The Indian Weekender

10
NEW ZEALAND
Friday, 12 August, 2022
Read online www.iwk.co.nz
Christchurch small business owners
meet to discuss concerns
MAHESH KUMAR
Dairy stores and other
small company owners
from Christchurch
met on Friday, 5 August, to
address a range of difficulties
and worries that the business
community is facing. Former
Member of Parliament Kanwaljit
Singh Bakshi and the Dairy
and Business Owners group
President, Sunny Kaushal,
travelled from Auckland to
address the meeting.
According to New Zealand
government statistics, there
are approximately 530,000
small businesses in NZ that
constitute 97 percent of all
firms. These businesses account
for 28 percent of employment
and contribute over a quarter
of NZ’s GDP. Despite this size,
many of these businesses are
feeling that their concerns are
not being addressed.
It is a widely known fact that
over the last two to three years,
the small business sector in NZ
is struggling and trying to cope
with the onslaught of multiple
challenges.
These challenges include
shortage of staff due to border
closure, lack of demand due to
lockdowns, continued ram raids
and rising criminal incidents
among others.
Saji Thomas and Christchurch’s
community leader Natu Rama
organized the meeting. Rama
told Indian Weekender, “I
have been observing the pain
that the small businesses and
dairy owners, in particular, are
going through and on Sunny
Kaushal’s request, I called for
the meeting. The idea was to
get together, acknowledge the
common issues and challenges,
and discuss what can be done
collectively to allay the fears
and tackle the challenges they
are facing individually.”
Topics discussed during
the meeting included
the government’s recent
announcement about outlawing
smoking and eventually ending
tobacco sales. The government
intends to implement
Smokefree Generation, which
will make purchasing tobacco
products illegal for anybody
born on or after January 1,
2009. The proposal calls for
a sharp 95% reduction in the
number of stores that are
permitted to sell tobacco goods
and mandating the sale of low
nicotine products. Dairy owners
fear that prohibiting smoking
will have a negative impact on
their livelihood and cause them
to lose more than 50% of their
turnover.
For business owners, it is
like being between a rock and
a hard place. There is a major
dilemma when it comes to
selling cigarettes in stores,
since they attract robberies
and ram-raids, but they also
contribute significantly to their
revenue. It is possible that
many of them will have to shut
down as a result of losing this
chunk.
Many of those present also
opined that smoking ban will
actually lead to a black market
an already-growing black
market for cigarettes.
It is still a few years
away before smoking ban
repercussions begin to be felt,
however the meeting centered
around the immediate issue
of rising crime. In the recent
years, the nightmare of ramraids
and break-ins has been
experienced by many dairy
businesses in Christchurch just
like other NZ cities. The issue of
police inaction was also raised
and discussed.
Kaushal shared, “The
Government needs to listen to
what retailers are telling them.
The soft on crime approach is
not working. Currently, 97% of
offenders are getting away with
their crimes. Offenders must be
arrested, tried and sentenced.”
Talking about the police,
Kaushal said, “We need police
to be more visible in the
community. They must work
closely with businesses, building
relationships and gathering
information on offenders.
“Perhaps we take a cue from
the UK and re-task parking
wardens into Police Community
Support Officers with antisocial
crime prevention rather
than ticketing the shoppers,
delivery drivers and contractors
we need. In Auckland alone,
that would provide an extra
resource of around 160 people
to support the Police.
“For our vulnerable
businesses, Fog Cannons and
Bollards are a good deterrent.
The dairy shop sector bleeds for
the $1.8 billion they collect for
the government off cigarettes
and GST, so around $25 million
would help to provide twothirds
of dairies with bollards
and fog cannon.”
Sangeet Mehta, who endured
the horrific experience of
having his dairy ram-raided
three times, revealed the
gruesome ordeal that his young
family had to go through.
Everybody agreed that there
is a need for all business owners
to come together and form a
band to ensure that their voice
reaches the authorities and
policy makers.
THE 2022 LOCAL ELECTIONS
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Enrol by 12 August to make voting
in the local elections easy.
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