Capitalism is a monster and Democracy is there to leash in its most venal boom bust dynamics.
We gave the Commerce Commission the Hammer of God to smash monopolies, duopolies and oligopolies so that consumers have the genuine competition that makes Capitalism so dynamic.
It is a Government’s solemn obligation to regulate Capitalism for the people, not the Capitalists and yet this weak, frightened, gutless and cowardly Government EVEN WITH AN UNPRECEDENTED MMP MAJORITY refuses point blank to take that Hammer of God and smash the bejesus out of the greedy venal Supermarket Duopoly.
The tinkering they have done is meaningless and as food inflation spikes to 12.5%, shows how ineffectual it is.
We grow food here FFS but because that food is for the overseas middle classes, we are in constant competition with 40million others!
The full gutlessness of Labour is exposed in this compelling investigation into why Labour are such cowards…
Cabinet agrees to keep supermarket break-up option in back pocket
The Cabinet has agreed to keep a break-up of supermarket groups Countdown and Foodstuffs “in reserve” while it monitors the impact of its existing reforms of the grocery sector.
It could look more closely at the options and likely outcomes of forcing the supermarket chains to sell some of their stores to make way for new competitors “should it become clear that was needed to achieve a properly competitive grocery market”, Commerce Minister Duncan Webb advised fellow ministers.
A provisional cost-benefit analysis ordered by the Government last year found that forcing Countdown and Foodstuffs to sell some of their stores to make way for a third competitor had the potential to benefit consumers to the tune of $9.2 billion over 20 years, Cabinet papers released on Thursday stated.
…the climate crisis is here, this is what Death looks like…
…because the looming apocalypse changes everything, Labour must look beyond mere tinkering and see the forced sale of 30% of the Supermarket industry as a necessity.
I have argued over and over and over again that the 3rd player should be State backed using Iwi to step in to fund it similar to what happened with 2 Degrees.
The focus would be better prices for NZ growers, cheaper prices for consumers and better work conditions for staff.
This would do more to build food security than any thing else and actually acknowledge that in the coming climate catastrophe, the free market is doomed and it will require a strong State to provide low cost options.
We are in the age of consequences now, we need smart ideas and we need to regulate Capitalism!
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How does that help foreign bankers Martyn? Labour just aren’t interested.
But, but countdown a downsizing. Changing their name back to Woolworths. So does that mean that things will be cheaper? Or, it’s a tax thing? Or strategic in the sense that the food commission set up by LINO will be caught out with the name change? We’re not the same company??
Can’t remember. Was woolies cheap or expensive in it’s day?
the incapacity to think outside their neo-lib ideological box mixed with ‘shit yer pants’ cowardice
Re branding from Countdown to Woolies will help lower prices surely.
It is a strategy to grow their market.
My guess would be that we may well see additional tiers of the “Woolworths brand” rolled out.
A reorganisation of the Woolworths brand is primarily aimed at benefitting the owners of the business. There may well be spin-off benefits for customers. Without customers the brand is of no use to the shareholders.
Here’s how they got away with it. Recall the reason why Woolworths’ temporarily pretended to be a discounter in the first place (but only for the N.Z. stores). At the time, their discount competitors were Jardine Matheson (Franklin’s Big Fresh / Franklin’s Price Chopper), J.B. Rattray (Countdown), Aldi, and Foodstuffs Co-Op.
Prior to this, Woolworths’ were full-service only in food, having given up on discount grocery (Aldi had nearly destroyed their short-lived ‘Food For Less’ chain).
Aldi didn’t have local branches, and Foodstuffs Co. were owned by the franchisees. But N.Z. regulators allowed Woolworths’ to gobble up literally everyone else (and that was after they’d already gobbled up all the local stores of Coles Foodtown, I.G.A., and SuperValue).
Woolworths’ could hide their predatory monopolist ways, and pretend to be “lowering prices”, by renaming most N.Z. stores using a down-market brand (Rattray’s Countdown, which they now owned). Of course that didn’t happen — the stores always looked identical to the hundreds of other “higher end” Woolworths’ grocery branches (and due to little competition, the prices are usually worse!).
Good background thanks Kristoff R
And ComCom never saw this coming……
When we arrived in Auckland in 2000 there was plenty of competition.
Sending $400 million to pet contractors of the management is not good for customers.
Businesses supply stuff to customers to make shareholders happy.
Happy customers make for happy shareholders.
If customers are unhappy they go and shop elsewhere.
What if there’s no ‘elsewhere’? That statement doesn’t really apply to supermarkets because they are all as bad as each other in this country.
Surely investors will come and take a share of the “exorbitant” profits that are available in this market sector…….. any day now….?
Or is there something that hinders them… Like a government that may subsidise new entrants to the market. That may well be a risk that investors may want to steer clear of.
the fact there is NO OPTION is actually the problem jkt
Exactly.
” A reorganisation of the Woolworths brand is primarily aimed at benefitting the owners of the business ”
In this case the Australian shareholders and well paid top level. Now that they can see there is no threat to being exposed to competition after the review they can now spend the money and re brand to ensure their investment continues to extort money from the public who don’t spend at Foodstuffs stores.
If the current situation was reversed Australians would have boycotted the foreign chain and forced change.
Kiwis can be relied upon to winge but keep coming back.
There is not much stopping us…
That way we can soon have a monopoly.
At least then we can stop complaining about the duopoly.
jkt the problem with pissing in the wind is you soak your own boots
And the answer is to issue everyone with water resistant shoes.
no we’ll just be gouged more to pay for the new signage marco
But how can anyone still be surprised at this Government’s sloth and strong preference for media releases over action?
That’s an interesting point you make @ Martyn Bradbury.
The problems of consumerism and capitalism can be moderated by having base line costs set in concrete outside unthrottled earning then shopping then starving.
*Taxes paid for stuff and things are not evil incarnate as, for example, rnz would allude to. Instead a few cents taken in taxes from everyone to enable free public transport, free hospital care, free educations for trades and degrees, free basic housing for the victims of rogers greed and seymours psychopathy etc would, I think, have a balancing effect on the rapacious greed of the two tag team supermarkups we must crawl around trying to find the ‘bargains’ the supermarkups deign to drop down to us in their enduring faux-generosity.
**I read that $400 million dollars is about to be spent rebranding ‘Countdown’ to ‘Woolworths’.
* rnz
Homeowners forced out by floods to get taxpayer-funded accommodation payments
So they fucking should.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/494034/homeowners-forced-out-by-floods-to-get-taxpayer-funded-accommodation-payments
**rnz
Countdown to become Woolworths in $400 million rebrand
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/494034/homeowners-forced-out-by-floods-to-get-taxpayer-funded-accommodation-payments
Thus fuck woolworths. Go to a farmers market instead.
Farmers market bread arpound here is $7.50 to $10.00 for an artisan loaf. Same loaf at New World or Pak n Save is $4.50 so no thanks.
If 30% of supermarkets were to be sold and backed by the state but with iwi to step in and fund it, what’s the point of state backing? Can’t iwi just set up their own supermarket chain themselves? I’m sure they have the nous….
I’d rather they just kept 400 million off the food we need.
The major flaw in this argument is that there is no independent third Supermarket chain lining up for a place in NZ.
Market too small?
Too risky for some investors?
Reward and risk goes hand in hand.
$400 million rebrands, these corporates are so wasteful. Think what this government could have done with that money :
*Not built 8 cycle bridges
*built 4 rainbow crossings in Wellington
*bought 80% of the expired RAT tests
*Brought less than 1/4 of a mental health hospital bed.
Truth is, yes governments job is to regulate corporations so they don’t make monopolies and oligopolies and rort us as they are absolutely obscenely doing in NZ.
Capitalism can work but it needs regulation: “free market” does not mean a market free of regulation, it’s a technical term meaning a market free for competitors to enter and leave, the failure of government to regulate lightly but well is what costs us. Or over heavy regulation limiting competition (overboard safety standards, food safety etc, closing small food stores but backing supermarkets over covid )
But.
Where government has given itself money to “help” the bureaucrats just multiply and nothing gets done. Our political system is broken.
Big government is dead and provably so by the obscene waste of money Labour has achieved for worsening result.
We need pro competitive regulation not the opposite and we need the Wellington bureaucrats mostly all fired and only the very best, non partisan hard workers re hired and a new public service created with ethics and standards and targets and accountability. Things we do not have now.
” A reorganisation of the Woolworths brand is primarily aimed at benefitting the owners of the business ”
In this case the Australian shareholders and well paid top level. Now that they can see there is no threat to being exposed to competition after the review they can now spend the money and re brand to ensure their investment continues to extort money from the public who don’t spend at Foodstuffs stores.
If the current situation was reversed Australians would have boycotted the foreign chain and forced change.
Kiwis can be relied upon to winge but keep coming back.
” It is a Government’s solemn obligation to regulate Capitalism for the people, not the Capitalists and yet this weak, frightened, gutless and cowardly Government EVEN WITH AN UNPRECEDENTED MMP MAJORITY refuses point blank to take that Hammer of God and smash the bejesus out of the greedy venal Supermarket Duopoly. ”
Bomber and this is the government you call left but in actual fact they are traitors dressed up as the wolf while promising to not to eat little miss riding hood ………all of us out here who are being economically exploited and having our future destroyed all in the name of Hipkins gutless bread and butter marketing campaign.
I remember when Kiwi bank was started as competition to the big banks .Now their interest rates are often first of the block to be increased and they could not cope with the Nation’s own Nation.
If the fishery business is anythink to go by if Iwi were given control they would import more low cost immegrants to work in them and pull the race card at every oppetunity
Bit jaundiced trevor, but there may be a glint of possibility in it. Hope not though.
I dont disagree with you there. I dont trust iwi ownership any more than I trust pakeha ownershop. Trust from what I can glean, iwi are more paternalistic towards their people than anyone else.
I am with you.
The concept of paternalism is gender neutral.
Perpetrators of paternalism are male, female or whatever they self identify as.
I have worked in ComCom. There was a time about 20 years back when they were independent, then not quite so and by the time Key arrived, they had decided to treat everything as once over lightly when it was glaringly obvious wat should be happening. If you expect ComCom to do anything substantial these days you will be waiting a long time. It’s a pity Boshier isnt Chair of the Commission then things might change.
I imagine that most of the Commission and independent agencies work very similarly in this day and age with the odd exception. And these places suck up money (about $60M in 2021) and there are plenty of them. Add up all the Commissions and you will be looking at 1/2 a Billion or more a year every year.
As for Kiwibank, it has gone the same way as dozens of places set up with good intentions. Used as a cash cow for Govt (NZ Post) for a while and then like all the Commissions etc, it gets infiltrated by the same elites who go from place to place and are literally all in lockstep. Busy work and keeping in with people who can give you a job is what it is all about. Because NZ is so small and has a somewhat dubious and small pool of PMC then this kind of behaviour becomes virtually endemic and is much more of an issue than places like London and Sydney. Although I think Canberra could give Wgtn a run for its money as it too is an isolated bunch of elites and PWC who move around in the same pool.
The Commerce Commission was set up as a light touch regulator by our friends Roger Douglas, Richard Prebble, and David Caygill. It’s a generic regulator, set up that way to stop sectors from ‘capturing’ it. Mind you, having it ‘captured’ is better than it not doing anything at all.
Yeah but the difference is, it was finding it’s teeth to tear chunks out of the very worst offenders but because of the politics of the day and ever since, they avoided prosecuting various large companies and these days try to do a bit of number crunching and lots of advocacy whilst letting all sorts of violations continue with a blind eye.
They should feel ashamed, The US, Europe, Australia will rip into say MultiNational Corp A. In NZ, where the same issues occur, ComCom decides to talk about it at length and then decides to write them a warning letter or give them a miniscule fine. Believe me, this happens time and time again. So once over lightly and inaction is not the same thing. And dont get me started on all the unsuitable mergers they have let get through.
Good argument.
Not sure how you arrived at “Before Key” and “After Key”, though.
A commission of enquiry needed??
Hammer of God?
More of a soft boiled broccoli.
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