'Worst conman' to fight ban

By JASON COLLIE

Colourful Auckland businessman Michael Helsby-Knight has pledged to fight his unprecedented ban on ever doing business in New South Wales and prove himself to New Zealand consumers.

Mr Helsby-Knight is the first man to be permanently barred from trading in the Australian state.

Its Department of Fair Trading dubbed him the worst conman it had ever dealt with.

A department spokesman told the Herald yesterday: "We don't want him back," and Consumers Institute chief executive David Russell said similar banning laws should be passed in New Zealand.

But Mr Helsby-Knight - back in Auckland setting up a company selling refurbished Australian computers - yesterday vowed to fight the ban, and apologised to anyone who had lost money doing business with him.

He said he would return to Sydney to contest the New South Wales Supreme Court injunction, but only once his new company, Computer World, was running smoothly.

"It'll be a good two or three months before I will finish delivering all the products I said I would here so I can hold my head up to the New Zealand public and say 'I do what I say I am going to do.'

"If I had done all these things [the NSW department says], I would be in jail. I have never been spoken to by police."

Mr Helsby-Knight, who has also been a repeat subject on television's Fair Go programme, added: "I have done things wrong in the past.

"There have been things I have done that I am not very proud of and to anybody who has lost money or a product or whatever, I apologise and will reimburse that as I can."

He said the NSW department's action was heavy-handed.

He had been convicted only of one charge of misleading advertising in New South Wales, in 1995.

He was also fined $25,000 in Melbourne last February for misrepresentation.

Mr Helsby-Knight said his new venture had a "few" customers who had already paid some money for refurbished computers that he was waiting to have delivered.

The NSW fair trading spokesman said about one person a month was banned from doing business in the state, but usually only for a set amount of time.

"It took us a lot to convince a judge that someone is so bad that they have no possibility of reform," the spokesman said.

"He's an absolute menace."

Told that Mr Helsby-Knight intended to fight the ban, the spokesman said: "He can come back and do anything he wants, but until the court makes any other decision, he's not operating a corner store or a newspaper stand. Nothing."

Mr Russell said the Consumers Institute would cite Mr Helsby-Knight's case when it renewed its lobbying for the introduction of similar trading bans here.

Consumer Affairs Minister Phillida Bunkle said the possibility of introducing similar bans for motor vehicle sellers and in the consumer credit industry was being investigated.

But they would not work against all traders.

Conmen would be able to dodge such bans, and the Government wanted to target bad business practices rather than individuals.