Hamilton & Waikato

It wouldn't be a bad job. Surrounded by makeup and perfume all day but one of New Zealand's biggest retailers can't seem to get anyone to do it.

As the unemployment rate reaches a 10-year high, with the number of unemployed people now standing at 168,000, Farmers is struggling to fill 30 jobs manning its beauty and fragrance counters.

The human resources department has been reduced to running recruitment evenings in Hamilton and Auckland to inform candidates about a career in the beauty industry and to identify the qualities that make sales professionals.

"We're interested in hearing from new beauty graduates, seasoned industry professionals and sales professionals looking for a change in industry," says Sheila Naidoo, head of HR for Farmers. According to recent statistics from the Department of Labour, there should be an overload of retail workers in the job market, said Ms Naidoo.

"Even if they don't have beauty industry experience, if they have a passion for beauty products and a desire to work with prestigious brands, we can train them," she said.

Lorraine Reay, Clinique counter manager at Farmers, Hamilton city store, prides herself on being able to connect with people.

"Being a counter manager is a bit like being a successful real estate agent. You have to think of yourself as being self-employed, even though you work for Farmers."

Ms Naidoo said Farmers was looking for staff like Ms Reay who had come to Farmers with previous experience in hospitality.

Ms Naidoo said Farmers was willing to look beyond an applicant's immediate work experience to fill the positions.

She said while beauty may be considered more of a female industry several men were doing well at Farmers.

David Marris, fragrance sales professional, celebrated his sixth anniversary at Farmers Hamilton store this month.

Asked what type of person is suited to a career in fragrance or cosmetics, Mr Marris said: "A focus on customer service is essential . . . and of course a love for the product certainly helps."

Ms Naidoo said the recruitment drive would start at the new Farmers store opening at The Base, in Te Rapa, Hamilton on May 4.

--------------------

CAPTION:
Vacancies galore: Lorraine Feay, of Clinique, and David Marris, of Fragrance in a Farmers store where their products are sold. However, Farmers is struggling to get good employees for its beauty departments.
Picture: KATRINA BIELESKI

Waikato supermarket owners are "blown away" by figures showing a 42.5 per cent rise in food prices since 2000.

The news has prompted Labour consumer spokeswoman Carol Beaumont to call for the Government to encourage more competition in the supermarket sector.

New Zealand grocery prices have risen 42.5 per cent between 2000 and 2009, followed by Australia which pays 41.3 per cent more, Britain's prices rose 32.9 per cent and America's were up 28.4 per cent, according to a study out yesterday.

Pak `n Save Mill St owner Glenn Miller said he was trying to obtain a grocery bill from nine years ago as he and his staff doubted the cost of many grocery items had risen to that extent.

He said a can of spaghetti cost 90c in 2000 and now customers would pay $1.09 for the same can. "At Pak n Save the margin we enjoy is lower than many other countries in the world and we think we are still very competitive given manufacturing cost and we try and keep our overheads down," said Mr Miller, who believes Pak `n Save is extremely competitive.

Vege King owner Swaran Singh said prices at his Fairfield fruit and vegetable shop would have risen by up to 10 per cent at the most. In some cases prices had not changed. He said the price tag on asparagus had stayed at $3.99 since 2000.

Progressive Enterprises, which owns Countdown, Woolworths and Foodtown, blamed international events such as drought as the main drivers of food inflation. Progressive spokesman Bill Moore said the group was consistently striving to offer the best prices and its profitability had remained at between 3 and 4 per cent since Australian-owned Woolworths Limited purchased Progressive four years ago. The group said there was plenty of competition between supermarkets, delis, butchers, green grocers and bakeries.

But Ms Beaumont has questioned why New Zealand is not following the example of Australia's Competition Minister, Craig Emerson, whose government was taking "hard measures" and lowering the barriers to other retailers competing with Coles and Woolworths on that side of the Tasman.

She was critical of Consumer Affairs Minister Heather Roy's suggestion that New Zealanders "shop around" to combat some of the fastest-rising food prices in the developed world, saying it had attracted widespread criticism. It was "poor advice" to families struggling with soaring food bills, Ms Beaumont said.

Public comments on news websites and on talkback radio produced a stream of consumers critical of grocery pricing, with many calling for overseas chains such as Aldi and Costco to compete against New Zealand's Foodstuffs (which owns Pak `n Save and New World) and Progressive Enterprises.

Hamish Wilson, of Consumer New Zealand, said there had been some attempts by other companies, such as The Warehouse, to break into the supermarket sector "but it's pretty difficult". The controversy arose in the wake of the Australian study which says the price of food in New Zealand has risen faster than in any other OECD country other than Korea.

- With NZPA

While one company prospers from tenders, another has to sell buses, business editor Chris Gardner writes.
--------------------
Hamilton-based Go Bus will double its North Island depots in January when it puts 130 new buses into operation.

Managing director Calum Haslop, who joined Go Bus three months ago, told a business audience at PricewaterhouseCoopers' Clever Companies function in Hamilton this week that the secret to winning a sizeable Education Ministry contract was nearly five years of planning to match the ministry's tendering cycle, which comes in rounds of six to 12 years. The contract, being formalised this month, means the operator, formed from several small family-run businesses about four years ago, will double its depots from 12 to 24, with significant expansion in charter, school and urban operations in Hawke's Bay.

Construction is under way on 130 new buses, which will increase the fleet by between 30 and 40 per cent in January. The number of drivers will increase from about 200 to 300.

"There's a lot of work to do, but we are quite confident in our ability to deliver this," Mr Haslop said.

Go Bus, and Ritchies Transport Holdings in Christchurch, are two of the clear winners in the tendering process. Go Bus drivers are on the road for 60,000 man hours a year. They drive 10 million kilometres a year and burn 2.5 million litres of diesel. Mr Haslop said the company handled 3000 customer complaints a year, mostly related to buses not running on time.

Nationwide, more than 100 operators have lost their contracts for 2400 school bus routes servicing 65,000 pupils, which is reducing the number of operators from 205 to 92.

Waipawa Buses, which has operated in Central Hawke's Bay since 1970, is among the biggest losers, with all but four of its 70 routes going to Go Bus. It will sell 120 buses and lay off 100 staff.

Neil Dobson, who runs Dobson Motors in Te Kuiti, said his bus company was losing eight school routes but retained five. "I have already told eight of my 22 drivers that I will not be able to keep them on. While they don't like it, they understand it is not my doing," Mr Dobson said.

The company was told by the ministry that to have a chance of renewing its contract it would have to upgrade its fleet, so it ordered two new buses. The first, which cost $245,000, arrived two weeks ago.

"It is going to be hard to absorb the cost when we have effectively lost more than half of our business," Mr Dobson said.

"One guy, Clarrie Hanson, who does the Otewa School bus run, has been with us for 28 years. He was part of the community, he knew the kids, their parents and the community. It is the personal touch they are going to lose with these big companies."

Mr Dobson said his company gave donations to school galas and prize-givings every year, because it was rooted in the company, but couldn't imagine Go Bus doing the same.

Dobson Motors had not heard why it missed out from the ministry. "We were in the top two per cent back in April. We have done everything the ministry asked, and we still missed out."

Allan Turley, who runs Turley Motors in Te Aroha, said his business would lose two out of seven routes and two drivers. One would retire at the end of the school year, and the other had found work with a Morrinsville bus company. Karyn Coxhead, who operated Bus With Us, in Thames, with her husband Chris, said the business would not be affected by Go Bus's expansion.

Mr Haslop said during his presentation: "We knew this (process) was going to happen and we have been planning for that for four or five years." His favourite saying, quoted by Harrison Ford in the latest Indiana Jones movie earlier this year, was "you don't take a knife to a gunfight". "We don't do that," he said.

"We have taken a systematic approach. We don't pick our growth targets by throwing a dart at them." Another secret, Mr Haslop said, was hiring "high octane" staff with "fire in the belly".

He could have been talking about himself, captivating the audience with joke after joke at the presentation, explaining that he had left his pin-striped suit at home because the last time he had worn it was at a funeral. "I'm hoping for a better outcome tonight," he joked.

"There's a lot of irony in having a bus operator talk at a seminar on clever companies. I am not sure that people relate to bus companies as being clever, and I am not sure that we would see ourselves as being clever. The main driver is on the need to lift the game in passenger transport. "Passengers are needing more in quality and service and the Ministry of Education has demanded a higher quality of vehicle."

Mr Haslop said Go Bus would not have been able to attract equity partners, as it did last year, had it not had a guaranteed cash flow from contracts or a strong, clear, definitive business plan.

"We do put a lot of stock in the detail of our planning. Without that plan there would not be Go Bus."

Mr Haslop would not be drawn on the split between ministry and regional council contracts across the North Island, nor would he say how many services Go Bus would operate from January. He said the company had won the contracts because it was competitive and capable.

But Garry Hetherington, regional transport organiser for the National Distribution Union, said the company was paying drivers between the $12 an hour minimum wage and $13.51, and the union was about to start negotiations seeking more than $17. "We are talking about drivers who have been with the company a long time and who are expert drivers," Mr Hetherington said. "You are not going to keep them if you are paying them a minimum wage."

Mr Hetherington, who represents about 70 per cent of about 200 Go Bus drivers, said the coverage clause in the collective agreement would need to be updated to include depots outside of Hamilton.

"What it means for our drivers is more opportunity," he said.
--------------------
CAPTION: GOING PLACES: Go Bus drivers are on the road for 60,000 man hours a year. They drive 10 million kilometres a year.
Picture: Iain McGregor

Recycler Metal Man is making hay out of old car parts.

The Auckland-based company, which compresses and re-sells scrap metal, has 64 staff throughout New Zealand and an annual turnover of about $40 million.

Metal Man picked up several prizes at the recent Westpac Manukau Business Excellence Awards, winning the business of the year supreme award, and awards for excellence in manufacturing and exporting.

General manager Clark Proctor said the company's scrap metal came from a range of suppliers including boat builders, sheet-metal workers and automotive repair garages.

Metal Man exports about 50 per cent of its recycled metal, mainly to countries throughout Asia but also to Europe. The "top-grade furnace-ready" metal is used to make a variety of products, such as pots and pans, engine components and aluminium plates for boats.

Mr Proctor said the boom in scrap metal prices this year - they have risen by about 140 per cent - was "unbelievable", but not the windfall some might think. "I'm actually happy when prices are low. Because it doesn't promote thieving [of scrap metal], and removes those people from the fringes of the industry who are bad practitioners and rear their heads when prices are high."

Metal Man operates out of Auckland, Hamilton and Christchurch.

A Rotorua bus company says it will go under when out-of-town contractors take over some of the district's school bus services.

Contracts for school bus routes in Rotorua, Reporoa and Rerewhakaaitu have been given to bigger firms from Auckland and Hamilton. These firms will take over these runs next year.

Rotorua's Reesby Buslines, Reporoa's Nirvana Coachlines and Rerewhakaaitu's Cave Coachlines have confirmed their contracts with the Ministry of Education have not been renewed. Reesby and Nirvana spokespeople would not comment but Cave Coachlines owner Ian Cave said he would be out of business when his contract runs out at the year's end.

The 46-year-old man owns six buses and employs two staff, in addition to himself and his wife.

About 60 bus companies throughout the country face severe cuts to their operations after the Ministry of Education changed its school contracts for next year and awarded them to different providers following a tendering process.

"The main thing is finding new jobs for my employees. Then I've got to sell my buses,'' he said. ``I also need to find a new job for myself. I'm still going to have bills to pay."

Mr Cave said most of the contracts were awarded to two big providers, Auckland-based Ritchies Transport and Hamilton- based Go Bus.

Co-owner of Ritchies Transport, Glen Ritchie, confirmed the company had acquired ``some contracts'' for Rotorua although he wouldn't say which services his company would be running. "We will be bringing some new buses to Rotorua and there will also be the opportunity for locals to apply for jobs."

He said the company would take over the contract next year and new buses would operate out of the existing Ritchies depot in Rotorua.

Mr Cave said his bus company had been operating for 20 years but he was not surprised bigger companies got the school contracts. "The big companies just keep getting bigger, they can afford to do things a bit cheaper than we can. It is disappointing after all this time. We have been a part of the community for so long."

Contracts for school bus services with the Ministry of Education come up for tender every six years.

Anne Jackson, deputy secretary for the ministry, said the tender process was in line with Government guidelines. "The ministry consulted with the transport sector on the rules for the tender and ran workshops open to all providers at the qualification phase and the pricing phase of the tender rounds."

She said the workshops were designed to ensure all providers had access to impartial advice about submitting a tender to the ministry. "To ensure impartiality, representatives from Land Transport New Zealand and the School Trustees Association sat on the qualification tender evaluation committee, and an independent observer was a member of the committee throughout the process. The ministry updates transport provider contracts quarterly to take account of increases in labour, fuel, other transport and road user charges. Providers are aware that this quarterly price adjustment will continue on with the new contracts."

Small rural operators lose historic routes in industry shakeup.

Ian Cave has been driving school buses around Reporoa so long, he now picks up the children of children he once delivered to the local primary and college. But after more than 20 years operating his Cave Coachlines bus company in the rural area south of Rotorua, his driving days look set to end.

This week, Mr Cave learned the Ministry of Education had axed his contracts for the school bus routes, which he says will force the closure of his business.

"We've got nothing left," he told the Weekend Herald.

The 46-year-old owns six buses, employs two staff in addition to himself and his wife _ and is not alone in his predicament.

About 60 bus companies around the country are facing severe cuts to their operations after the ministry slashed their school contracts for next year and awarded them to different providers following a tendering process.

Many of the companies affected are small rural operators who Mr Cave said had been "carting the kids to school since the horse and cart days" and were now "wiped out". He and the other operators said the ministry had awarded the majority of new contracts to two big providers, Auckland-based Ritchies Transport and Hamilton-based Go Bus, to the detriment of family businesses.

"They have divided and conquered and blindsided a lot of us," Neil Jamieson of Bethlehem Coachlines in Tauranga said. Mr Jamieson said his company stood to lose between 60 and 70 per cent of its income despite his fleet of 55 buses passing an initial evaluation by the ministry. In identifying the company's suitability as a school bus operator, the ministry had given it a score of 85 points, when the minimum required was 30 points.

Mr Jamieson said he had invested millions of dollars training staff and upgrading vehicles to bring them into line with ministry requirements in the past two years, so he was shocked when the company lost school bus contracts it had operated for up to 22 years. He believed the Bus and Coach Association had exerted influence on the ministry because its president was Craig Worth of Go Bus, and the vice- president was Andrew Ritchie of Ritchies Transport.

But the ministry defended its tendering process, saying it consulted with the transport sector on rules for the tender and ran open workshops.

"These workshops were designed to ensure all providers had access to impartial advice about submitting a tender to the ministry,"
said Anne Jackson, the ministry's deputy secretary of schooling.

She said the Bus and Coach Association had not been represented on the ministry's evaluation committee and an independent observer had overseen the process.

Go Bus and Ritchies also rejected any notion that the association had influenced their success in gaining contracts.

Don Richards, owner of the East Coast's Waipawa Buses which has lost all its 70 school bus contracts, said his fears were for the management of the routes. "It's hard to imagine that a new bus company that doesn't know the area, doesn't know the roads, doesn't know the schools, doesn't know anything locally, is going to manage it." Another rural operator said children who the ministry deemed lived close enough to school to walk, but who lived on main roads with heavy traffic and without footpaths, were also likely to suffer.

"We pick 20 kids up and don't charge them," the operator said.

"That's something we've done for their safety. That's the sort of stuff that doesn't happen with big companies."

Claims that a Pakistani man trained as a terrorist was working as a chef in New Zealand have proved to be false, says Immigration Minister David Cunliffe.  Cunliffe ordered an official investigation last month after the allegations were made in the Right-wing Investigate magazine and latched on to by the National Party. 

The minister said yesterday that it appeared the allegations were made as the result of an employment dispute between the Pakistani man and a Waikato restaurant owner.  "Investigate got it wrong again. The whole story was based on, as I am advised, information from the employer and his two sons," Cunliffe told The Press.  "It would appear what we've got here is most probably a personal dispute between parties which Investigate has tried to drum up into a national security story." Asked about the magazine's claim that the man had spent time in a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, Cunliffe said: "As I'm advised there is no substance to the allegations that were made."

The magazine article was headlined "Jihad in the kitchen" and claimed two Pakistani cousins, with links to Lashkar-i-Toiba, had been granted work permits in 2002 after arriving on false documents. The men were named as Jameel-ur-Rehman and Muhammed Anwar.  Investigate said Anwar had been deported but Rehman remained in New Zealand, something immigration officials later confirmed.

Lashkar-i-Toiba is one of the biggest groups fighting Indian control of Jammu and Kashmir.  Indian authorities blame it for the August 25 bombings in the city of Hyderabad that killed at least 40 people.  An 18-year insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, has killed about 50,000 people.

"You get a bit bitter and twisted," says Ken Earby wearily behind his glass cabinet counter. Earby and his brother Philip have been running Huntly Hardware Supplies for 30 years, 17 years from these premises, but now the wretched whiff of extinction rises from the Hitachi drills and hunting knives. Late morning, midweek, and not a customer in sight.

Since The Base, Hamilton's latest big-box shopping complex, opened on the city's northern fringe last year only 20 minutes' drive away, sales here have plunged 30 per cent. Road-works outside are compounding the problem.

"We're going to take another hit because the big Mitre 10's opening up there," says Earby. On some prices, his store beats the big chains like Bunnings Warehouse, but he's annoyed that shoppers have stopped bothering to check.  "People have got a built-in Warehouse culture, unfortunately, these days. They think The Warehouse will supply everything, and if it doesn't, they'll make do with what The Warehouse has got."

He's hoping the new Countdown coming to Huntly will bring shoppers who'll browse the main street after they've filled their trolleys. New subdivisions should also help. "You gotta hang through," he says. "Within six months it should start picking up."

Up the road $5 Max and Mr Max is a different world. Merchandise clutters tables and racks in a twinkling confusion of colour and plastic. A steady flow of shoppers comes to hunt out their bargain; a thin middle-aged man buys a thin-bottomed saucepan.

Huntly has three of these ultra-cheap, lucky dip-style shops that have sprung from the ashes of more traditional local stores in New Zealand's small towns and suburbs since the 1990s.  Owners Clive and Jan Quintal are unfazed by competition from the likes of the Red Shed. "Competition has always been there, it's just getting a bit more aggressive, and the opponents have got to be a bit smarter," he says. "You've just got to go with the flow, wherever you can make a buck, that's what you've got to do."

Since New Zealand's big-box retail revolution spread to Waikato in the 1990s, Huntly's shopping strip has slowly but surely changed. A forlorn Deka sign still towers on spindly poles above K Beez' grocers-cum-$2 shop - the department store chain an early Red Shed casualty.

David Lane is stoical. He and his wife Doreen have run D & D's Family Footwear for 11 years, and Lane is chairman of the local business association.

"We are still surviving. A lot of the shops have changed, but there's only two empty," he says. Huntly is on the up - a new surfwear store has opened across the road; the money-lenders who moved in a few years back have moved out again.

They've had to downsize - Rebel Sport's pulling power resulted in Adidas cancelling its supply to the store five or six years ago, and when The Warehouse in Hamilton started stocking slippers, D & D's had to stop. The Warehouse was selling them for less than the shoe shop used to buy them for. But in a twist, "Now the suppliers can't supply at the price The Warehouse is selling them for, so The Warehouse stopped getting those slippers." He shrugs. "The shoe shop's surviving - it's got good stock. But we just need a bit more foot traffic."

"The Warehouse is a way of life for countless New Zealanders. We make a difference to people's lives, especially family life, by making the desirable affordable." - The Warehouse core purpose

"In everything we do, we're driven by a common mission: to improve the quality of life for everyday people around the world." - Wal-Mart website

Call it the Wal-martisation of New Zealand. On once-pastoral town fringes and in far-flung suburbs, see the monolithic malls and super-sized discount chains sprawl. Last year, the Property Council counted 151 shopping centres nationally. Their combined shop space alone totals 183 hectares. Australian companies such as Westfield own almost all our centres, with the notable exceptions of the Palm Shopping Centre and Ngai Tahu's Tower Junction mega-centre, both in Christchurch. Then there are the big boxes: 87 Warehouse stores, 43 Warehouse Stationery stores, 38 Briscoes stores.

Retail's biggest concentration of power lies in our supermarket chain duopoly. Foodstuffs, a privately owned New Zealand co-operative, gives us New World, Pak'N Save and Four Square and claims 54 per cent of the supermarket market. Progressive Enterprises, owned by Australian's second-biggest retailer, Woolworths, gives us Foodtown and Woolworths and claims the other 46 per cent market share.

We spend $11 billion a year at the two supermarket groups - nearly $1 in every $10 spent overall. Is all this just the latest phase in retail's inevitable evolution? A bargain-basement boon for low-income shoppers?

Or is it a retail cancer poisoning our small businesses, our towns, our land, increasingly bleeding profits out of New Zealand and turning the screws on local suppliers?

Warren Snow managed the Tindall Foundation, The Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall's charitable arm, until he grew deeply disillusioned by the Red Sheds' impact.

Now he heads sustainable-development group Envision that helps small businesses fight back. "We have allowed a destructive model of retail sprawl to crawl over the land, where mega-retailers battle amongst themselves for market share by selling ever-cheaper, non-repairable, unrecyclable, sweat-shop-made junk that all ends up in our landfills. Cheap junk for quality of life - what a bargain!"

And it's no thanks, he says, to the Resource Management Act and Environment Court, where the parties with the deepest pockets tend to win protracted legal wrangles.

Meanwhile, main streets that used to be the heart of their community, where shopkeepers were in the same sporting clubs and school committees as their customers, where locals could get most of their daily needs, are now colonised by some mix of bargain-bin stores, takeaways, bric-a-brac shops and cafes for tourists and chain stores. (At least chain franchises retain a kind of local ownership, Snow adds.)

We've already seen the first wave of casualties from The Warehouse revolution, he says. But wait, there's more. "Buoyant farming and tourism of the last few years have stopped many town centres from declining into dead ghost towns, but if these twin pillars collapse for any reason, there will be a second wave of small business closures... in a long-term Wal-martisation (read pauperisation) of the New Zealand economy."

He's turning his attention to helping local retailers "claw back business that the big guys took from them" by pushing their advantages: their profits go back into the community, they participate in the social life of the community, they know their customers' needs, and they can provide genuine service and product back-up.

Laila Harre, head of the National Distribution Union, believes the jury's still out on the impact of big retailers on local economies. But it's a different story for suppliers. "As retailers become bigger, they're dictating terms of supply in a way that's unprecedented." Most pressing, she argues, is the threat our supermarket duopoly poses to New Zealand food producers. Harre is worried that we're underestimating it.

Woolworths Australia is particularly aggressive when it comes to driving down wholesale prices, she says. Local producers who can't weather the squeeze on their profit margins lose out. And it goes wider. "If we can't produce for the domestic market, we won't have the base for export."

Harre says we're a way off the kind of food-plus-general-retail domination of United States titan Wal-Mart.

The Warehouse Extra, which includes a supermarket, is a baby next to the Wal-Mart. But a step in that direction looms in the shape of either Woolworths Australia or Foodstuffs buying a controlling share in The Warehouse. Both supermarket chains have sought Commerce Commission clearance to make their bids, and the authority has promised a decision in coming weeks. Harre adds that if either gets the go-ahead, this would quash the threat to the duopoly.

There's speculation that Wal-Mart may get a foothold in New Zealand through buying parts of the Coles Group, the remnants of Coles-Myer, Australia's biggest retailer, which would mean more profits going overseas. The group is Kmart's parent company.

Wal-Mart has been widely attacked for shutting out unions, crushing local stores, playing hardball with suppliers, paying low wages and providing poor working conditions - all criticisms vehemently denied by the company. Says Harre, "If Wal-Mart gets a stake in New Zealand through Kmart, then I think we need to be very afraid."

Hamilton's mayor says although the city has been chosen as the preferred venue for the V8 supercar race, the deal is not yet sealed.

Subject to resource consents, the contract between the V8 Supercar governing body Avesco and Hamilton City Council will last for eight years from 2008 until 2015.

The street race will be held in the largely industrial suburb of Frankton, bringing a projected $25 million a year into the city.

Previous attempts by Wellington and Auckland city to host the race both failed due to public concern over noise levels and disruption to transport networks in each region as well as the detailed resource consent process.

Hamilton City Council unanimously supported the event, but Mayor Michael Redman says the council realises there will be people against the plans. Nevertheless, he believes the Frankton circuit offers the best chance for consent in the country as it won't affect traffic as much.

The successful Hamilton bid squashes the hopes of Whenuapai, Wellington, Hampton Downs, Taupo and Manfeild consortiums which had hoped they were still in with a chance of hosting the New Zealand round of the popular series.

The president of the Waikato Chamber of Commerce, Steven Saunders, was quoted in the New Zealand Herald as saying there was an understanding that resource consent for the event would be granted, despite the need to still complete a public consultation process.

"Hopefully Hamiltonians, and those in a position to decide, will take the sensible option. The direct economic benefit is $175 million, that's dollars new to the region which will stay for the duration 2008-2015. It's a huge win for Hamilton," he told the Herald.

Helen Forlong, a business owner in Frankton, has given the event her endorsement.

"I think it's wonderful. Frankton is an area full of businesses that will love the idea - there are panelbeaters, car yards, car painters, wreckers, dismantlers, warrant of fitness shops - it will be great exposure for them. Noise won't be a problem, it's quite an industrial area," Forlong told the Herald.

Pukekohe will host the New Zealand round of the 2006 series in April.