PM Edition: Top 10 Business Articles on LiveNews.co.nz for October 5, 2026 – Full Text

Source: New Zealand Labour Party

Today I released Labour’s Fiscal Plan.

It sets out, line by line, how we’ll get everyday costs under control and exactly how we’ll pay for it.

Three free GP visits a year. Free prescriptions. A $20-a-week public transport fare cap. A three-year freeze on fuel tax. Action on grocery prices and power bills.

These simple, practical everyday fixes will put a bit more money back in your pocket.

Every commitment is costed. Every commitment is funded.

We’ll get the books back into surplus and bring debt down over time, while investing in the things that help people get ahead.

Government is about choices. And I know which choices I’ll make as Finance Minister.

I’ll back businesses to grow and create jobs. I’ll invest in healthcare so people can get help when they need it. And I’ll make getting everyday costs under control a priority.

National has been running a campaign of outright lies about Labour’s plans. They have made everything more expensive. They’ve broken the economy with their cuts and left everyday Kiwis to pay for it. They know it, so they want you to talk about anything but their record.

It’s dishonest and it ends today. We’ve shown how it all adds up. Now they have to answer for their own record.

Christopher Luxon promised to fix the cost of living. He has made it worse. People are paying more and getting less, and after three years, his answer is more cuts.

More cuts to the services we rely on. More jobs lost. More families falling behind. Three more years of the same, only worse.

I will never accept that running down our schools and hospitals is the best we can do for this country. And I won’t accept that the people caring for our loved ones should have to keep fighting to be paid fairly.

That’s why we’ll restore pay equity and give 65,000 care and support workers an immediate $4-an-hour pay rise, while we work towards proper settlements. That commitment is fully funded too.

I’m proud of this plan. And I’m proud of the difference it will make to people’s lives.

More people able to afford a doctor’s visit. Families with more money left after the bills are paid.

That’s the Finance Minister I will be. I will make those choices and make life better for people who are working hard and deserve to get ahead.

We have the plan. We’ve shown how we’ll pay for it. And I’m ready to get on with it.

Kiwis can’t afford another three years of National.

Better starts now.

Fiscal Plan

These assessment visits aim to strengthen residential construction businesses understanding of their health and safety responsibilities, including for subcontractors and tradespeople. The information gathered during these visits also provides valuable data and insights on current practices and areas for improvement to share back with the construction industry.

This is part of WorkSafe’s ongoing strategic priority focus on construction as a high-risk sector. Despite being a well-known critical risk, falls from height are a persistent cause of injury and death in residential construction. Each year on average, falls from height cause 4 fatalities, 100 serious injuries, and around 1,000 injuries that require more than a week away from work. Around 40% of falls from height occur in construction.

WorkSafe Area Manager Barney Hoskins says, “We’re looking to see that businesses have identified where workers could fall from height and put effective safety controls in place to prevent that from happening.”

Ladders are involved in about 40% of fall from height injuries in construction, while falls from or through a building are the most common cause of fatal or very serious injuries such as spinal fractures and head injuries.

“We know from our investigations that lives can be saved when businesses take the time to identify hazards and assess the risks, then select the right equipment for the task and ensure it is used correctly,” says Barney Hoskins.

A common myth is that controls to prevent falls from height can be relaxed for short duration tasks. Whether a job working at height will take five minutes or five hours, if there’s a risk of falling then appropriate fall prevention control measures must be considered and put in place.

“Construction sites are dynamic environments, with multiple trades often working alongside each other. Good communication and co-ordinated planning is critical to make sure controls remain effective throughout the life of a project to keep everyone on site safe,” says Barney Hoskins.

While the focus of these proactive assessments is to engage with and educate businesses, WorkSafe will take action if serious health and safety risks are not being managed. About 45% of enforcement notices and 70% of prohibition notices over the past two years in the construction sector were about the risk of falls from height. In these cases, the WorkSafe inspector works with the business to support them to make improvements to meet their health and safety responsibilities.

In August, an Auckland company was fined after work continued on a residential building site following a prohibition notice for working near an edge without adequate fall protection. The site also had temporary platforms, partially removed scaffolding, and non-compliant and unsecured ladders.

Company falls short after ignoring WorkSafe notice

WorkSafe has updated its Working at height in New Zealand good practice guidelines to better reflect the Health and Safety at Work Act, add current WorkSafe notification and notifiable event requirements, and introduce new content and examples around risk management, safety decking, worker engagement, and contemporary control expectations.

Working at height in New Zealand

Source: GlobalData

1 October 2026

A wave of price increases across this summer’s flagship smartphone launches offers the clearest evidence yet that the AI-driven memory shortage, often dubbed “RAMageddon,” is reshaping the mobile device market: what phones cost, how much memory they carry, and which models survive. PC and laptop makers raised prices first; smartphone makers largely held off until this summer’s launches. The memory shortage is expected to keep pressure on smartphone prices, according to GlobalData, a leading intelligence and productivity platform.

Apple, Google, and Samsung raised prices by roughly $100 on premium smartphones, while Google and Samsung applied similar increases to their foldables. Apple’s first foldable, the iPhone Duo, tops out at $3,199 amid the memory crunch.

GlobalData’s latest report, “AI-Driven RAMageddon Triggers First Wave of Smartphone Price Hikes – Further Increases and Fewer Choices Loom,” reveals that AI infrastructure’s growing claim on memory supply is leaving phone makers to compete for what remains, suggesting that this summer’s price hikes likely only the opening move.

Behind the price increases is the AI buildout. As AI data centers multiply, the companies building them are buying memory at enormous scale, paying premium prices, and signing multiyear commitments. Alphabet and Meta alone expect to spend a combined $325 billion to $350 billion in 2026, much of it on servers and data-center infrastructure. That purchasing power is steering factory capacity and investment toward the higher-margin memory and storage products serving AI workloads, leaving less capacity for the DRAM and NAND used in smartphones and other consumer devices, and pushing device prices higher.

Amanda Mitchell, Senior Analyst – Telecoms Practice at GlobalData, comments: “Price hikes are only one way phone makers are responding to rising memory costs. Trimming specifications is another, and the economics become most punishing at the low end of the market. The pressure is also creating clear winners and losers: memory makers are reporting record numbers as limited supply and higher prices lift revenue and profits, while device makers compete for scarce chips and risk dampening consumer demand as higher prices arrive alongside lower specifications and threaten lower-end models.”

Google raised Pixel 11 prices while cutting base RAM in the Pro models from 16GB to 12GB. Cheaper phones feel the pressure most, since a memory cost increase that is manageable on a $1,200 flagship can erase the profit on a $200 phone. Consumers who rely on lower-cost phones could face fewer choices as manufacturers discontinue models, delay launches, or ship devices with less memory.

Mitchell continues: “Carriers are the last buffer between higher list prices and buyers. Longer instalment plans, trade-in credits, refurbished devices, and device-as-a-service offers can soften monthly payments, but they do not lower the total cost or ease the underlying supply shortage.”

Mitchell concludes: “Lasting relief depends on additional production capacity, but manufacturers’ expansion plans will take years to reach the market, and much of the new investment is intended to serve AI demand rather than consumer devices. Samsung expects memory supply to remain tight through 2028, while Micron’s first New York fab is not expected to begin production until 2030. With meaningful new capacity years away, price pressure is likely to persist.”

Notes to Editors

• Quotes provided by Amanda Mitchell, Senior Analyst – Telecoms Practice at GlobalData
• This press release was written using data and information sourced from proprietary databases, primary and secondary research, and in-house analysis conducted by GlobalData’s team of industry experts

About GlobalData

GlobalData Plc (LSE:DATA) operates an intelligence platform that empowers leaders to act decisively in a world of complexity and change. By uniting proprietary data, human expertise, and purpose-built AI into a single, connected platform, we help organizations see what’s coming, move faster, and lead with confidence. Our solutions are used by over 5,000 organizations across the world’s largest industries, delivering tailored intelligence that supports strategic planning, innovation, risk management, and sustainable growth.

Source: Avast

Written by Jeremy Coppock, Reviewed by Jan Rubin

Published on September 30, 2026

Bandwidth-sharing apps offer a simple exchange: You agree to share your “unused bandwidth,” and in return, you might get an ad-free app experience, a free VPN, or a little extra cash. But behind the scenes, you’re enrolling your device in a residential proxy network, which gives unknown third parties access to your home internet connection, allowing them to make it look like their web traffic is coming from you. And some of these parties may be generating traffic you don’t want associated with your IP address, like phishing attacks. Read on to learn how bandwidth sharing really works, the risks it can create, and how to help protect your connection.

According to survey research on residential proxies, 29% of U.S. consumers say that at some point, they have installed an app offering rewards, money, or free features in exchange for sharing unused bandwidth. But only 33% of all respondents believe that an app that “shares your unused bandwidth” could create privacy or security risks.

Threat Researchers at Gen, the company behind Avast, analyzed attacks that Gen products blocked on Windows computers between January and mid-September 2026. Their systems counted 20.8 million distinct blocked attacks associated with traffic linked to residential proxies. Their technical analysis identifies an association with residential proxy infrastructure; it does not by itself establish that a proxy provider knew of, authorized, or participated in the underlying activity.

Residential proxy services have legitimate commercial uses, and malicious traffic passing through one of these networks does not mean the provider authorized or knew about it. Like other large online platforms and services, residential proxy networks can be abused by third parties trying to evade safeguards.

Still, that’s a lot of consumers installing software that may be riskier than they realize.

How bandwidth sharing really works

When you agree to “share your bandwidth,” you’re likely enrolling your device into a residential proxy network. These are services that buy access to home internet connections, like yours, and rent them out to third parties.

If you sign up, customers of a residential proxy network can route web traffic through your home connection. The websites they visit see your home IP address rather than the customer’s originating address. This can help those customers access location-specific content or collect public web data. It can also make automated traffic harder for websites to distinguish from ordinary consumer traffic.

Residential proxy networks act as intermediaries. They obtain access to participating users’ internet connections, sometimes through clearly disclosed opt-in programs and sometimes through software where the disclosure may be less prominent, and then provide that access to customers. Here’s a breakdown of how the model works for legitimate providers:

1. You opt in — You install an app that offers money, rewards, or free features in exchange for your “unused bandwidth.” Sometimes the app is transparent. Sometimes details are buried in the terms and conditions.
2. Your IP address is rented out — The residential proxy network adds your connection to a pool of millions of home IP addresses and sells access to paying customers. You’re not told who those customers are.
3. Strangers surf the web as you — Their traffic leaves through your connection. Every site they visit sees your public IP address and may associate the traffic with your internet provider and approximate location.

How you might have joined a residential proxy network

Overtly labeled bandwidth-sharing apps — like Honeygain — are one way your internet connection might get recruited into a residential proxy network. Apps might propose you “sell internet bandwidth,” “share internet for money,” or simply “share your traffic,” marketing it as a passive income scheme.

Bright Data, which describes itself as the world’s largest residential proxy provider, uses a partner-based approach. Third-party app developers may integrate Bright Data’s software development kit (SDK) and offer users a choice between viewing ads or sharing their internet connection in exchange for an ad-free experience. According to Bright Data, it pays developers a monthly fee for each user who opts in, and participating devices are used only when idle, online, and charged.

Another route are free VPNs, like Hola, some of which resell your connection to “peers” instead of charging you a subscription to use a virtual private network. Residential proxy software can also arrive on your device as malware if you download pirated or unverified games, movies, or apps, according to an FBI PSA.

Unfortunately, in our survey on residential proxies, 32% of U.S. consumers said they wouldn’t know what an app means when it offers to “share their unused bandwidth.”

Why companies want to borrow your home IP address

Companies — and murkier entities — want to browse the internet on your home IP address because it makes their traffic look less suspicious. Websites often block traffic from data centers, bots, known VPN providers, or sources of suspicious activity, but they’re much more careful about blocking home connections, since doing so risks shutting out a real customer.

Many companies who rent your bandwidth through residential proxy networks have perfectly legitimate reasons for doing so. These might include a company double-checking that a client’s ads actually appear in the countries they paid for, or performing price comparisons by collecting publicly listed prices online.

A major driver of the residential proxy market is now AI companies, according to a Gen article on the AI data race and home Wi-Fi connections. AI bots are constantly crawling the web: shopping assistants need today’s prices, research agents need to open pages as they work, and AI models need current data to stay useful. All of this means constant visits to websites that would rather not be visited by machines. Several large residential proxy providers even advertise products built specifically for AI training and AI agents.

If you’ve signed up for a bandwidth-sharing app, your home internet could be participating in this AI data race without you ever knowing.

How residential proxy networks can be misused

Not every party using a residential proxy network has a legitimate purpose. A 2026 PSA from the FBI states that criminals use residential proxy networks as a standard tool to conceal the source of malicious activity. That observation concerns criminal misuse of the technology and does not mean that every network, provider, or customer is engaged in wrongdoing.

Residential proxy services can be misused by customers whose activities may not be apparent during onboarding or ongoing monitoring. Providers may use customer-vetting and abuse-prevention measures, but bad actors can attempt to evade those controls and use residential proxy networks for harmful activity:

• Credential stuffing: Testing stolen passwords across thousands of accounts, rotating through home IP addresses so none get locked out. More information: https://www.avast.com/c-credential-stuffing
• Bulk buying: Snapping up concert tickets or limited stock before real customers get a chance, bypassing anti-bot safeguards designed to block automated purchases.
• Creating fake accounts: Signing up for large numbers of accounts by making each registration appear to come from a different home internet connection, which can help evade a platform’s signup limits.
• Ad fraud: Generating clicks and views that appear to come from real viewers, deceiving organizations that pay for ad performance.
• Scams, malware, and other forms of cybercrime: Sending people to phishing pages, serving malicious ads, spreading trojans, and running fake online stores — all from an IP address that doesn’t initially raise red flags.

What our Threat Researchers uncovered

Our Threat Researchers wanted to better understand the volume of abuse involving residential proxy networks. To do this, they analyzed data on cyberthreats that Avast and other Gen products blocked on Windows computers and identified which attacks had come through the residential proxy networks in our study.

Between January and mid-September 2026, our Threat Researchers’ systems counted 20.8 million distinct blocked attacks on Windows computers associated with residential proxies.

This volume indicates that malicious activity associated with residential proxy networks is not merely occasional. It does not, however, show that residential proxy providers initiated, approved, or were aware of the attacks.

What malicious actors may do through your “shared bandwidth”

The attacks our products blocked associated with residential proxy traffic were often phishing, with malicious ads and trojans making up much of the rest.

Phishing, which could take the form of deceptive messages pointing to fake login pages or payment portals built to harvest sensitive information, accounted for 5.15 million blocked attacks. Malicious advertising (malvertising), where an ad either carries malware or steers you to a scam site, followed at 1.26 million.

Next came trojans at 667,000 blocked attacks; these are programs that look useful, but quietly open a door to the victim’s device for a cybercriminal. After other miscellaneous threats (comprising 408,000 blocked attacks), the next largest threat category was e-shop scams, which are fake websites disguised as legit online stores; Gen products blocked 388,000 such attacks between January and mid-September 2026. File infectors, droppers, and generic scams accounted for the rest.

Most of the residential-proxy-associated traffic in this dataset was linked to a small number of networks. Bright Data accounted for around 83%, followed by Honeygain, NetNut, Tuxler, and Hola. These figures are not a ranking of provider risk or evidence that a provider authorized, knew of, or benefited from the underlying activity. Larger networks may appear more frequently in the data simply because they carry more traffic. The findings show that malicious actors may route traffic through established residential proxy networks despite providers’ efforts to prevent misuse.

Where we blocked the most attacks

Most devices running proxy software sit outside the West: India, Vietnam, Ukraine, and Brazil lead, with the U.S. only 10th. But the U.S. ranked fourth for attacks blocked, and France fifth. A likely reason is that automated traffic aimed at U.S. services looks far less suspicious arriving from a U.S. home IP address than from a server abroad.

The countries where Gen products blocked the most attacks associated with malicious residential proxy traffic were India (1.76 million blocked attacks), Brazil (1.50 million), and Vietnam (1.32 million).

Why sharing your bandwidth puts you at risk

If you use a bandwidth-sharing app, that traffic leaves through your home IP address, so as far as the rest of the internet is concerned, it came from your internet connection. If that traffic turns out to be shady, your address is the one on record. That carries risks for users:

• Your IP address could get blamed for abuse: Abuse reports go to your internet provider, and platforms may block your address outright. The actual person behind the abuse is nowhere in sight.
• Your traffic looks suspicious: Banks, retailers, and streaming services check IP addresses against blocklists. If your IP address is flagged, you may start hitting extra verification codes and logins that fail for no clear reason. You might start seeing constant CAPTCHAs or “you’re using a VPN” prompts as you browse the internet — even when you’re not. More information: https://www.avast.com/what-is-my-ip
• Your internet connection takes the load: Other people’s browsing runs through your line, eating bandwidth and, on a capped plan, your data allowance. Unless the bandwidth-sharing app only activates when your computer is idle, this could slow down your internet speed.
• Your own service could be at risk: Some ISPs restrict bandwidth sharing. Verizon’s Fios terms, for example, say customers can’t resell or rent their service or let outside parties use it. Terms: https://www.verizon.com/support/fios-customer-agreement/

Residential proxy abuse doesn’t normally announce itself, since the software is built to sit quietly in the background. So if you’re seeing inexplicable abuse reports, constant CAPTCHAs, and a slower-than-expected connection, it could be worth investigating whether you’re sharing your bandwidth. Any one of these signs alone has other explanations, but several at once warrants a closer look.

How to protect your home internet connection

Protecting your home connection starts with paying attention to which apps you install and what you agree to when you install them.

• Remember that nothing in life is free: If an app costs nothing and shows no ads, your connection may be what’s funding it.
• Reconsider paid bandwidth sharing: A few dollars a month might not be worth having your address tied to someone else’s traffic.
• Avoid pirated software: Cracked apps and unauthorized downloads could carry malware or unwanted software that enrolls your device in a proxy network without your knowledge.
• Read the terms and conditions: Bandwidth sharing, peer-to-peer networking, traffic routing, and network participation are phrases that matter. Try asking an LLM, like ChatGPT or Claude, to help you decipher convoluted T&Cs. Just remember to double check the output against the actual terms and conditions.
• Audit what’s already on your devices: Review unfamiliar apps and background services, especially utilities you do not use. Check their descriptions for “passive income,” “traffic monetization,” “bandwidth sharing,” or “network sharing,” which can be bundled into unrelated software. Uninstall the ones you don’t recognize or no longer need.
• Don’t forget your smart TV: Smart TVs, streaming boxes, and other internet-connected devices can run proxy software too. Stick to official app stores and avoid sideloading apps. The FBI calls out side-loaded apps on Android TV boxes in particular, as these can be used for bandwidth sharing.
• Talk to your household: Anyone who can install an app on the family computer might have accidentally enrolled your connection in a residential proxy network.
• Keep security software running: Cyber Safety software like Avast One helps block malware, scams, and other cyberthreats, whether your device is part of a residential proxy network or targeted by malicious traffic routed through one. Avast One: https://www.avast.com/avast-one

At Avast, we believe people should be able to explore everything the digital world has to offer fearlessly. That starts with understanding what’s happening behind the technology we use every day — and having the tools to protect ourselves when something isn’t what it seems. A little awareness about what you’re agreeing to can go a long way toward keeping your connection, devices, and digital life in your control.

FAQs

What is bandwidth sharing?

Bandwidth sharing means letting other people or companies route traffic through your connection, so it appears to come from your IP address, usually as part of a residential proxy network. Apps that offer money, rewards, or free features in exchange for your “unused bandwidth” are the most common form of it.

Are Bright Data, Hola, and Honeygain safe?

Bright Data, Hola, and Honeygain are established companies whose products and consumer-facing models differ. Bright Data may reach consumers through SDKs integrated into third-party apps, while Hola and Honeygain offer direct ways to share a connection.

Bandwidth sharing generally involves allowing third-party traffic to use a home IP address, which may consume data and bandwidth, affect the IP address’s reputation, or conflict with an ISP’s terms. Our research measured threats associated with residential proxy traffic; it did not evaluate the safety of individual apps or determine whether a provider knew of or authorized particular activity. Consumers should review each service’s disclosures, controls, and terms before deciding whether to participate.

Is bandwidth sharing safe?

It’s broadly legal, and the companies involved often are too. But there are risks. Your IP address can be tied to activity you had nothing to do with, and the abuse reports, blocklists, and account problems that follow all point back to you. ISPs often forbid bandwidth sharing in their terms of service.

Can you really earn money through internet bandwidth sharing?

Yes, but not much. According to Honeygain, a bandwidth sharing app, devices in higher-demand regions can earn users $3 to $10 a month.

Methodology

Gen Threat Labs (Gen is the company behind Avast) built telemetry to identify Windows software linked to 18 commercial residential proxy providers. The installation figures come from active Windows computers observed between September 1 and 15, 2026; the attack figures cover January through mid-September 2026 and count distinct blocked attacks, deduplicated so the same event isn’t counted twice.

These numbers reflect what we see across our own Windows user base, so they aren’t a count of every residential proxy endpoint worldwide or a measure of any provider’s market share. The telemetry identifies standalone Windows applications, so it misses proxy code embedded inside other apps and devices like phones, smart TVs, and routers. A single blocked attack can carry more than one threat label, so the categories overlap and can’t be added together. And attack volume doesn’t measure how dangerous a provider is, since a network with more devices simply appears more often in our data.

Disclosure: Gen uses Bright Data proxy and browser infrastructure in some privacy and reputation services. Bright Data had no involvement in this research, and the findings are based on Gen Threat Labs telemetry and security detections.

Original article: https://www.avast.com/c-hidden-risks-of-bandwidth-sharing

Source: Te Hiringa Mahara – Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission

Te Hiringa Mahara is calling for focused attention to embed a human-rights approach after a new report revealed rising seclusion rates, particularly for Māori, and uneven progress in reducing coercive practices.

Today’s Office of the Director of Mental Health and Addiction services regulatory report reinforces the need to reduce coercive practices, which are inconsistent with effective therapeutic care and human rights obligations.

“We know that isolating people in seclusion and treating people compulsorily against their will causes harm and has limited therapeutic value. People with lived experience consistently describe the trauma they experience and the loss of trust in services as a result,” says Te Hiringa Mahara Director of Mental Health and Addiction Sector Leadership, Sonya Russell.

“People experiencing mental health crisis need trauma-informed, culturally safe care that upholds their human rights and promotes supported decision-making.

“Too many people get into services too late when they are experiencing crisis. A robust early crisis response approach is at the heart of an effective mental health and addiction system and we need to get that right.

“The wide variation between districts in the use of seclusion and compulsory treatment shows what can be achieved with sustained effort and resources. We acknowledge the gains made by these districts. However, there are districts where rates of seclusion and compulsory treatment are high, so the practices that lead to these rates need immediate attention.

“Te Hiringa Mahara has long called for the elimination of seclusion. In June, we recommended Health New Zealand publish a national seclusion elimination plan by June 2027. We reinforced that recommendation in our ‘Roadmap for mental health, addiction and wellbeing‘, released shortly afterwards.

“The Office of the Director of Mental Health and Addiction services regulatory report also highlights persistent and unacceptable inequities. Māori remain significantly more likely than any other ethnic group to be subject to compulsory assessment, community treatment orders and inpatient treatment orders. Māori men continue to experience the highest rates of compulsory treatment.

“While the new Mental Health Act, passed in July 2026, introduces processes that are better aligned to upholding human rights protection and is a significant step forward, it will not come into force until 1 July 2028. To embed a human rights framework in our mental health and addiction system, we must accelerate efforts to drive practice change and reduce coercive practices. The care people and their whānau receive must be respectful, equitable, uphold their rights and focus on their wellbeing,” says Sonya Russell.

Note for editors:

• The Office of the Director of Mental Health and Addiction Services Regulatory Report released today covers 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025.
• Māori were twice as likely as Pacific peoples to be subject to community treatment orders, 7.7 times as likely as Asian peoples and 3.2 times as likely as other ethnicities. For inpatient orders, Māori were 2.1, 8.6 and 3.2 times as likely, respectively.
• Māori were 6.8 times more likely than non-Māori to be secluded, with their rate rising from 9.6 to 10.2 per 100,000 in 2024/25.
• The Pacific seclusion rate rose 6%.