Candice Choi January 24, 2014 AAP MCDONALD’S has reported disappointing quarterly sales as fewer customers visit the world’s biggest hamburger chain. Global sales slipped 0.1 per cent at established locations for the last three months of the year. In the US, where it recently revamped its Dollar Menu to include items that cost a little more, the figure fell 1.4 per cent. After outperforming its rivals for years, McDonald’s Corp is facing a mix of challenges, including a shift in eating habits toward foods people feel are fresher or healthier. Chief executive Don Thompson has been working to better reflect those tastes by adding options such as chicken wraps and egg whites for its breakfast sandwiches. But the efforts have yet to take hold. In a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said it has seen a “muted response” to its various promotions. For 2013, guest…

January 24, 2014 AP THE US Food and Drug Administration says it is conducting a major new study into the safety of caramel colouring in soft drinks and other foods. The agency’s announcement comes in response to a study by Consumer Reports that shows varying levels of 4-methylimidazole – an impurity formed in some caramel colouring at low levels during the manufacturing process – in 12 brands of soda from five manufacturers. The FDA says it has already studied the use of caramel as a flavour and colour additive for decades and it has no reason to believe the colouring used is unsafe. The agency said it is also reviewing new data on the safety of 4-methylimidazole but did not say what that data is. “These efforts will inform the FDA’s safety analysis and will help the agency determine what, if any, regulatory action needs to be taken,” said FDA…

Fran Foo January 21, 2014 The Australian HALF of all organisations are not even aware of amendments to the Privacy Act that could see fines of about $1.7 million imposed when it comes into effect next month. IT vendors and privacy advocates hope the startling low awareness figure will shock corporate Australia and smaller players into action. “Fifty per cent of organisations in Australia don’t even know about the legislative changes,” Capgemini Australia testing services director Shane Lonergan said. “It’s across the board from tier-one to tier-two organisations … they’re major players (in the dark).” He said only about 25 per cent of organisations were “doing something about it”. Mr Lonergan singled out the finance industry as “doing a lot to be compliant”. The new privacy laws apply to all businesses that turn over more than $3m a year and which collect personal data. This covers online retailers, tech start-ups,…

ANDREW FRASER January 24, 2014 The Australian THE seven-day petrol cycle that delivered cheap petrol on Tuesdays is gone, replaced by a longer cycle of about 20 days, thanks to the intrusion of retail giants such as Coles and Woolworths, greater fluctuations in global fuel prices and the level of the Australian dollar. An analysis of petrol prices now and a year ago by The Australian has found not only that petrol prices have gone up dramatically over the past 12 months, but also that they can change drastically within a week. There was a 9.3c a litre difference in the price of petrol last week in Brisbane compared with the same date a year ago, but this week petrol in Brisbane was 22.2c/L more expensive than on the same date a year ago. Petrol in Melbourne last week was 4.4c/L more expensive than a year ago, but it is…

ADAM CREIGHTON January 24, 2014 The Australian IT IS a sad paradox of public debate that proponents of ever larger government and more regulation still have such a big constituency given the ample logic and empirical evidence that shows such policies harm people. The latest lay down misere is found in the otherwise pedestrian consumer price index, which every three months tracks the prices of 87 types of commonly purchased goods and services from cars, biscuits and rent to pharmaceuticals, school fees and bus fares. The CPI is important, affecting the rate of growth of government payments, interest rate levels, and allowing a calculation of real wages over time. The careful statisticians at the Australian Bureau of Statistics would never be so cheeky, but Adam Boyton, chief economist at Deutsche Bank in Sydney, did truth a service this week when he separated out those that are “largely the result of…

Phoebe Wearne January 24, 2014 The West Australian Petrol stations are losing out. Police have stopped chasing motorists who leave petrol stations without paying because of the huge numbers of complaints from retailers and a loophole that makes it hard to prove an intent to steal. The estimated annual cost of fuel drive-offs in WA is up to $6 million, says the Motor Trade Association of WA. Under current law, drive-offs are considered a “breach of contract”, not a criminal offence, because buying fuel becomes a contract when the operator turns on the pump. Motorists can be charged with stealing only if police can prove they intended to steal the fuel. Association chief executive Stephen Moir said police struggled to prosecute drive-offs because motorists would simply claim they forgot to pay. He said police evidently lacked resources to chase up the problem and the law needed changing to make stealing…