Te Horo Consumer Rights Champion Honoured

Feb 2021

By Frank Neill

Consumer rights champion Suzanne Chetwin was made a Companion of the New Zealand

Order of Merit in the 2021 New Year’s Honours.

The Te Horo resident, who served as Chief Executive of Consumer New Zealand for 13

years, was honoured for services to consumer rights.

“I’m delighted,” Ms Chetwin told the Ōtaki Mail. “I’m absolutely thrilled. This is recognition

that consumer rights matter.

“Consumer rights is really fantastic be involved in. There are so many things, from quite

small to very meaty.

“That’s the wonderful thing about being involved in consumer rights. It is such a broad thing.

Just about anything is consumer related.”

During Ms Chetwin’s time at the helm of Consumer New Zealand, she was involved in a

whole range of improvements to how things are done in this country.

Just a few examples of where Consumer New Zealand was battling to achieve fairness for

New Zealanders under her leadership are:

•  working towards change so that unfair terms were banned in contracts;

•  working towards fairness in credit contracts;

•  working towards country of origin labelling; and

•  involvement in electricity reforms, which is currently leading to a consumer advocacy

• group being set up.

One of the first initiatives when Ms Chetwin was appointed was the work it did relating to

financial advisors. When she joined Consumer New Zealand some of the services being

provided by financial advisors were “scandalously poor,” she says.

Thing improved significantly following major reforms in the industry, and reform is still

happening today.

Much still needs to be done, however.

Two examples Ms Chetwin notes where much more is needed are sunscreen regulation and

buying property in a retirement village.

“In New Zealand, there is still no mandatory requirement for sunscreen to meet the standard.

Also the testing regime needs to be carefully monitored.”

And there is still a lot of work that needs to be done in the retirement village space.

Another aspect about Consumer New Zealand under her leadership is that is cemented its

place as a trustworthy organisation – one that could be consulted on consumer reforms.

“We were the go-to people on just about any topic, even if the consumer link was weak.

“And we weren’t afraid to take up the cudgel,” she says.

Before joining Consumer New Zealand, most of Ms Chetwin’s career had been in journalism.

Her first job in journalism was on the Courier News in Wainuiomata. After working for

Wellington Newspapers in advertising features, she then joined the Evening Post as a

journalist.

Ms Chetwin was editor of the Sunday News from 1994 to 1998, the Sunday Star-Times from

1998 to 2003, and was the founding editor of the Herald on Sunday in 2003. 

“I went into journalism,” she says, “because I believe in fairness and I wanted to level the

playing field.”

That concern for justice, for fairness, for working to make things right led her into consumer

advocacy.

And it is an area where she is still active, despite stepping down from her role as Consumer’s

Chief Executive last year.

She serves as a board member of the Financial Markets Authority and Food Standards

Australia New Zealand, and is a member of a Law Society Steering Group for the review of

the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006. Last year she chaired the InternetNZ Policy

Review Advisory Panel, reviewing the ‘.nz’ domain name space.

And her work in justice, fairness and helping to make the world a better place looks likely to

continue as she is currently studying part-time for a law degree, which she hopes to finish in

the next few weeks.

“I’m really interested in the human rights space – in human rights, consumer rights and

international disputes resolution. I’m interested in indigenous rights as well.

“I’m not just an advocate. I’m living among the issues as well.”

An example of this is the Mangaone Stream.

“Right next door to us is a dirty river. People should have the right to swim in it. The

discharge into it is just a disgrace,” Ms Chetwin says, noting that a major problem is farm

discharge into the waterway.

“Climate change and the environment are issues that are very much alive and issues that I’m

living among. These issues need to be addressed.”