The research, carried out through a mixture of one-on-one interviews and multi-choice questions involving 72 local chiefs, was the first time PWC’s annual survey stretched to include New Zealand.

PWC New Zealand chief executive Bruce Hassall said the global review had been running for 13 years but the financial crisis had sparked the decision to include New Zealand.

“We were keen to run a New Zealand equivalent survey to find out how New Zealand executives compared with global trends, how New Zealand businesses had managed through the recession and their outlook now.”

Hassall said the survey had found strong similarities between New Zealand chief executives and their overseas counterparts as well as some key differences. He said the global consensus was that executives believed they had navigated the recession well and optimism was now picking up with an expectation of growth this year.

In a provocative move to increase its share of the nation’s $90 billion grocery market, Coles yesterday said its products would cost the same across 151 Queensland locations.

The move – the latest salvo in the increasingly fierce supermarket wars – brings Coles into line with independent grocer Aldi, which introduced a similar policy in 2008.

In response to the announcement, Woolworths said it had been trying to offer postcode-free prices for years.

Under the changes, which come into effect on February 1, shoppers in isolated or wealthy areas will no longer pay a premium because of where they live.

Consumer groups have hailed the news as a victory for shoppers and a much-needed injection of competition into the Australian market, one of the most concentrated in the developed world.

But consumer and competition law expert Associate Professor Frank Zumbo said Coles had more work to do to increase its pricing transparency.

“With these types of announcements, the devil is always in the detail and the onus is on Coles to tell consumers which products will be affected and by how much retail prices will change on the affected items,” he said.

Prof Zumbo said Coles consistently rated lower than other supermarket players in customer satisfaction surveys and was “clearly playing catch up”.

But Choice spokesman Christopher Zinn labelled the policy a “meaningful move” in the supermarket wars.

“Unlike things like fuel discount schemes and free DVDs, this is much more significant than the usual gimmicks the big supermarkets use to gain market share,” Mr Zinn said.

“There’s been concern for years that people in less competitive suburbs are paying increased prices, so this is a big win for them.”

Coles spokesman Jim Cooper said the policy would exclude fruit and vegetables and products approaching use-by dates, but would see 97 per cent of products price matched across the state. A further 8000 products would be price matched nationwide, with the lowest prices adopted across the board.

In its 2009 Corporate Responsibility Report, Woolworths said it offered more than 1000 products at the same price, regardless of location.

“For branded products we aim to ensure prices are the same at stores within each state,” the report said.

A confidential Immigration Department report reveals nearly 40 per cent of detected fraud involving student visas last year was aimed at universities.

Previously, the problem was thought to be confined mainly to the private vocational educational sector with private colleges and language schools being the preferred target of people-smuggling operations.

But the report to Immigration by consultants Ernst & Young, obtained under Freedom of Information laws by The Australian, shows universities and vocational colleges are increasingly being exploited to place bogus students.

The Ernst & Young report showed that in the 10 months to April last year, higher education accounted for 39 per cent of student visas refused where fraud was involved. But it was higher in the 12 months to June, where higher education accounted for more than half, 53 per cent, of such cases.