The surge in food and oil prices is hitting people barely surviving Covid while hurting first time buyers with steep mortgage rate increases while putting pressure on renters.
Add to this misery a feeling amongst many progressive voters that while Jacinda has protected us from the worst ravages of Covid, she has not made anything close to the progress required on housing, inequality and meaningful environmental change.
Labour needs a vision, voters need hope.
Following the Commerce Commission’s own recommendation, the Government should step in alongside Iwi to take a 30% stake in the supermarket industry to bust up the duopoly.
Labour has an obligation to fix the broken market to facilitate healthy capitalism.
Lower food prices, better prices for growers and living wages for staff would do more to help everyone facing the steep cost of living increases than any single other pieces of social policy!
If they are prepared to spend $3billion on unemployment insurance to benefit white-collar middle-class workers, what about the vast majority trying to make ends meet?
When does Labour finally step up and be bold for poor people?
First published on Waatea News.
Labour needs a vision, voters need hope. LOL
This inflation was created by border closured and lockdowns
yup for sure that’s why prices are rocketing in all neo-lib countries with very different covid responces..sounds right to me…
There are alternatives to the supermarket duopoly. Try they many fruit and vegetable shops butcher shops Chinese supermarkets and you can even buy groceries at the warehouse.
so move on nothing to see here cs…yeah roight
Voters don’t need hope anymore. Hope got her elected. Voters now need to see the deeds of this party. And the deeds – apart from the initial covid processes – are nothing short of repulsive. Poverty, Hunger, Homelessness and more and more a divided and segregated country. A hat bill in the making – National and Act laughing all the way to the bank on this one and sooner or later rampant Omricon. Great Job Labour, well done. But I guess their CVs have been patted with ‘relevant’ public service and some nice and cushy jobs will be lined up for the next step.
indeed sabine HOPE IS OVER, now it’s time for ‘get shit done’ or get off the pot.
We’ve been here before with Kiwibuild and Kiwibank. For different reasons they are both flops. The poor man’s Gordon Brown pissed all the money down the drain in corporate welfare and woke shit and now you want to spend 100’s of millions on another failure in waiting. As for Iwi involvement – you’ll end up with tribal elite grifters running it – that ain’t vision – that is Fiji level economic corruption!
What the powers to be need to do is ask the likes of Aldi why there are in Australia and not NZ and then re-structure the industry accordingly.
IS KIWIBANK A FAILURE frank? by what metrics frank,
bet if the nats flogged it off there’d be a line of aussie banks round the corner and up the road to the end of the block lining up to buy the ‘failure’.
The prices in the supermarkets are going up on a daily basis, because Kiwis will not complain. It’s time the duopoly was busted and the fat cats that run be forced to lower prices to match those paid by the rest of the world. Opening the country’s doors to some of the cheaper supermarket brands such as Lidl and Aldi would help as well. Why aren’t they allowed into this country? Because we might use them and take some of the profit away from the duopoly!
Pretty sure they’re allowed.
Small market with not too many good sites available as well.
This country has 5 million population spread over avast landscape . Even if they got half of the people buying off them they would not be able to make a profit on the low margins they get overseas due to high transport costs and limited suppliers . The only people that can run a business model at a lose is the government but it is then the tax payer that picks up the slack so you will get hit one way or the other .
yup that’s why avvos and cheese are usually soooo fuckin cheap here..it’s not worth exporting..yer avin a larff
actually the relatively reasonable price of avvos this year is possibly a function of them not being able to flog them overseas..which kinda makes my argument for me.
With many items in normal times it is cheaper to get stuff to Australia than it is from one area of NZ to another .
trev how many shares do you hold in the duopoly seriously it’s the only excuse I can think of to explain your willful blind defense of the indefensible..
In response to inflation Poland and Hungary temporally removed GST on food and Australia provides also an example.
Interesting,… so why are we still having a tax on food dreamt up by the neo liberals from 28 years ago when there are constant complaints made to remove it, at least from vegs, fruits, meats , milk , bread and cheese etc?
…”GST was introduced by the Fourth Labour Government of New Zealand on 1 October 1986 at a rate of 10% on most goods and services. It replaced existing sales taxes for some goods and services. GST was a part of the economic reforms initiated by Labour Finance Minister Roger Douglas dubbed Rogernomics”…
There ya go , – the original scumbag neo liberal himself and his mates had their sticky little dirt ingrained fingers in it.
Why Iwi involvement/partnership?
If Iwi match govt cost by half or so then yes! Iwi involvement….but you actually mean the tax payers pay for it and Iwi get a free ride, have no skin in the game, no financial input?
Is that what you envisage….if so, dream on!
Martyn, I support your idea. It great!
Say you and I wanted to start a new affordable supermarket venture (with aspirations of a very moderate profit, what the heck, let’s run it at loss!)…we’d have no chance whatsoever. New Zealand governance is now nothing but a cesspit of complex and obstructive legislation and tedious bureaucracy and negativity. That is the game down there in Wellington…”what can we do to make things very hard…no, even harder…or ideally, impossible”. Govt Official: “Have we killed the concept? Good, let’s go an have a chardonnay!”
It would most definitely be run at a loss subsided by Government which means the taxpayer.
How silly is that.
they know full well what to do, but like housing etc etc etc they refuse to do anything..basically they’re ideologically opposed to anything that might help ordinary kiwis…them’s the facts, get used to it…
shoulda
coulda
woulda
DIDN’T
is now official labour policy.
Amen to that!
Inflation is not brought about by Supermarket owners but rather by an incompetent Labour Government.
Soooo around the world inflation is skyrocketing and all caused because of a Labour government John?
Oh my dear lord, give me strength .
There’s no such thing as ‘ healthy capitalism’ unless you believe that capitalists controlling governments/controlling markets is an acceptable component of capitalism. Otherwise Labour is merely following the playbook of their capitalist overlords, meaning our economy like (almost) every economy is purposely about to tank, only to be resurrected (or built back better) by the very same capitalist powers who want to this old model gone. Its almost like a form of bankruptcy where they won’t have to pay a dime for all the free trillions they’ve given themselves over the years with a few extra bonus aspects to this new capitalist system that better cements their control over us all.
jeremy..how pray tell seriously now,
the ‘cheap money’ from QE went into property and straight to overseas banks it didn’t touch the real day to day economy, wages have stagnated, rents are rising…where is this disposable income sloshing around that fuels inflation….do tell.
Internal costs have risen so have external costs so we have both domestic and imported inflation but my point is that has nothing to with the owners of Supermarkets.
Not so sure Jeremy. Supermarkets are part of the problem. They are affected by supply chain issues like the construction industry and other businesses that rely on imported goods. Supermarkets compete for product that is costing more because of supply shortages and increased shipping costs. They add the extra cost to what they sell because they won’t take a profit cut unless they’re forced to. Construction works the same way. Builders don’t absorb material cost increases they pass them on. We have to eat and build houses to live in so the extra costs are inflationary. We can blame Labour for plenty but it’s a bit tough to say that all the supply chain issues are their fault. Having said that the duopoly that controls the food trade has been talked about before many times. Like fuel. All governments do is talk up the “we are going to fix this” but they never do. Same in construction with firms like Carter Holt doing deals with suppliers and builders but keeping the discount for themselves and upping the price to the consumer. Overall governments are fucking useless at controlling these companies because they’re politicians and not qualified to do anything but debating. Talk. And they mostly talk shit.
Yes new view I agree with you.
they could take slimmer margins, and less bumper profits…
what ‘products’ are the duopoly competing for? considering they are a duopoly and are forcing NZ producers into the ground with predatory practices…lack of ability (no ships) to export should lead to oversupply at least of fruit and veg but prices are rising.
don’t even try to tell me margins are too thin when they report massive profits every year…it’s just not credible is it?
Gagarin. I tend to agree. They aren’t taking smaller margins but I’m sure they could. For the last two years being a super market owner must be like a banker printing money. Breaking the duopoly would create competition but there is a vacuum where there should be a third player. Product demand is complicated as we all believe what we buy is the best choice. I don’t know what the answer is but countdown Hastings has built a completely new supermarket. They’re not hard up.
so the inflation is actually being caused by the very processes of capitalism not by money sloshing around in peoples pockets…so further contraction of their disposable income won’t help 1 iota.
so jezza why do the poor hard done to and put upon duopoly turn in record profits year on year?
so,so true.
Like Australia. remove all GST from ‘foods’. It ain’t Rocket Science! If the ozzies can do it!
https://www.ato.gov.au/business/gst/in-detail/your-industry/food/gst-and-food/?anchor=GSTfreefood
Pffttt…if you think Grant (I’ve never met a tax I didn’t love) Roberston is going to reduce tax, then I have a bridge to sell you. Also look paying off the media doesn’t come cheap.
“When does Labour finally step up and be bold for poor people?”
Never, will be the answer.
Our democracy is capitalist and that means it’s all about the money. It’ll always only be about the money.
We need to return to our roots and they were a socialist – democracy. The only way to reverse that particular fuck up will be by a bloodless revolution and the only way to achieve that will be by regaining control of the money. Yep. That’s irony. But rather a few, like one or two, having control of our finances, we, the people, must shoulder that responsibility. We must go to the source of our economy and if you think it’s tourism you’re a fucking fool. We must woo our farmers to come over to the dark side to shed some light on the complete and total fuck up our economy is.
All roads lead back to ‘money’….where does it come from,and who creates it?
Private central bankers in the U.S and the City of London,basically control international finance.
The Bank of International Settlements,IMF,World Bank,Swift system and forex markets are controlled by these private charlatans.
You only need to read about the L.I.B.O.R scandal to see the manipulation and market rigging that is a daily feature of western financial dominance.
The endless Q.E which was meant to be a temporary measure is now just fuel for the primary dealers on Wall St to bolster impaired assets,transfer risk,buy back shares and 101 other machinations that maintain their control.
Every single one of the 4 major Wall St banks have extensive rap sheets of heinous criminality ,over decades.
No one goes to jail,they own the politicians and its…B.A.U.
Agreed we need to break up the duopoly. I think an Iwi backed third group would be ideal. Perhaps with government assisted funding to get off the ground. Unfortunately a big chunk of food inflation is coming from wholesale suppliers rather than the supermarkets at the moment. So a third group will be great for competition in the long run, buts it is not going to help consumers in the near term.
it does tell you something about NZ middle men when corner dairies stock up from pak n slave…back in the day in the uk access to a wholesalers card(like a moore wilson card) was the golden ticket..not in NZ though.
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