PIA AKERMAN JUNE 03, 2014 THE AUSTRALIAN PETER Costello has called for lower penalty rates as a priority to increase productivity, while declaring Tony Abbott safe as Liberal leader amid renewed leadership speculation. Speaking at a Tourism and Transport Forum in Melbourne this morning, the former federal treasurer gave his views on the Abbott government’s first budget and the virulent reaction it has received from many quarters. Mr Costello said discussion about how to grow the Australian economy was largely absent, and the issue of declining productivity had to receive a greater focus. Push on Sunday penalties “Productivity has been declining really now for seven or eight years,” he said. “Personally because I believe so much employment is going to be in service industries, like tourism, like cafes … I think penalty rates and weekend loadings are something I would do if I wanted to encourage employment.” Mr Costello suggested…

Field AgentTM , The Realise Group’s crowdsourcing iPhone App, is now utilizing the latest mobile technology to capture both video and audio insights direct from customers at point of sale or in their home. Along with other powerful Field AgentTM functions, this latest video and audio functionality offers insightful information for projects involving Auditing (fact finding/data gathering) and Research (opinions/insights). Gathering insights via this mobile technology allows consumers to provide detailed feedback at the point they interact or are influenced by a product or service in a way that delivers better recall, emotion and candor. Collecting real-time video and audio data via Field AgentTM can eliminate the problems associated with typical methodologies that require consumers to recall information days or weeks after their engagement with a product or service. As easy as pressing ‘record’ on their iPhone, this functionality provides authentic access to customers giving instinctive and spontaneous in-the-moment thoughts…

Broede Carmody June 4, 2014 A Melbourne food franchise has become the first in the world to accept bitcoin as a form of payment. Hero Subs, which has stores in the Melbourne CBD and Chadstone Shopping Centre, specialises in baguettes and is now allowing customers to buy products using the digital currency. Eleena Tan, who launched the business with her husband in September last year, said: ”We’re really excited about the bitcoin phenomenon. We’re trying to help the public pick up this kind of currency.” Tan said she had had difficulties dealing with eftpos in the past, but the bitcoin payment system was quick and easy to set up. ”With the bitcoin payment system you can set it up in a day,” she said. ”We found it really, really simple to execute.” Customers need only to use their smartphone and a bitcoin wallet app to make a purchase. As part…

Christian Kerr JUNE 06, 2014 THE AUSTRALIAN Harry Nguyen at work in a Sydney convenience store: ‘People just go for the cheapest ones’. Picture: Jane Dempster Source: News Corp Australia LABOR’S nanny state push to kill off the country’s addiction to cigarettes with plain packaging has backfired, with new sales figures showing tobacco consumption growing during the first full year of the new laws. Eighteen months after the previous government’s laws came into force, new data, obtained by The Australian, shows that tobacco sales volumes increased by 59 million “sticks”, or individual cigarettes or their roll-your-own equivalents last year. The 0.3 per cent increase, though modest, goes against a 15.6 per slide in tobacco sales over the previous four years — and undermines claims by then health minister Nicola Roxon that Australia would introduce the “world’s toughest anti-smoking laws”. Plain packaging laws, which came into force in December 2012, have instead boosted demand for cheaper…

Cara Waters 03 June 2014 Business groups are going to start a community and industrial campaign calling for Sunday penalty rates to be cut. The campaign will be led by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry which claims a cut in penalty rates will increase consumer access to weekend trading and provide more youth employment. John Osborn, chief operating officer at ACCI, told SmartCompany the chamber is planning a national campaign addressing the “very serious issue” of unreasonable penalty rates and the “very negative consequences” on unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. Osborn says ACCI is seeking “significant changes” to the penalty rates regime and would like to see the rates included in the Productivity Commission’s upcoming review. “We need changes which take pressure off those industries very negatively affected by penalty rates which lead to closure on weekends and lost job opportunities,” he says. Osborn could not say what the…