Liam Dann: NZ Herald business editor at large on the Finance Minister's plan to boost competition in the supermarket sector

The Government has confirmed it plans to create more competition between the supermarkets as part of its growth plan.

Finance and Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says this means potential crackdowns on pricing and helping new entrants access land and properties for development.

NZ Herald business editor at large Liam Dann explains what this scheme could include - and whether or not it could work.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And Liam dan is the Herald's business editor at large,
and he was listening to the whole thing, and he joins, in, now, hell,
are Liam good?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Andrew?

Speaker 1 (00:07):
What did you make of it?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Well? I liked it. It was a good it was
it was a good strong language. I guess, you know,
the cynical journalist journalists side of me might be thinking, well,
it's a bit like some of the other stuff we've heard.
This really good language, really good sentiment. You just wonder
what the actual substance of it will be. So she said, well, look,

(00:31):
let's let's do a deal. We'll make treat a new
supermarket entrant like a VIP. We'll you know, we'll kind
of roll out the welcome mat. But you know, it's
not clear in the hard world of business what that
might be other than and maybe sort of smoothing the
regulatory path. You know, we're not we don't seem to

(00:51):
be quite talking about saying well, look you can pay
no tax for five years or something like that. Just
come in and we'll give you a real kickstart. So yeah,
I'm not sure. I guess, you know, the devil may
be in the detail, and perhaps you know they can
pull it if they pull this off, it'll be you know,
if they could get an Aldi in here before the
next election, that would be a coup.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
So she did kind of suggest though that if a
third player I wanted to come to her whether proposal,
she would consider it, and maybe they might come to
the with the proposal saying we will spend a billion
dollars on a supply chain, will buy one hundred and
forty stores, and we will do this if you give
us five years tax free, and she would at least
consider it.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, I think, Look, I hope that is what we're
talking about, you know, the hope that that level of
sort of creative thinking is what this government is sort
of you know, intimating that it's going to you know,
get and get involved in the next over the you know,
really only got eighteen months into the next election, so
they're going to have to get on with it. But

(01:54):
you know, and that's in the in the side where
we say, well, let's bring in a new player and
that will solve all that problems, and well it might
or might not.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Here's the thing. She sort of hinted that she's had
an unsolicited approach by an unnamed third player from an
unnamed country, and it felt to me a little bit
like she was suggesting that maybe there was something concrete
amongst all the waffle.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, look, it's possible, But then you have to look
at the scale and you go, well, look, you know,
up in Auckland, we've got a costco. You know, it's
it's but you need something at scale really to to
affect the dynamic of the whole you know, supermarket or
the grocery store sort of competition dynamic, and one or
two stores probably won't do it. So you've got to

(02:39):
have a really big, serious player. So I guess, you know,
it's just whether one new player would really change things
that much. It's going to help. But then the other
part of it is how tough the government is prepared
to get with the incumbents around competition. And that is
also a situation where it's kind of easy to talk

(03:02):
really tough, it's harder to actually, you know, really sort
of enforce things unless you're prepared to go the whole
hog and start breaking up monopolies, which has been done
in the past. Telecom got broken up, you know, but
that would be a big call, especially from a sort
of a pro business government that talks about you know,

(03:25):
concerns about sending the wrong message to potential business investors
and that sort of thing. So, you know, I just wonder,
you know, for example, they're calling the bank bosses back
in to talk to them about giving us a better,
better deal.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
I guess, But what will the stick be exactly? And
we've been trying this for a good five to ten
years and nothing's worked so far, but you know, God
loves to try. Liam Dan, I thank you so much
for your time today.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
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