Sigh.
The dream is over.
The Commerce Commission has been reigned all the way back into making meaningless tinkering to a duopoly that is screwing over Kiwis and denying cheaper food for consumers, better prices for producers and better conditions for workers.
Bernard Hickey points out that for 20 years the Supermarket Duopoly has strangled off competition and rigged the market and Labour are just too gutless to stop them…
The initial report was radical and suggested the State step in and take a 3rd of the supermarket industry and force competition that way.
I believe it was a strategic political master stroke that Labour should have picked up.
Cost of living is crippling people.
After 2 years of Covid, voters want more than to be told to ‘endure more’.
They need hope.
A new Supermarket chain with a focus on better prices for consumers and producers is the very type of market regulation New Zealander’s are screaming for.
Sadly it’s a project that a timid Labour Party won’t contemplate.
We need big universal ideas that will bring down the cost of our merely living in NZ.
A new Government backed chain of Supermarkets could do that. Likewise free public transport, GST off fruit and vegetables, free school breakfasts ands lunches, mass State House build and free dental for everyone!
We just made the rich a Trillion dollars richer, let’s not pretend there isn’t the money for these types of vast upgrades of people’s existence!
Unfortunately the political Left are too busy calling people they don’t like Nazis and cancelling anyone who doesn’t show their pronouns in their Twitter profile to demand actual solutions to housing, poverty and inequality.
Labour won’t do a thing about the Supermarket Duopoly, if they won’t bother picking up the largest recommendation from the Royal Inquiry into Historic State abuse after calling for it and paying over $140million, they sure as Christ can ignore anything the Commerce Commission is frail enough to suggest.
Labour will merely tinker and the poor will suffer 10% inflation by December.
Sigh.
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Every outcome you don’t like is Labour’s fault. They don’t tell the Commerce Commission what to write.
With all the moaning from the left and the right you will probably get a change of government and most of you will get exactly what you deserve.
Personally I am happy to have a government that doesn’t give tax breaks to the rich and doesn’t sell anything.
Look, if supermarkets were making enormous profits, I’d invest in them, but they’re not.
Andrew if you owned just one decent sized Pak n Save you would be doing particularly well, you would have money coming out your ears, do some research and get back to TDB b4 making stupid statements like you normally do.
You’d be waiting a long time in hell before he’d stop making stupid comments, he sits just behind any one of the Kraut’s multiple namesake in terms of stupidity.
Give me investment in supermarkets anyday, that alongside Funeral Directing investment.
Then you should both buy the shares of Foodstuffs (NZ) Ltd, because this company owns all the Pak & Saves stores.
Bert- And also booze barns, child care, and elder care, staffed cheaply by immigrants.
Yep all good guaranteed investments.
You might want to take another look – those that own a large New World or a decent Pak’n Save are making millions.
Once the debt is paid down, a decent Foodstuffs store will generate the owner between $1M to $3M per annum of declared income, ie after tax etc.
What’s not captured are all the drawings, expenses against the business, salaries to family members, etc that all get washed through the machine.
It’s an absolute rort and it’s those least able to afford it who suffer most. Just look at the price for a leg of kiwi lamb or 500g of butter in the UK vs here and then tell me again how they’re not making a fortune.
NZ is known as treasure island in the trade due to the obscene profits the retailers are making.
Reminiscent of their big talk against the oil cartels. They huffed and they puffed and got bored and gave up without a whimper. Nothing happened except we now see the rip off price of higher octane fuels vs the rip off price of lower octane fuels.
Honestly, a code of conduct? Seriously? And some other meaningless things.
Foodstuffs and Progressive won’t care. They knew it was all piss and wind. Probably knew the outcome before the government such is the pathetic track record of the Commerce Commission.
Labour, this is why you are descending in the polls. You are pointless!
Fuck All Labour or National can do about market pricing, unless you start bringing in State controlled pricing by the State, just imagine the uproar if Jacinda introduces “State Fuel Pricing”, telling the Oil Companies what to charge and setting the prices in the Supermarkets. They would be labelling her a “Communist” ?
Oil dropped to record lows in 2020. It never dropped here or anywhere near the extent crude fell to. But the moment markets indicate a rise, boom, up at the pumps.
Where was our concerned government then? In the pockets of the oil companies? Or their usual asleep at the wheel?
They can also start looking at the tax on it. But they won’t.
My interpretation of what David Clark said today goes like this.
“We knew the NZ public have been rorted by Supermarkets for decades but we didn’t know what to do about it. We decided to postpone doing anything by having the Commerce Commission have a drawn out investigation and then come up with recommendations that even blind Freddy can see. We again didn’t know what to do with the recommendations when they arrived so we decided to abdicate responsibility by putting it back on those who have been ripping you off. We are putting some soft cock perfunctory changes on the table that the Supermarkets will need to adopt at their leisure knowing it won’t make a blind bit of difference to the price your groceries cost. To again avoid having to do anything ourselves, we are putting a limp noodle threat in place that if the Supermarkets predictably do nothing except keep rorting you and make pointless cosmetic change, we will eventually have to do something ourselves. What that something is we have no fucking idea”.
Sadly, Todd Muller was right with one statement he made. Jacinda is surrounded by many empty chairs. That was proven again today.
NZF wanted to get GST taken off fresh fruit and vegetables and essential food items, obviously couldn’t get it past Jacinda nd the Labour Caucus in the 2017 Coalition Agreement.
Did Ardern ask America if she should sanction the supermarkets and they said no?
Probably.
Labour don’t get it. Wages are NOT enough, wine is cheaper than petrol, the price of dairy is theft….. and the grocery oligarchs are laughing at us
Petrol hit $4.17 a litre in America, a record high, must be Jacinda’s fault.
Per US gallon. Big difference
Labour could at least take off the 11 cents per litre judder bar tax in Auckland
You miss the point, it’s a record high, that’s the big difference here and yes I agree with the judder bar tax being removed.
The US gallon is defined as 231 cubic inches (3.785 liters). so 3.785 liters x NZ $3.00 = $11.355
And just to add a little more perspective…
https://news.yahoo.com/u-ban-russian-oil-mean-195502657.html
Probably Arderns fault eh Krauty?
Put the Wine in the Car.
More tinkering=hopeless!
Aldi should be given incentives to set up here.
Aldi could go into Joint Ventures with Maaori Iwi Groups as they have the land in certain areas and access to fresh fruit&vegetables, fish, meat etc could be win/win if structured properly.
Is Ardern spreading misinformation by saying there is no living cost crisis in this country?
Yep just like John Key used to do back in the National Party Days. Is there a Housing Crisis = No there is not a housing crisis. Are too many houses being sold to Overseas Investors = No most are being bought by first home buyers and NZ Investors. Just deny, deny, deny, deflect, deflect, deflect, finally everyone gives up and throws their hands up in the air ?
Gutless is indeed the word. The Royal Inquiry into Historic State abuse; the Commerce Commission report on the supermarket duopoly; ignoring – or at best paying lip service to – evidence on nitrate levels in groundwater / waterways. Add your own.
David Parker was quoted last year on the nitrate /freshwater issue as saying the government had to be careful that it was not “over-regulating parts of the system”. What a fucking joke. And we vote these people into office.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/436961/government-not-ruling-out-limits-on-nitrogenous-fertiliser
Sadly, much the same could be said of the supermarket duopoly, where any ‘over-regulation’ of NZ’s supermarket duopoly is a threat to multinational interests.
Well National/ACT will definitely not change anything these guys would be their major sponsors.
Andrew if you owned just one decent sized Pak n Save you would be doing particularly well, you would have money coming out your ears, do some research and get back to TDB b4 making stupid statements like you normally do.
Yes one prominent Pak n Save owner in Hamilton has a racehorse stud and multiple racehorse both here and in Australia, I’d say supermarkets are profitable. These random comments made about super.arkets not being profitable without any evidence to back them up, are just tedious.
Martin the section you quoted around restrictive covenants (from Bernard H) is actually one of the areas that will be addressed. Suppliers seem to be happy with some of the recommendations. I know consumers will say ‘so what’ but its overly simplistic to say this will have no impact on the BIG TWO.
As for all the comments around a new government what on earth will Nat/ACT do? They will come in and then quietly not do anything when the govt appointed watch dog says the two players are still being obstructive.
Completely sad state of NZ with gutless commerce commission. The Guardian has an article today about NZ’s growing cost of living crisis…. go figure. Loads of ineffectual and incomplete ‘investigations’ from NZ so called watch dogs and then nothing happens…. Oh and increasingly nobody does any work anymore too. So eventually something has to give as food and building is more expensive here than anywhere else in the world, but we produce the materials here!
Meanwhile our media is owned by the groceries companies and rich listers, suppress news here. Only Stuff reported this one – yep even in woke NZ, advertising money is more important than news….
Calls for Sleepyhead boycott after director shares ‘racist’ email
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/127955922/calls-for-sleepyhead-boycott-after-director-shares-racist-email
Pretty sure there was a different tune for the above, while getting iwi on side for their taxpayer paid for fast tracked billion dollar infrastructure private project. The media were full of pro articles for the above, just like the media constantly has articles about how amazing the supermarkets are at keeping NZ open, they are even paying for Kiwis to fly from OZ (where they fled for better wages and conditions) to help them put food on NZ shelves. OMG! They are true Saints! Sarcasm.
No doubt a knighthood will be given for all their incredible efforts to the above company directors! Sarcasm. Joining Sir Ron Brierly into the fold.
CC is F***ing useless here in NZ always has been always will be, owned by the Business Round Table Old Boyz Network.
And the business round table are donkey deep in bed with National.
It’s well known that the best way to decrease the cost of oil and gas is to close oil refineries and stop drilling.
During Covid when crude oil dropped to massive lows and it was not worth drilling, don’t seem to remember the petrol companies lowering the price of fuel in NZ. Now there is a war, our petrol companies are quick to seize the opportunity to hike up fuel prices and sock to Labour at the same time. Weird how prices in NZ, only seem to go up with market conditions. Sarcasm.
Something that is probably caused by competition – oppressing prices to producers –
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/463086/unviable-to-grow-produce-in-nz-farmers-blame-rising-cost-of-energy-rates-wages-audits
The supermarkets have everything bound so tight – a great example of a system or business machine, impacting on a human operated employer doing the hard hands-on p0hysical work while the market takes the top off produce sold.
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