Received

Delayed flights and lost baggage have helped earn Qantas the title of "spirit of disappointment" in the latest Shonky Awards.

Consumer advocacy group CHOICE on Thursday revealed its 2022 recipients for the annual honours, highlighting some of Australia's questionable products and services.

"People are still paying premium prices to fly Qantas, but it's clear from the complaints we've heard, they're not getting a premium service," CHOICE travel expert Jodi Bird said.

The consumer group cited unworkable flight credits, lost baggage, excessive call wait times, and delayed flights as among reasons for Qantas's award, but the national carrier hit back, saying CHOICE's data is "itself a bit shonky".

CHOICE revealed in April Qantas and Jetstar were sitting on a combined $1.4 billion in unused flight credits and future bookings.

September research also revealed an average Qantas call wait time of 21 minutes.

Qantas appears to have deliberately gone out of its way to win a Shonky this year, CHOICE boss Alan Kirkland said.

Qantas argued the awards are out of date. While the airline had several months of poor performance earlier in 2022, it has improved significantly since August, and it was back to a pre-COVID level of service, a spokesperson said.

"Our call wait times are less than half what CHOICE is claiming.

"Our customers have redeemed more than $1 billion in COVID-related flight credits."

Mr Kirkland said: "we now need federal, state and territory governments and industry to work together to make travel easier and fairer".

Loan product VetPay also received a Shonky for "taking advantage of pet owners desperate to pay costly vet bills in an emergency".

VetPay, which lets Australians pay off vet bills through a payment plan, says it has compassion for its customers, yet charges interest rates of more than 18 per cent and fees at every turn, Mr Kirkland said.

Chicken nuggets marketed by Steggles as boosted with veggies also made the list because of their negligible vegetable content.

To make it to one full serve of vegetables, a consumer would have to eat an entire 400g pack of the nuggets, and then part of another, according to CHOICE.

"CHOICE would love to never have to give out another Shonky award, but unfortunately we continue to uncover products and services that need to be called out," Mr Kirkland said.

VetPay and Steggles have been contacted for comment.

© AAP 2022

It's every worker's dream: getting paid for more hours than they actually work.

And for Australian staff at Unilever ANZ, it's about to become a reality.

The maker of Dove, Rexona, Continental and Streets products announced on Wednesday that from November 14, its workers would trial a four-day working week.

It follows a successful 18-month trial in New Zealand.

Chief executive Nicky Sparshott says staff will retain 100 per cent of their salaries while working 80 per cent of the time.

But the business still expects its targets to be met.

"We are only asking our team members to find 20 per cent of the hidden capacity that sits in any business and slows us down," Ms Sparshott told AAP.

"It is about removing non value-added costs, projects or processes and thinking differently about what meetings we participate in or how we can better communicate and collaborate."

Under the 12-month Australian trial, staff won't be expected to fit into a one-size-fits-all approach.

They will be able to choose the day they don't work or spread the hours off across a number of days.

"Some staff in New Zealand decided to take one day off a week and they completed their MBA on that day. Others decided to finish early each day so they could do school pick-up," Ms Sparshott said.

"We actually found that the trial in New Zealand was able to reduce meetings for an average staff member by three-and-a-half hours a week - that is 182 hours back in your life - so it's a good starting point."

Workers will also be able to split their four days between home and office.

Ms Sparshott said her staff were excited to take part in the trial.

"This is an experiment. We can hypothesise about whether it will or won't work," she said.

"But for us, this is an important part of exploring how we can be a better business and a better workforce, and ensure we meet the evolving needs and expectations of our team while remaining competitive."

Many employers in the private sector already offer four-day work weeks, but often that involves employees working longer days to maintain their full-time hours, Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said.

The feasibility of such arrangements depends largely on the circumstances of particular enterprises or industries, he said.

"Given the tight labour market employers are generally particularly sensitive to accommodating employee requests for flexibility, but proposals to reduce working hours without making a corresponding reduction in remuneration are obviously unrealistic," Mr Willox told AAP.

Chronic labour shortages meant there wouldn't be much industry appetite for such an arrangement, he said.

The move by Unilever comes after the Greens on Monday launched a proposal for a Victorian four-day working week trial in the seat of Richmond.

The trial would involve a $60 million fund to support public sector and private businesses to transition to a four-day model.

"We've been tricked into believing that working five days a week is normal," state party leader Samantha Ratnam said.

The trial would require businesses to transition full-time workers with no loss of pay or entitlements and either a proportional reduction in working hours or the equivalent pay rise for those already working part time.

© AAP 2022

Rising interest rates are bringing the property boom to a close, with sharp drop-offs recorded in new home loans as well as council approvals for new builds.

Housing lending fell 8.2 per cent in September to $25.1 billion after a 3.4 per cent fall in August, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported.

Owner-occupier loan commitments led the fall, dropping a record 9.3 per cent in September, while the value of new investor loan commitments fell six per cent.

While rate hikes are driving down property prices, they also reduce borrowing capacity.

"This has the property market rattled, with both buyers and sellers exiting in droves," RateCity research director Sally Tindall said.

"The hordes of cashed-up buyers are gone, while some nervous home-owners who were thinking about selling are now benching their plans."

Despite four consecutive months of falls, housing lending has only unwound halfway from pandemic highs and remains well above pre-pandemic levels.

But the ANZ economists expect to see further declines in housing lending as the Reserve Bank of Australia continues hiking rates.

On Tuesday afternoon, the central bank lifted interest rates by another 25 basis points, taking the official cash rate to 2.85 per cent.

ANZ economists have revised their peak cash rate forecasts to reflect higher-than-expected inflation and are now expecting the cash rate to peak at 3.85 per cent by May 2023.

"We don't see inflation falling back within the RBA's two-three per cent target band until end-2024," ANZ's Catherine Birch said.

"But we think it will be enough for the RBA to see inflation falling steadily and annualising within the target band for it to cut rates in the second half of 2024."

The ABS also reported the total number of dwellings approved fell 5.8 per cent in September, following a 23.1 per cent increase in August.

The fall was largely driven by a drop in approvals for private sector houses, down 7.8 per cent.

Across Australia, total dwelling approvals fell in: South Australia (-19.7 per cent), Tasmania (-10.8 per cent), Western Australia (-9.3 per cent), New South Wales (-8.8 per cent), and Queensland (-6.2 per cent).

Victoria was the only state to record an increase, rising 3.4 per cent.

Approvals for private sector houses fell in all states: WA (-11.4 per cent), Queensland (-8.6 per cent), NSW (-7.9 per cent), Victoria (-4.7 per cent), and SA (-4.3 per cent).

The value of total building approvals fell 6.9 per cent in September, following a 19.5 per cent rise in August.

Housing Industry Association economist Nick Ward said there was likely more trouble ahead for the construction industry.

"If these trends are sustained, which is expected, then the 2.75 per cent increase in the cash rate so far will have brought this boom to an end," he said.

He raised concerns that the large pipeline of construction work still under way was obscuring the impact of interest rate hikes.

"These treacherous lags that characterise this housing cycle could result in the RBA weighing too heavily on households and businesses and jeopardising the housing industry's future soft landing," he warned.

© AAP 2022