer guarantees in Australia. The proposal aims to improve consumer well-being through consumer empowerment and protection which encourages effective competition between consumers and suppliers in the market. Member of Parliament Dr. Craig Emerson released an Issues Paper on behalf of the Commonwealth Consumer Affairs Advisory Council (CCAAC), which is in in-charge on the review of the consumer law. The paper examined the adequacy of the existing laws on implied terms and the need for amendments if any. The adoption of Consumer Guarantees Act (CGA) of New Zealand (NZ) will provide greater certainty and clarity of the proposal.

The Fair Trading Amendment Act 2021 introduced a New Zealand prohibition on "unconscionable conduct" in trade. Previously, the law on unconscionable conduct was found in the equitable doctrine of unconscionable bargain. This article describes how New Zealand law has moved away from equitable unconscionability with this new prohibition. This article critically analyses some of the legal, social and economic justifications for introducing the prohibition, finding that some of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's justifications are not persuasive. The s 7 prohibition is based strongly on an equivalent section in the Australian Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth). It is argued that long-standing doctrinal issues with Australia's prohibition provided a strong basis for New Zealand to pursue a different standard. Finally, this article explores the "unfair commercial practices" doctrines in the United States and European Union through the lens of anticonsumer practices in digital marketplaces. The conclusion is that the unfair commercial practices doctrine captures a wider range of anti-consumer conduct than does unconscionable conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia enacted its multinational anti-avoidance law (MAAL) in December 2015 to prevent large multinationals using contrived selling arrangements implemented in order to avoid attributing business profits to Australia. Heavily influenced by Australia's MAAL, the New Zealand Government released its own discussion document in March 2017 proposing a permanent establishment avoidance rule (PEAR) targeting multinationals with more than €750m annual consolidated global turnover. It is unsurprising that NZ is likely to be the first country to follow Australia by introducing its own version of the MAAL. Tax policymakers of both countries experience the same challenges in relation to the digital economy, resulting from the fact that Australia and NZ are typically viewed as end-user market jurisdictions by multinational enterprises. This article provides a comprehensive comparison of the MAAL and the PEAR, including a summary of the key requirements and the main consequences of both measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumer protection statutes in both Australia and New Zealand impose obligations on people who are in trade. Courts have consistently interpreted the 'in trade' limitation as excluding private transactions. In New Zealand, a statutory provision operative since 2014 requires all sellers 'in trade' who transact over the internet to make it clear to consumers that they are a 'vendor in trade'. This helps consumers buying online to assess whether or not they are protected by consumer legislation. This article explores the emerging interpretation difficulties presented by the private seller exclusion in an age of online selling where the distinction between a commercial seller and a private seller is not always clear. The article considers whether there are good reasons, both in terms of policy and as a matter of statutory interpretation, to abandon the idea that private transactions are not 'in trade' and, therefore, not subject to consumer protection legislation. If the private seller exclusion is not abandoned, it is argued that there is an urgent need to update consumer legislation to clarify when sellers cross the line from being a seller entering a private transaction to being a person acting 'in trade'. Recommendations are made for the development of new statutory guidelines and definitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We quantify how output risks are smoothed within Australia, and between Australia and New Zealand. About 90 per cent of shocks were smoothed within Australia through credit and capital markets, with fiscal policy a source of dis-smoothing after 1992. Risk-sharing between Australia and New Zealand was greater than within Europe, occurring mostly through credit markets. Fully integrated financial markets between Australia and New Zealand before 1983 would have yielded a welfare gain of 8.9 per cent of certainty-equivalent consumption for New Zealand, but a loss of 1.7 per cent for Australia. These gains (losses) were largely resolved by the deregulations and trade agreement of the early 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looks at the citizen-based deliberative approaches used in the debate on whether or not, and to what degree, to allow genetically modified (GM) crops by Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand. Moratorium on the introduction of GM crops put in place in Great Britain, while the U.S. has seen no organized public opposition to GM crops; Goal of the three countries to broaden the public approval basis for a final political decision on GM crops; Growth of GM crops on 59 million hectares globally, in just four countries including the U.S., Argentina, Canada and China; Information on the GM crop debates in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. INSETS: Controversy Over GM Crops in the United kingdom;Sample Background Briefing Material used in the U.K. GM Debate.