Pros and cons in the latest NZ Health Survey.

Hazardous drinking rates have fallen from 20.4% in 2019 to 16.6% this year, and daily smoking rates have remained steady.

However, the number of daily vapers has increased from 33,000 to 480,000 over the past eight years.

Daily vaping has also increased more quickly in younger age groups, especially those aged 15-17 and 18-24 years.

Asthma and Respiratory Foundation Chief Executive Letitia Harding told Kerre Woodham that the data they’re seeing correlates to when regulations were introduced.

She says that the regulations rolled out quite slowly, and the Ministry of Health went about it wrong.

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Foodstuffs North Island chief executive Chris Quin has confirmed that the company will appeal the decision by the Commerce Commission to block its proposed merger.

Speaking on Newstalk ZB this morning, Quin said the company’s advisers had been working their way through ComCom’s reason for the decision for the last few weeks.

“The biggest concern in the document seems to be about whether suppliers would be worse off as a result of the co-op merging between the North Island and South Island,” Quin said.

“Our internal teams have the view that we passed that legal test and that the proposition we put up should have been cleared.”

Foodstuffs will appeal the decision in the High Court and expects to have officially filed its appeal by November 21.

Quin reiterated Foodstuffs' position that the two regional co-operatives in the North and South Islands don’t compete with each other in any way.

He said that if the co-operatives were merged it would make them “incredibly more efficient”.

On the suggested impacts on suppliers that ComCom posited, Quin said he briefed hundreds of suppliers after the decision last month.

“We get a lot of conversation with them almost every day on meeting with one or other and the advantages for suppliers would be dealing with one not two,” Quin said.

“The possibility would be you could do a deal to be nationally ranged, so we see a number of advantages for suppliers.”

He believed a merger would allow Foodstuffs to make prices much more competitive, ultimately benefiting consumers.

Mary Devine, chief executive of Foodstuffs South Island, also said the merger woujld bring long-term benefits to customers and communities, citing increased efficiency and faster innovation.

“Combining our operations allows us to streamline operations, reduce overheads and better invest in new technology and services that our customers want,” Devine said.

“This isn’t just a merger - it’s an evolution to ensure we remain competitive and sustainable for the future.”

Now that Foodstuffs has confirmed its appeal, the process will likely be a lengthy one.

Foodstuffs North Island and Foodstuffs South Island operate some of New Zealand’s best-known supermarket banners – New World, Pak’nSave and Four Square – and while each retails only in its respective island, the companies already collaborate across various business areas, including marketing and home-brand purchasing. Their combined revenue was nearly $13 billion in the last fiscal year.

In their application to the commission for clearance to merge, the parties essentially argued that they do not compete at either the retail or wholesale level and they would be more efficient and better equipped to drive down grocery prices as a single streamlined entity.

However, the commission was not convinced the benefits of such an arrangement would flow to customers and moreover, its main concern was that a merger would reduce the number of buyers in the “upstream market” for grocery supply from three to two – this market is currently dominated by the two Foodstuffs entities and Woolworths NZ.

In its decision, the commission noted that this reduction would be a structural change and would likely lessen competition in multiple acquisition and retail markets. It also emphasised that competition in the country’s highly concentrated grocery market was already weak.

Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business and retail.

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If I asked you how many demerit points you have right now, reckon you’d be able to tell me?

If you could, then you’re better than most people. Because, unless you get enough demerits to have your licence suspended, then I think most people don’t care.

And a study out today is telling us that we do need to care if we want to make the roads safer.

The people behind the study are telling us that most of us won’t care until we have tougher penalties for speeding. And I’m with them. Because, if we keep on doing things the way we do, not much is going to change.

Here’s the gist of what this study connected with the University of Canterbury is telling us. It's found that drivers ticketed for speeding are nearly three times more likely to be involved in a crash.

And you know why that is, don’t you? It’s because the fines for speeding are so piddly that people just take their chances.

The speed cameras don’t help, either. Because, if you get ticketed by a speed camera, you don't even get the demerit points. Because it can be difficult to prove who was driving.

So, while the speed cameras are useful, they're not going to do much in terms of slowing people down if, the only impact, is paying a piddly fine and still keeping your licence.

Which is why I like the idea that these researchers are floating today. That if you get a speeding ticket and keep on speeding, you get a higher fine each time.

I’d go a step further than that, though, and say that the fines themselves need to be way higher than what they are now.

As one of the people involved in this study is pointing out today, it’s crazy that you can actually pay more for a parking fine than for a speeding fine.

So rank up the fines each time someone is caught speeding - but sting people for a lot more than we do at the moment.

The other idea that these experts are putting out there today is, essentially, means testing people when they get fined for speeding.

Which might sound like a good idea. But it’s not.

Because someone who speeds is just as much of a menace on the road whether they’re driving some sort of Flash Harry 4-wheel-drive or whether they’re driving a Demio or a clapped-out old Toyota.

Besides which, when you drive too fast on the road you are breaking the law. So I think giving speeding fines to people on how rich they are, or otherwise, makes no sense.

Not to mention the fact that it would be an absolute nightmare to run.

Can you imagine getting pulled over by a cop? Getting some sort of ticket. Then having to go home and submit your income details and whatever else they’d need to determine what means you have to pay the fine.

It might sound like a great idea when you’re writing your research paper at university and trying to “push the envelope” a bit. But it would be a disaster.

Although, to be fair to Dr Darren Walton at the University of Canterbury, he hasn’t just plucked this idea out of thin air. He says, in Switzerland, speeding fines are scaled to wealth.

But I don't see how that would encourage someone with plenty of money to slow down. They’d just go “pfft” and pay the fine.

And I don’t buy this argument that speeding fines need to be “equitable”. That’s what the university guy is saying. You speed, you get caught, and you should pay exactly the same fine - whatever your financial situation. That’s what I think.

But, if this research is telling us that drivers ticketed for speeding are nearly three times more likely than other drivers to be involved in a crash, then something does need to change.

And I do like the idea of scaling-up the speeding fine system. So that, each time you get a ticket, you have to pay a higher fine.

What do you think?

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