Consume This

Jon Duffy & Sophie Richardson are joined by Consumer NZ advocate Aneleise Gawn. She talks us through the recently launched "Flight Rights" campaign and answers your airline related questions.

If your flight is delayed or cancelled for reasons within an airline’s control, such as staffing, operational or mechanical issues, you have rights under the Civil Aviation Act (CAA). But airlines aren’t required to tell you about these rights. Instead, they keep quiet, or worse, provide false or misleading information. And they’re not always upfront about the reason a flight is delayed or cancelled. This makes it almost impossible to work out what you’re entitled to. People are being left out of pocket and airlines are getting away with shirking their obligations under the law.

Enough is enough. We want action now. We’re calling for airlines to communicate honestly with passengers about the reason for cancellations and delays, and clearly display their rights. That's why we're running the Flight Rights campaign.

Sign the Flight Rights petition here - https://campaigns.consumer.org.nz/flight-rights

Stuck dealing with an unruly airline? Find out more about your rights - https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/your-rights-when-travelling

Donate to Consumer NZ to help fund out advocacy work and keep the pressure on - https://campaigns.consumer.org.nz/donate

To become a member of Consumer NZ check out our website.

For updates follow us on Facebook, Instagram or sign up to our mailing list here. You can get in touch via [email protected].

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New Zealand has built a mythology around meat and three veg for dinner. We have one of the highest rates of meat consumption per capita in the world, but times are changing... Particularly how much red meat we are stuffing in our faces. According to OECD Food & Agriculture statistics there has been a significant decrease in red meat consumption over the past 20 years. This fits with other research which shows a 27% rise in the number of us going vegetarian and an even larger proportion of us cutting back on the meat.

So, what’s the deal? We regularly hear through the media that farting cows are melting the ice caps, so are climate change concerns driving us to eat less flesh? Maybe.... So, should we stop eating meat and are the alternatives any better for the environment?

In this episode, we hear from 21 year old Sam Beerepoot about his decision to go vegan after attending the Auckland ‘School Strikes 4 Climate’ marches. Chat to some local butchers and Nikhil Sawant – Countdown’s head of meat – about changing consumption patterns. And filling in some of the science behind the environmental impacts of our diet, University of Otago Associate Professor Alexandra Macmillan.

Alex's research paper on “Healthy and Climate-Friendly Eating Patterns in the New Zealand Context” can be read here.

You can get in touch via [email protected]. For updates follow us on instagram or twitter.

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Is it harder than ever to buy your first home? To do that we're joined by Habitat for Humanity CEO Alan Thorp & Economist Bernard Hickey. Plus we hear from Wellingtonian Vladimir Zdravkovich on his never ending quest for home ownership. And Whangārei home owner James.

Stats NZ’s Housing in Aotearoa:2020 report shows home ownership rates have been falling since 1991 and recently hit a 70-year low. The average home in New Zealand now costs $906,532 –a 22% price increase from this time last year, according to CoreLogic’s June 2021 data. This home also requires a deposit of $181,306, $33,662 more than last year.

If you earn the average salary of $56,160 – and had that deposit a year ago – would now have to save 60% of your pre-tax salary to cover the increase. These numbers echo research that Consumer NZ has been undertaking. Our Sentiment Tracker found three out of five homeowners couldn’t afford to buy their house at its current valuation. James, a registered electrician from Whangārei purchased his home in 2018 for $450k. Since then, the property’s capital gains have exceeded his and his partner’s – a registered nurse – combined income.

But does it really matter if we own our own home? According to Habitat for Humanity chief executive Alan Thorpe the answer is yes. Tammy Ngawhika Hutchins is a prime example. In 2012, along with Habit for Humanity’s help, she got into her own home. She was determined to provide stability for her four children. Her kids had had hundreds of doctors' appointments for asthma, but after moving out of rentals – and into their own warm, dry home – their health improved dramatically. Habitat and other community housing providers are trying their best to provide affordable homes, but can only meet a small fraction of the demand. In the past 30 years, Habitat has housed 530 families. As house prices increase, Alan tells us that mission is just getting harder. But, what about the people who haven’t been quite so lucky?

Vladimir Zdravkovich moved to New Zealand 30 years ago with his parents, escaping from war-torn Yugoslavia. He’s been saving to buy a home for more than 10 years, but always feels like he has the deposit he needed a year or two ago. This feeling of futility isn’t unique to Vladimir. According to Consumer NZ’s Sentiment Tracker, 42% of non-homeowners feel completely locked out of the market. A further 20% said that they’re saving for a deposit but can’t catch up.

So, what is driving this house price unaffordability? According to economist Bernard Hickey, New Zealand has the perfect storm of low interest rates, tax-free capital gains, and high quantitative easing all combining to push up asset prices. Bernard doesn’t see much political will to solve this problem, but he does offer up a model solution: Christchurch. At $631,000 it has the cheapest average home price of the four major cities. He claims this is driven by the response to the 2011 earthquake, where the government suspended the Resource Management Act, built high- and medium-density housing, and invested heavily in infrastructure.

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This week we’re asking the question – is it possible to buy sustainable fast fashion? To answer that we’re joined by sustainable fashion consultant Jacinta FitzGerald and GoodOnYou.eco founder Gordon Renouf.

Fashion is a huge business here in Aotearoa. In 2020 we collectively spent $7.8 billion on clothes and shoes. That’s over $1,300 each.

Going back a little bit further in 2019 an estimated 63 million tons of clothing was produced globally. That’s more than the weight of 19 million Toyota corollas, 40 million hippos or 400 years worth of Italian parmesan cheese production!

All this comes at a cost. The fashion industry has a huge effect on our planet. A report from the World Economic Forum report found that fashion production accounts for 5% of our CO2 emissions. That might not sound like a lot but it’s almost three times as much as the aviation industry. And it doesn’t stop there. Clothing production also accounts for 20% of the worlds waste water, enough to fill up 37 million Olympic swimming pools.

Fast fashion gets a particularly bad name when it comes to sustainability. With a dizzying number of brands like H&M, Zara & ASOS releasing 'sustainable' and 'conscious' clothing lines, it can be a minefield to decipher what any of this actually means, and if claims are valid. And that is a real concern.

Fashion sustainability consultant and program director and Mindful Fashion NZ join us to break down exactly what “sustainability” does and doesn’t mean with respect to fashion.

A study by the Changing Markets Foundation found that “greenwashing is rife” at both high street and luxury brands. Their results said that 60 per cent of claims by UK and European fashion companies, including Zara, H&M are unsubstantiated and misleading. It’s not particularly surprising then that research has found that only 1 in 5 us trust a brands sustainability claims.

With that in mind Gordon Renouf founder of sustainable fashion rankings app ‘Good On You’ joins us to dig into the marketing and sustainability messaging of H&M, Cotton:On, Glassons, Kathmandu and Kmart. Are they really as great as their marketing department makes them sound?

You can get in touch via [email protected]. For updates follow us on instagram or twitter.

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What’s life like for our Newest New Zealanders? This episode looks at the small struggles and barriers recent arrivals need to overcome to make Aotearoa their home. Staring Rohingya Refugee Hafsar Tameesuddin, former Yugoslav Vladimir Zdravkovich, recently married couple Hassan Tahir & Mehpara Kahn, and South African Kathryn Laverock.

Our thanks this week to Open Road. You can find out more about their program here.

For updates follow us on Facebook, Instagram or sign up to our mailing list here. You can get in touch via [email protected].

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