{"id":101262,"date":"2025-08-28T04:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T04:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/101262\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T04:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T04:05:10","slug":"opposition-parties-say-governments-supermarket-competition-plan-doesnt-go-far-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/101262\/","title":{"rendered":"Opposition parties say government’s supermarket competition plan doesn’t go far enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"No<\/p>\n

\n

Photo:\n<\/p>\n

Opposition parties say the government’s plan to drive down supermarket prices does not go far enough, but have varying solutions of their own.<\/p>\n

The government on Wednesday announced a suite of policies<\/a> designed to make it quicker and cheaper to build supermarkets in New Zealand, so long as they improved competition.<\/p>\n

Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis said the new “express lane” approach would assist new and existing players, like Costco, to scale up.<\/p>\n

But the Greens’ commerce and consumer affairs spokesperson Ricardo Men\u00e9ndez March told RNZ that was only “one part of the puzzle” and the government needed to explore all its options – including breaking up the supermarket duopoly.<\/p>\n

“While we support having new players in the market, Nicola Willis is banking on big corporations coming into Aotearoa, and that automatically leading to lower prices,” Men\u00e9ndez March said.<\/p>\n

“What we need is action that tackles the greed we are seeing in the duopoly right now.”<\/p>\n

\"Ricardo<\/p>\n

\nRicardo Men\u00e9ndez March said the government needed to explore all its options – including breaking up the supermarket duopoly.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone\n<\/p>\n

Willis has kept open the option of government intervention in the supermarket industry, but coalition partner ACT would be staunchly opposed to such moves.<\/p>\n

Men\u00e9ndez March also pointed to the Greens’ policy of taxing excess profits as an option, with the funds reinvested into the local community.<\/p>\n

The Labour Party said the fast-track regime, while sensible, would not make any “immediate difference” for struggling New Zealanders.<\/p>\n

Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said the government was “dithering” given similar changes were recommended in Commerce Commission’s market study in 2022.<\/p>\n

Edmonds, however, did not offer up any alternative suggestions of her own, beyond saying she would have begun work earlier.<\/p>\n

“We had started the groundwork for it,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"Barbara<\/p>\n

\nLabour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone\n<\/p>\n

Asked whether Labour supported breaking up the duopoly, Edmonds said it would consider ways to “disrupt” that market power but accepted there was a need to tread carefully.<\/p>\n

“Labour wants competition in the supermarket sector, and whether that comes from iwi, whether that comes from another competitor, we want to support that as much as we can.”<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Opposition parties say the government’s plan to drive down supermarket prices does not go far enough, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,1590,63,99,1589,164,44,1591,1588,1586,1587],"class_list":["post-101262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-audio","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-current-affairs","tag-economy","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}