Kiwis lash out at Government’s new Grocery Commissioner, question what’s going to change
Kiwis are questioning the appointment of New Zealand’s first Grocery Commissioner, wondering when “real action” will occur as Consumer NZ revealed more “dodgy” supermarket deals.
The Groceries Commissioner is a virtue signal to look like something is changing and Monopoly Watch NZ are damning in their assessment…
The lawyers and lobbyists who serve the monopolists deserve handsome congratulations for their sterling efforts in disrupting, diluting and defanging the initial work of the Commerce Commission. They succeeded in having it kick into touch the policy difficulty of breaking up a cartel, a move tantalisingly contemplated in the its Draft Report. Now, Cabinet is so gun-shy about forced divestment that it will not permit the public to have a say in the matter. In fact, it won’t even let the public see the results of the studies on options for forced divestment, which it commissioned from Coriolis, Sense Partners and Cognitus. And these include a comparison of the “costs of divestment” with the Commerce Commission’s estimates of the supermarket chains’ excess profits. Price competition, innovation – along with the pay packets of Kiwi consumers — have been sacrificed to fears of outlier scenarios and unintended consequences.
…the cost of living crisis is hurting the very voters Labour promised to be transformative for.
The Left have done sweet fuck all for the material hardships of poverty, housing, inequality and climate change.
As I have pointed out tirelessly, while Labour saved us from Covid, they haven’t saved us from the ruthlessness of the under regulated free market.
I argued we would see double digit food inflation last year and that asking kiwis to endure more isn’t a political solution.
We hit 12.1% food inflation last month and the damage to crops is going to see food prices spike.
Voters need to hope that their basic costs will come down.
Voters need to believe a new Supermarket backed by the Government could do that.
The Commerce Commission has argued that if Competition doesn’t occur, they have the power to force a 30% sale to a 3rd Supermarket chain and I argue that should be the State!
Covid taught us food security matters and a Supermarket chain that embeds a cheaper food security while supporting local supplies is a necessity to correct a broken market!
Government should enter into a deal with Iwi to stock a new chain of Government/Iwi Supermarkets that champion local produce at better prices for the consumer and better worker conditions.
We need a kiwi subsidy on all local produce to recognize that producers have already used water and created local climate changing gases to create their product and as such consumers have already paid a price just to get the product to their table.
We should feed the 5million here first before boasting about feeding 40million world wide!
Calls to ‘feed the 5 million first’ before exporting NZ food
People are going hungry even though New Zealand produces enough food to feed 40 million – and it’s spurring calls for the country to “feed the five million first”.
Almost 40 percent of New Zealand households experience food insecurity, while 19 percent of children live in households that experience food insecurity.
Poverty researcher Dr Rebekah Graham said while working on her thesis on food insecurity, she interviewed a woman who walked for 90 minutes each day to get a free community meal.
A state owned 3rd supermarket chain would do more for providing a cheaper means of living to all kiwis who have food security issues. It would do more for welfare than any single PM since Savage.
History is calling Chippy.
To date Labour have had nothing to show beyond crisis responses. We still have hundreds of thousands of kids in poverty, 22000 on emergency housing lists, growing inequality and a climate crisis with no real solutions.
A state owned supermarket chain that radically forced competition on base level cost of living for a vast swathe of New Zealanders would be a legacy worthy of Labour.
We need to be kinder to individuals and crueler to corporations.
Cyclone Gabrielle changes everything, you must accept that some big vision projects are necessary and not just more tinkering?
The people are hurting economically, is the Left so bereft of ideas beyond middle class identity politics virtue signals that we have nothing to offer them?
As I have said time and time again, if you don’t want the poor to have their economic misery manipulated by the Right, then do something about their economic misery!
The Supermarket Duopoly is still operating and still price gouging, we don’t have effective market competition, the Commerce Commission has the power and has previously recommended the State seize 30% of the existing Duopoly and force entry level competition as a 3rd player.
It requires spine.
Food prices are only going to go up, you need a solution to what will be a food prices crisis in 3 months time.
People will lose their shit if they can’t afford to eat.
What is the point of Bread and Butter politics if no one can afford to buy the bread or the butter?
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And yet, here are our good lefties all lining up for an e-vehicle and holidays. Cause the lefties of NZ also think that capitalism is grand, and so as long as they have their who gives a shit about the miner in Congo that digs for the rare earth minerals that are needed to make immensely poisonous vehicles that can never really be recycled.
I hope you like your mobile phone, your computer, your nice clothes, your cheap take away, all that jazz, cause if you had to pay full price you be as poor.
The only reason we have yet to create shanty towns is that we still pretend that we can pay millions of dollars a day to keep people in rundown motels and other unfit hovel, until the day we run out of money, cause we don’t even have the gumption to print as much as we need to wipe out debt. As for food, go get a food parcel from a charity, of a 50cent ramen pack will do, and many already only eat that.
RB the Labour Government try to hide their mistakes in places like Fenton Street Rotorua.
Why is this not highlighted by the media?Where’s the teary eyed John Campbell?
1ZBob the only reason you probably even know about Fenton Street is because of journalism from the likes of Campbell. He’s done numerous stories on poverty under labours watch.
I know you have to be anti Campbell because he pointed out how full of shit your man crush John Key was, but he’s actually still pointing out these problems.
If things get bad people will take up pitchforks and go angry to the gated communities where the very rich live. We should have some consideration for their safety. We could help protect them by reinforcing their gates with extra chains and bolts, concrete humps to stop people ram raiding and driving in, etc.
Labour Government have made the lives of their most loyal supporters,worse.
“It requires spine” MB says and that is very true,but the Chippy wants only to win the election.
His true colours shining through.
Bob the first. Yep. And if the Grocery Commissioner does a good job, then it/she/he/they will be kneecapped just like the equally necessary exemplary Commissioner for Children was.
The fact that they are unwilling to break up such obviously anti-competitive, predatory monopolist firms is yet more proof that the political system is completely corrupt.
However, this is only a tiny part of a much larger issue. Food seems expensive because real wages have collapsed. There is a ceiling on those wages, because the entire economy has been in a four-decade death spiral. That endless economic crisis has sent nearly everything else into a collapse (quality of the housing stock, the transportation system, energy production, the healthcare system, the education system, etc.)
There are more important state-owned enterprises that should be restarted first:
• The state mines and state refinery must deliver energy independence (converting the 16 Bn. ton coal reserves into 20+ Bn. barrels of low-cost C.T.L. gasoline)
• The machine tool industry and other industrial machine production must be saved — in order to end the slide into economic backwardness, and restore widespread, advanced production of high value-added, complex goods, by the broader machine industry
• The state railway and tramway workshops must resume production of locomotives (high-speed electric) and streetcars, to restore fast transportation on all mothballed lines
• A ‘British Leyland solution’ must be sought to modernise road transportation — restart local production to address the outdated national motor vehicle fleet
Labour just isn’t up to the job. The majority promised so much yet they squandered it on ideological dead ends that have divided the country and made us worse off. What a waste of the last 6 years. I was hoping they’d smash the supermarket, building and electricity retailing duopolies, yet all they managed was meaningless window dressing. Now we’ll get Act/national who will use saving the country from itself as a cover for perpetuating defunct neoliberalism for another couple of terms. The tail wagged the dog and the dog lost.
just another can kicking exercise….employ a business person to investigate business…yeah that’ll work…still at least it’s not a commitee or working party so small mercies
The old one about asking panelbeaters to control the road intersection comes to mind.
Really we do not necessarily need a state owned supermarket chain. What we could do with is the government making inroads towards reinstating the funding that they’ve taken away over the last eighteennyears in particular, from food banks, alcohol and rehabilitation facilities, schools, & hospitals.
what we NEED is fuckin aldi or similar but that’s not gonna happen
If a Human Rights Commissioner does not support every demographic being allowed to speak, then I expect that a government Groceries Commissioner may not worry too much if everyone can’t afford to eat.
If Labour gets back in, commentaries like this will be banned by Labour’s planned ‘Ministry of Misinformation.’
Because we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
you mean just like the christian rightwing bookbanners would andrew….piss on people when you have a hill not a ditch.
we are at war with eurasia…..anyone can quote eric blair out of context