Supermarket duopoly put on notice: Government warns sector to change ‘at pace’ or face regulation
The Government says it is acting on a lack of competition in the supermarket sector and warned it to change “at pace” or face regulation.
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister David Clark today revealed the Government’s response to the Commerce Commission’s market study into supermarkets, published in March.
The Commission estimated Countdown and Foodstuffs were making excess profits of about $430 million a year – more than $1 million a day.
As the political battle over the cost of living crisis has raged on, the Government said that it reserved to go further than the Commerce Commission’s recommendations if it saw the need.
What a disappointing nothing that has been the outcome of Labour’s spineless attempt to smash the Supermarket Duopoly.
Rather than be radical and seizing 30% of the Duopoly to force market competition, Labour will take the watered down Commerce Commission recommendations and implement 12 of them.
Yawn.
This will do sweet fuck all and it’s just another fucking example of this spineless, gutless, do nothing Government talking. huge game and then not even bothering to turn up to play.
Right now, Russia and the Ukrainian conflict is impacting everything in terms of food and materials price inflation on top of China’s shut down thanks to their zero tolerance of Covid policy. That is going to see prices explode and I’ve argued inflation will hit double digits by December.
Being told some regulatory tweaks to the Duopoly power of the greedy supermarkets is all Labour have managed while you go hungry and cold will be another example of big promises and empty delivery when people are at their most vulnerable.
Labour are a joke looking for a punchline. This could have been their saving grace, it’s another hollow nothing.
It’s almost like they don’t even want to win the next election.
If you want something done right, lock David Clark up first.
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Lol the is no money for Kiwimart. If it was that easy and there for the taking Coles or Aldi would already be in New Zimbabwe.
Case in point Kiwibank. The government is still tipping cash into that business. Sure it is making a book profit but our cash is still being pumped into that entity. Then of course there is Kiwirail……
Absolute nonsense. The duopoly has made windfall profits off the backs of New Zealanders. Seize their stores, and seize their money. Simple as
looks like aldi might be unless of course the minister is lying to placate the proles with false hope.
I don’t actually think it is a wet bus ticket at all. Your issues Martyn are both the time to make an impact and the government not seizing assets off private industry. I get the timing piece but I don’t agree that the government seizing assets is a sure fire election winner. Do you mean the government forces the current owners to sell to another private company or the government invests itself? I assume you don’t mean actual, Dick Turpin style, stand and deliver theft.
That is EXACTLY what I mean
Ok, for me it’s hard to say if public unease around three waters is weighted more towards the local democracy piece, or the co governance aspect. If it’s more about democracy, then 3 waters coupled with taking 30% of the assets of the duopoly (free of charge!) would not be an election winner in my view. I get that we want cheaper groceries but are we “ready for that jelly?”
I find this all terribly interesting…
Supermarkets! What are they good for? Absolutely nothing. They merely transition food from the vile …what are they called again? Banker? No. Real estate agencies?? Dahlings! God no. Something beginning with Ef? Pharma? No. But close.
When the belly’s full dahlings, all else is art.
AO/NZ could easily close its borders and tell the rest of the world to fuck off and we’d be knee deep in bread, wines and cheeses by next winter. Couldn’t it Boys?
You’re freaking out about nothing @ MB. Chill out and move to Dunedin or Invercargill.
No…..there’s enough down here….stay in Pig Island…You will hate it down here…
Most of their profits come from the sale of sugar laden junk food anyway.
Nationalization isn’t theft, you crook. Privatization is theft.
I think it’s theft if a private asset is taken by the government for no consideration and against the will of the asset owner. We are not talking about privatising a state owned asset in this example are we?
and what is it when you sell something ALL kiwis have paid for on the cheap to YOUR MATES….
What? Another riddle? Making an assumption here but clearly it’s wrong to flog off state owned assets below value but that’s the elected government of the day getting it wrong or worse knowing it, and doing it for their mates (that’s corrupt) So your answer is get another elected government to take someone else’s privately owned assets? Gee why not cut out the middle man? Here we are berating young ram raiders when in fact they are role models. Let’s just drive through the supermarket, literally, and take what we want.
no one mentioned ram raiders the point was, the corruption of the nats in selling national assets to their mates at knockdown prices….and is that any different to nationalising private assets for the public good….but good try wheel.
Yes Gagarin if you do it Martyn’s suggested way it is. He said no money given just take it. See his reply to my question
so if nationalisation is 40percent of actual worth you’ll be happy with that will you, that’s a fair knock down price innit?
Its the DNA of this particular Labour government, appearance is everything. Substance, who cares?
David Clark overseeing this gives no confidence of success.
Well Bob he has gone further than the recommendations of the CC. National was happy with the CC recommendations so do you think they would have more success? Surely as an ardent National fan you would want more from them than just settling for it not being Labour?
Excellent response Wheel, essentially anyone but Labour.
Read Martyn’s heading.
Note wet bus ticket.
A bit like your posts then, a non reply on National.
Another of Martyns headlines…
” That’s Dr Cindy to you keyboard warrior scumbags”
Gosh Cindy is considered derogatory by many including me.
More perplexing though is what has this to do with supermarkets?
As perplexing as you agreeing with Martyns headline.
Well I hope you take heed.
You match the criteria numbnuts Bob
Don’t disagree Wheel but given his track record have little faith in David Clark all the same I’m more than happy to be proven wrong.
Being proven wrong Bob is on your resume.
Ironically under National, who are hardly the doyen of care for ordinary people, were also aware of this duopoly and the problems it caused,. Back then my local Progressive supermarket was forced to surrender it to Foodstuffs, only because Progressive had so many supermarkets clumped in our area that it was in essence, a monopoly. Still a duopoly but at least that did something positive in my area and I assume it happened elsewhere.
There is nothing in reality stopping the government forcing both to shed some of their stores, compensated of course, to go to a third player.
And let’s not forget the telecommunications industry simply fucked New Zealanders over with cellular communication charges under a duopoly until 2degrees came along.
Its never going to change until a third player hits the market!
Agree XRAY. Regulatory bodies in many jurisdictions force companies in mergers etc to sell off bits and pieces. Not many governments ( at least none I would support) just steal assets. Where would that end.
neolib user pays paradise was the result of the theft of NZs assets
@ xray. Hmmm… ? I dunno about that. I don’t think it’d matter how many supermarkets there were. They’d keep their prices high and end up eating each other alive while they banked the money, just like hungry rats might if rats could comprehend money. Oh? Wait a minute… There is a species of rat who can, isn’t there. The rats in suits who drive BMW’s who can bi-pass the normal rules of societal engagement. They’re in banking as I write and that’s why you’ll have a cascade of mortgagee sales tomorrow. Your little real esnake agents toiling away against their fellow man ( and woman. ) Aye boys? Guess who? https://youtu.be/eJlN9jdQFSc
‘The problem’ is hidden within the supermarkets and just like farming, it’s a parasitic thing that’s invisible but for it’s influence and effects it exerts on us all. Except you rich fucks. You’re ok BECAUSE IT’S YOU WHO IS THE PROBLEM. ( Maniacal criminal master mind laughter. ) ” BA HHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHA A A….. ! ”
The very, very, very dire and enduring problem for all AO/NZ’ers is that there’s a dug-in Deep State strata of interbreeding criminal mastermind elites. Many of whom came from within AO/NZ’s agricultural history who discovered there were easier ways to make money than lifting hay bails onto the truck deck. And that was by lifting G&T’s to the lips, when they were no longer attached to someone else’s mutually advantageous urban arse hole,
The same corrupt systems are at play everywhere there is money to be ill gotten. Particularly because our primary industry is farming and because our farmers are a tiny voting-numbers minority spread out out over the length and breadth of AO/NZ they were like sitting ducks and were as easily picked off. ( Once one or two of them slithered into our caucus, though… Then that became a ramped up version of a treasonous plot.)
But hay !? ( Did any one sea that deliberate spelling boo-boo? Ba ha ! ) Why not? If you can get away with it, why not? If you could steal billions of dollars annually out from under the noses of those whom can be easily manipulated and exploited then why not? So long as you can keep getting away with it, of course.
But what might happen if you were sprung? C-19 nearly did you in, didn’t it? Suddenly, AO/NZ seemed to have tons of money oozing out of every sticky, well fingered orifice. That is until grant and his creative accounting found a way to hide their greed within retail mortgage debt to foreign banksters.
But that’s another story, aye boys?
Why would they be compensated? They’ve stolen enough money from us already. It’s time to stop thinking like the only direction we can go is the path of the failed state, the path of privatization.
Privatization never happens at a fair rate that pays we, the people, the price they deserve for the loss of our assets. Why should nationalization pay the usurers, the crooks, out anything approaching what THEY would like to have for the assets that should always have been nationalized?
John they may have made huge profits but they haven’t stolen anything (in a legal sense).
You will have to help understand why you think we are going down the path of privatisation when talking about this particular situation.
I agree X-Ray although I think it a bit disingenuous those stating Labour are a bit slow, given Costco is now in NZ and now potentially Aldi. As you quite right suggest, change will come should this occur…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/supermarket-giant-aldi-eyes-new-zealand-joining-costco-to-shake-up-duopoly/25M5FSB65PBR4PGLOTALAHBXAU/
the demoralising thing is LINO still thinks cosmetic diversions work, it’s just another indication of how out of touch they are if they think noodling about fools anyone anymore.
Completely agree gagarin.
Diversion wears thin and that’s pretty much all we’ve had for 5 years.
Division started in 2008 and ended in 2017.
This is how you create divide…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300599343/petrol-on-the-fire-the-two-words-from-a-prime-minister-that-set-off-a-fierce-reaction–chapter-3-spies-and-brides
I said diversion?
What will the price of bread be if?
Real GDP (growth) for 2022 is at 0.8%.
Real unemployment is at 11.2%
Real inflation is at 6.9%
So really we’re already in a recession heading toward Stagflation.
Given the urgency to address the supposed excess profits of $375m year accumulated by supermarkets, I look forward to seeing how the gov’t responds and addresses the $1700 m windfall “profit” the Govt has made by not adjusting the tax brackets for inflation in recent years. Presumably they will be equally responsive to addressing that wrong
Perhaps spend it on infrastructure that National failed to spend it on yet still got us deeper and deeper in debt.
That’s why we are in profit now under Labour.
In profit because of fiscal prudence.
National and Joyce were so appalling with numbers they dug our country a hole. The fact our country is profitable with the tax collection AND is spending on infrastructure and increasing wages just shows how corrupt with the finances National truly was.
Hungry children spend?
In profit?
From the looks of it, The Warehouse is oh-so-quietly going to move into the market. The government can use various road-building provisions in the RMA to make things easier for them.
I’ve just started reading Robert Reich’s 2010 book After-shock which I bought from the local library for $1 it being remaindered. I wonder how many people have read it. It makes some really good points and keeps on doing so as I turn the pages.
He starts off in the first chapter about Marriner Eccles in the USA, a self made millionaire found himself at a loss at how to recover from the Great Depression. Some pundits said it was a natural thing in the financial process and would self- correct, and some thought it a message from God. Eccles was a Mormon and had ideas about that and didn’t see the economy self – correcting either. Read on for what he did. It’s so interesting I can hardly wait for the next chapter. Penguin lets us read a little about Eccles and you can see how striking and direct the writing is – a really good story – and a true one. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/200720/aftershockinequality-for-all–movie-tie-in-edition-by-robert-reich/
…For many months thereafter, Eccles steeped himself in the work of the Treasury and the Roosevelt administration, pushing his case for why the government needed to go deeper into debt to prop up the economy, and what it needed to do for average people. Apparently he made progress. Roosevelt’s budget of 1934 contained many of Eccles’s ideas, violating the president’s previous promise to balance the federal budget. The president “swallowed the violation with considerable difficulty,” Eccles wrote.
The following summer, after the governor of the Federal Reserve Board unexpectedly resigned, Morgenthau recommended Eccles for the job. Eccles had not thought about the Fed as a vehicle for advancing his ideas. But a few weeks later, when the president summoned him to the White House to ask if he’d be interested, Eccles told Roosevelt he’d take the job if the Federal Reserve in Washington had more power over the supply of money, and the New York Fed (dominated by Wall Street bankers), less. Eccles knew Wall Street wanted a tight money supply and correspondingly high interest rates, but the Main Streets of America—the real economy—needed a loose money supply and low rates. Roosevelt agreed to support new legislation that would tip the scales toward Main Street. Eccles took over the Fed.
It would be good if we could all read the same thing and then give our personal thoughts. At present the discussions on the blog are often like kids aiming mud pies as the local lord goes by. (I have been watching Poldark on the screen at home and have that peasant resentment feeling!)
Folks wake up.
Here’s what’s gonna happen when a third or even forth player enters the market: they will all sell the same stuff at the same highest prices. End of story.
This shows how inept you are at economics, much like National. You have much to learn. End of story.
May I ask Bert what are your qualifications in economics.
Are you there Bert?
Certainly a higher qualification than you wee Bob.. degree in finance and accounting…are you there wee Bob?
Think you may be correct JK.
novel, ‘just a cabbage’, so competition doesn’t lead to competition so one large soviet style food supplier would be just as effective and as cheap as the ‘unseen hand of the free market’…well that’s an original take.