BUSINESS PRACTICE ASSIGNMENT

CONSUMER GUARANTEES ACT:

The Consumer Guarantees Act is a legislation created for the protection of consumers.

The Act covers goods - like new and secondhand goods purchased for personal, domestic or household use - and covers almost everything in and around the home - even gas, electricity and water.

The Act also covers services. Basically, if you pay for a service, including plumbers, painters (anything worked on by a tradesman), professional services (dentist, doctor etc) plus all other services (insurers, travel agents etc) you are covered by the Consumers Guarantee Act.

The Act also applies to gifts, and it applies to hired goods.

The Act does not cover private sales or goods sold by auction or tender.

So - in general, this piece of legislation has been put in place to give protection to the consumer in purchasing goods and services. It holds the seller accountable for the quality of the goods/services they are selling/offering. The seller cannot contract out of the Act.


FAIR TRADING ACT:

The Fair Trading Act prohibits false and misleading consumer information.

The Fair Trading Act has been implemented to promote fair competition to all New Zealanders. It stops certain conduct in Trade, promotes safety and provides for the disclosure of consumer information in the relation to the supply of goods and services. The goal of the Act is so that consumers can be confident in the accuracy of information they get when making choices. Businesses are obliged to provide accurate information so that consumers can make the right choices.

The Acts primary focus is on trade - from banks' to a local plumber. It applies to all aspects of promotion and sale of goods and services. Business cannot contract out of their obligations under the Act.

Basically - all people in business need to be transparent and have knowledge about what they are selling. They need to be knowledgable in any services provided to the public. It is protection for the general public.

To help business owners' understand if their services offered comply under the Fair Trading Act, the Commerce Commission publishes fact sheets and guidelines for businesses and consumers to help understand their obligations and rights.


HEALTH AND SAFETY IN EMPLOYMENT ACT

The Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 is to promote the prevention of harm to all people at work, and others in and around the vicinity of places of work.

This Act applies to all New Zealand workplaces and places duties/responsibilities on employers, self employed, employees, principals and others who are placed in a position to manage or control hazards.

The law promotes systematic management of health and safety at work. It requires employees to maintain safe working environments, and implement these in a sound practice.

The Act is about making workplace and activities safe and healthy for everyone that is connected with them.

The Act requires that work place look to the general information and regulations, code of practice and best practice guidelines.

The standard expected to have achieved is that of having taken all reasonably practicable steps achieved to make work safe - what can be responsibility accepted. They aren't expected to deal with occurances that they couldn't have possibly known or controlled.

The Act does not set out to tell people how to make particular work situations safe and healthy - but provides all of the information  for work places to get the knowledge they need and to approach this systematically.

DANGEROUS GOODS ACT

A workplace must comply with the Dangerous Goods Act 1988. These regulations are designed to ensure that dangerous goods are stored and handled appropriately.

Dangerous Goods are substances that may be corrosive, flamable, explosive, spontaneously combustable, toxic, oxidising, or water reactive. These goods can be deadly and can seriously damage property and the environment. Therefore it is important to read the code if you handle, store or transport these goods. The legislation effectively ensures the control of associated risks.

The employer has the responsibility to ensure that people carry out these duties under the regulation on their behalf   and that people have the appropriate competencies to enable them to perform these tasks correctly. These are obtained through training, education or experience or a combination of these.