Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915

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Subject: search.filters.subject.1801 Law

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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Protecting the Consumer by Fighting Fake and Manipulated Online Reviews (2022) 29 CCLJ 65
    (LexisNexis Australia, 2022-07-18) O'Sullivan, P
    Online reviews have a significant impact on consumers and review authenticity must be safeguarded to avoid abuse of consumer trust in decision making. The fight against online reviews which mislead or deceive consumers becomes more difficult as the means of manipulation of the review process becomes more sophisticated. In ACCC v Meriton Property Services Pty Ltd (2017) 350 ALR 494, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission successfully prosecuted an accommodation provider for manipulating customer reviews on the Tripadvisor website. In 2019, the Commerce Commission in New Zealand achieved a significant result in Commerce Commission v Bachcare Ltd [2019] NZDC 25483 which also involved review manipulation. Bachcare Ltd had systematically removed poor guest reviews from its accommodation booking website. These cases show how the manipulation of reviews can be quite sophisticated and difficult to detect. Prosecuting authorities need all the weapons possible to fight fake or manipulated reviews. This article recommends expanding and strengthening the arsenal in New Zealand by encouraging a broad approach to the definition of ‘conduct’ in the Fair Trading Act 1986 (NZ) , similar to that taken by the Federal Court of Australia in Meriton, introducing a new offence of impersonating a consumer and imposing obligations on review website operators to incorporate robust fake review detection mechanisms into their websites.
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    Ministers, minders and the core executive: Why ministers appoint political advisers in Westminster contexts
    (Oxford University Press, 2014-07) Shaw RH; Eichbaum C
    Political advisers are now an established feature of the executive branch of government in the community of Westminster nations. However, there have been few attempts to establish why ministers appoint political staff, and even fewer that are empirically grounded in politicians' own experiences and reflections. The purposes of this article are to (i) establish ministers' motives for appointing political advisers, (ii) to theorise those motives through the lens of core executive studies and (iii) to assess the degree to which findings in one empirical setting enjoy wider applicability. Drawing on data from New Zealand, we find evidence that recourse to political advisers is one response to the multiple demands made of ministers in the context of contemporary governance; while that imperative has wider application, we also find that ministers' requirements are structured by personal and institutional variables which are contextually specific.
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    Tourism in Pacific island countries: A status quo round‐up
    (John Wiley and Sons Australia and Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University, 22/09/2018) Movono A; Cheer JM; Pratt S; Tolkack D; Bailey A; Taumoepeau S
    In the 21st century, Pacific island countries (PICs) continue to leverage for tourism the attributes that have imbued them, including appeals to their cultural, geographical, and climatic allure. However, the question raised more frequently by many is why despite the many decades of tourism across the region, development impacts from the sector remain largely muted. The key remit of this paper is to offer a status quo round‐up of tourism in PICs and to draw on key emergent themes that underlay the present context. There is little doubt that for policymakers and their international development partners, whether tourism has or can lead to enduring development outcomes remains clouded in questions over whether there is ample evidence available to support such assertions. However, this has failed to dampen the enthusiasm of multilateral agencies that promote the notion that tourism's potential remains largely underdeveloped. With largely narrow economic bases, PICs have little choice but to seek further development of tourism despite the many fundamental constraints that make them less competitive than Southeast Asian destinations.
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    Tempting the Fate of the furious: cyber security and autonomous cars
    (Routledge, 27/05/2022) McLachlan S; Schafer B; Dube K; Kyrimi E; Fenton N
    The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN ECE) has developed new aspects of its WP.29 agreement for harmonising vehicle regulations, focusing on the regulation of vehicle manufacturers’ approaches to ensuring vehicle cyber security by requiring implementation of an approved cyber security management system (CSMS). This paper investigates the background, framework and content of WP.29’s cyber security regulation. We provide an overall description of the processes required to become certified, discuss key gaps, issues and the impacts of implementation on stakeholders, and provide recommendations for manufacturers and the authorities who will oversee the operation. Putting the discussion into a broader theoretical framework on risk certification, we explore to the role of non-academic sources to shape public risk perception and to drive, for better or worse, legislative responses.
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    Investigating the relationship between reworks and contractual claims: The salience of contract conditions
    (American Society of Civil Engineers, 1/02/2022) Asadi R; Rotimi JOB; Wilkinson S
    Statistics show a high rate of contractual claims in construction projects, impacting the construction industry's progress negatively. Rework is one of the main underlying factors that generate contractual claims. Rework and contractual claims follow a mutual routine. Despite a large number of studies on the causes and impacts of rework on project performance, there has been limited research examining the relationship between claims and rework on the basis of contract documents. The paper first attempts to expose the sources of rework through a systematic literature review and then assesses rework causes that fail to be addressed in construction contract documents. The review results identified 37 root causes as the most common rework contributors to construction projects classified into five groups. The list of rework causes served as a starting point for searching the contractual issues through a questionnaire survey. Accordingly, a relative importance index was used for analysis of the primary data collected from the survey. The result first prioritized the importance level of rework causes in generating contractual claims, preceding rework causes that are not addressed adequately through standard form of contract conditions in construction projects. Findings of the investigations revealed that the general conditions of contract do not address the causes of rework adequately. Therefore, contract documents need improvement to cover contractual claims incidences due to rework. Lack of addressing rework causes in the general conditions of contract triggers recommendations for revising the contract clauses that ultimately lead to improved claim handling and dispute avoidances.
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    Evaluating land use and emergency management plans for natural hazards as a function of good governance: A Case Study from New Zealand
    (Beijing Normal University Press, 2015-03) Saunders W; Grace E; Beban J; Johnston DM
    Plan evaluation is of utmost importance as a function of good governance. It provides a means to improve the institutional basis for implementing land use controls, provides an important opportunity to improve future plans to reduce risk, and improves the vision for sustainable development and management. This article provides an overview of the methods and findings of a plan evaluation project undertaken in New Zealand. The project analyzed 99 operative plans, provided in-depth analysis of ten plans, and included a capability and capacity study of councils. This is the first time all operative plans in New Zealand have had their natural hazard provisions assessed in this manner. The information provides an important baseline for future policy improvements, and a basis for future research and policy directions. The project found that, while New Zealand land use plans appear to be improving over time, there are still opportunities for improvement. These include improving linkages between objectives, policies, and rules within land use plans; and strengthening the linkages between land use and emergency management plans. The largest challenge is the accessibility, understanding of, and updating of hazard information.
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    Intimacy for older adults in long-term care: a need, a right, a privilege-or a kind of care?
    (BMJ Publishing Group, 28/09/2022) Schouten V; Henrickson M; Cook CM; McDonald S; Atefi N
    Background To investigate attitudes of staff, residents and family members in long-term care towards sex and intimacy among older adults, specifically the extent to which they conceptualise sex and intimacy as a need, a right, a privilege or as a component of overall well-being. Methods The present study was a part of a two-arm mixed-methods cross-sectional study using a concurrent triangulation design. A validated survey tool was developed; 433 staff surveys were collected from 35 facilities across the country. Interviews were conducted with 75 staff, residents and family members. Results It was common for staff, residents and family members to talk about intimacy and sexuality in terms of rights and needs. As well as using the language of needs and rights, it was common for participants to use terms related to well-being, such as fun, happiness or being miserable. One participant in particular (a staff member) described receiving intimate touch as a ‘kind of care’—a particularly useful way of framing the conversation. Conclusion While staff, residents and family frequently used the familiar language of needs and rights to discuss access to intimate touch, they also used the language of well-being and care. Reframing the conversation in this way serves a useful purpose: it shifts the focus from simply meeting minimum obligations to a salutogenic approach—one that focuses on caring for the whole person in order to improve overall well-being and quality of life.
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    Smart automotive technology adherence to the law: (de)constructing road rules for autonomous system development, verification and safety
    (Oxford University Press, 22/02/2022) McLachlan S; Neil M; Dube K; Bogani R; Fenton N; Schaffer B
    Driving is an intuitive task that requires skill, constant alertness and vigilance for unexpected events. The driving task also requires long concentration spans, focusing on the entire task for prolonged periods, and sophisticated negotiation skills with other road users including wild animals. Modern motor vehicles include an array of smart assistive and autonomous driving systems capable of subsuming some, most, or in limited cases, all of the driving task. Building these smart automotive systems requires software developers with highly technical software engineering skills, and now a lawyer’s in-depth knowledge of traffic legislation as well. This article presents an approach for deconstructing the complicated legalese of traffic law and representing its requirements and flow. Our approach (de)constructs road rules in legal terminology and specifies them in ‘structured English logic’ that is expressed as ‘Boolean logic’ for automation and ‘Lawmaps’ for visualization. We demonstrate an example using these tools leading to the construction and validation of a ‘Bayesian Network model’. We strongly believe these tools to be approachable by programmers and the general public, useful in development of Artificial Intelligence to underpin motor vehicle smart systems, and in validation to ensure these systems are considerate of the law when making decisions.