He wasn\u2019t wearing a uniform, which was odd, or a name tag, but I think he said his name was David Seymour. And he seemed to know a lot about the National Party and the coalition government. I guess Christmas, who\u2019d been a list candidate for National last election but after jumping ship to Act was considered one of its rising stars<\/a>, was pretty connected in Wellington. Maybe they talked a lot about politics and economic policy, too. Either way, Seymour seemed to have done a lot of maths around what breaking up the duopoly might mean for the average New Zealander.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEven if all of the so-called excess profit went away, it would save 20c per person per day,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if a business is not profitable, no one\u2019s going to invest in new stores, new trucks, new distribution centres or new software, so you won\u2019t actually have a supermarket industry. Not only is it a bad policy in itself, it\u2019s the sense of political panic that underlies the National Party, giving up on such a core principle that they were founded upon. And as a very prominent supporter of theirs said to me recently, if I can\u2019t trust them to stand up on this principle, what can I rely on them to stand by?\u201d<\/p>\n Wow, I thought, this guy really doesn\u2019t like the National Party. He kept going. \u201cInstead of talking about how we solve New Zealand\u2019s problems,\u201d he said, \u201cwe\u2019re now playing defence against completely insane solutions that will make the problems worse.\u201d<\/p>\n As a supermarket worker, I assumed he\u2019d be brand loyal, but still, he must buy groceries too, and even with a staff discount, he\u2019d know how expensive it was to live in this country at the moment. So, I wondered how he thought we might get prices down when there are only two main competitors in the market. \u201cSometimes people mix up the intensity of competition with the number of competitors,\u201d he said. \u201cWith the supermarkets, they\u2019re saying there\u2019s not enough competitors, but it\u2019s quite possible for two competitors to compete intensely. Have a look at wide-body jets. There\u2019s only Boeing and Airbus, but they fight like ferrets on crack for market share.\u201d<\/p>\n At The Spinoff\u2019s Great Mt Albert Debate<\/a>, I\u2019d heard an Act candidate talk about freezing the minimum wage for two years to help small businesses. As a supermarket worker who can\u2019t be on much more than minimum wage<\/a>, I thought he\u2019d be concerned. If food will continue to get more expensive over the next two years (and even if inflation returned to normal, that\u2019d still be around 2% a year), how\u2019d that improve the people on the sharp end of the cost of living crisis?<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a fundamental misunderstanding about where wealth comes from in this debate,\u201d he said, as I folded my arms, half expecting a pitch to join his workers\u2019 consciousness-raising group, though I was quickly disabused of that notion. \u201cPeople are saying if we freeze the minimum wage, there won\u2019t be any wage increases. Well, yes, there will. Wages get higher when there\u2019s investment and innovation. People get more skilled and experienced, then they produce more. Their business has more to sell, they take home more, and businesses pay more because they want to keep good people.\u201d<\/p>\nJames Christmas and David Seymour on a shift at Four Square St Heliers (Photo: Henry Oliver\/The Spinoff)<\/p>\n