July 28, 2025 • 9 mins
The Finance Minister has hinted changes are on the way for the supermarket sector, with a further update due out by the end of August.
Speculation indicates the Government will make an announcement to address the situation.
Nicola Willis says Prime Minister Luxon has confirmed the Government will be making an announcement this quarter.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
With us as Nichola Willis the Finance Minister. Evening, Nikola,
good evening here then some research for us.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I have been doing a bit of detective work. You'll
recall you accused me of being the MP in Jacinda's
book who outrageously heckled her, and I've had it confirmed
that it was in fact, Amy Adams. She has confirmed
that herself, and I think it's fair to say she
doesn't regret it at all. The only thing that she
(00:26):
regrets is the fact that she was described as having
a private school voice. She's very proud of having attended
a large, public, co ed school.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Oh okay, So, so Amy said, it's okay for you
to out her absolutely.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I said, well, I think Heather would like to know this.
Are you okay with me sharing with the public, And
she said, no, I'm not ashamed at all. In fact,
I think heckling someone on your first term is not
to be ashamed of.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
No, totally, And I mean in the end, heckling Cinda
is actually about age of honor. But what do you
think That.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Was the exact phrase she used.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Amy is nothing if not hard as nails to this day.
What do you think about her? Accent. I mean you're
not a good judge because you don't think that you've
got a private school accent. I think you do well.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I think it's important in a job where you publicly
are communicating that you make yourself well understood and you
enunciate your words well. But then I also recall John
Key was a brilliant Prime minister and man, oh man,
did he mash his words from time?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
He made a lot of them up, didn't he? He
really didn't thank you? Thank you for doing that. Because
if there's nothing I love a fact and I love
clarifying the fact. And I shall write that in the
book that one Amy Adams. Now, what is going on
with the surcharge band, because I tell you what, I'm
getting a lot of texts from small business owner who
are pretty upset about it.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, look there's two things. First, last week, the Commerce
Commission came out with her ruling that said that they're
going to regulate down the chargers that retailers have to
pay merchants. So these are the interchange fees to Master
Car and Visa. So that is worth about ninety million
dollars worth of savings to retailers. It averages about five
(02:06):
hundred dollars a week for a small business, so very significant.
Then the second thing becomes, how do you make sure
that that overall reduction and cost is actually passed through
to the shopper and they're not just charged surcharges that
no longer reflect the actual cost to retailers. So rather
than coming up with a complicated formula, we've just said, look,
(02:29):
no more charges like that for MasterCard and Visa. And
if retailers do think they still have some costs, then
they need to reflect those in the same way they
do the cost of electricity, the cost of rent, the
cost of rates, all of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
So the charges that we're talking about in total, the
merchant fees, how much do you reckon retailers are getting
charged in merchant fees every year?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Well, I don't know that, and to the extent that
I would, it's commercially sensitive.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
It's billions overall. It's some billions in billions, right, because
the interchange fee, which is just a component, is one billion,
multiple billions. So what do you think, Nicle, you know
how this works, what do you think is going to happen?
The retailers can't pass it on to us now transparently
in a search charge. They're going to build it into
their prices. We're all going to pay this now, aren't we.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well I would reverse it and say, actually, it is
now going to be transparent because instead of it giving
you a little spike when you get to the counter
and you went factoring that in when you.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Don't have the power you wanted to buy the post card.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well not everyone has that choice, and it's actually a
bit of.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
A sometime postcard that has a credit card.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Well, there are a range of different rates that are
charged from store to store, and I would love to
meet the New Zealander who's never got stick a shock
when they went to pay and ended up with a
big surcharge when they did that. This is about transparent
fear pricing. So the price that you see on the
tag is the price you pay.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
If it truly is, then why didn't you guys deal
to Air New Zealand and ticket Master, who are frankly
the most egregious.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Well are you talking about online payment.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
So when you go and book yourself. I tried today
to see what is the New Zealand charging if I
book a couple of flights and it was a six
dollar fee. Laura the producer went to go look at
the bank's heart and she got charged eight dollars by
ticket Master. Almost she didn't go through with it in
the end because of that. She was going to get
charged eight dollars by ticket Master. So why didn't you
guys sort that out?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Well? I understand that the fees for that that retailers
pay or sellers of services in this Casey and New
Zealand are a lot higher because it's a much more
complicated system, because they need to be able to do refunds,
they need to protect against fraud, online scams and the like.
So there is a genuinely much higher cost that they
have to bear for those online transactions.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
You know that and show you guys that stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Well, that was that was reflected in the commers decisions last.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
But if you force a dairy to absorb all of
those merchant fees, and why can't you force you know,
ticket Masters, which is a global company to absorb the
handling fee.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, a couple of things there. First, it's because it
is genuinely a lot more expensive for them to do
those online transactions. The second thing is we remain quite
hopeful that fintech companies will be coming up with better
solutions in that online space, and there's now going to
be room for them to compete there.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Hey listen, Okay, So we have got some debate in
the numbers at the moment about how many public servants
you've actually managed to cut since coming into government. What
is it? Is it added one hundred and twenty one
or is it cut nine hundred and thirty four.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
A cut about two thousand? Nikolai three another I saw.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
No, that's only from the peak. That's the peak that
you reached when you guys were in there. If you
go from September just before the election, which is about
sixty four thousand, you've only managed to cut nine hundred
and thirty four. Why what's going on? Well?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Two things. The first is that this is the first
year since twenty sixteen that the number of policy, clerical
and admin staff has actually dropped, so we're very much
focused on those roles. At the same time, the number
of people hired by Corrections to lock up criminals has
increased many by hundreds, How many by hundreds? Hundreds? Well,
(06:06):
I'm advised that there are six hundred and forty five
more inspectors and regulators that there are hundreds more working
in our contact centers, around seven hundred and seventy seven,
So that's direct service delivery to New Zealanders. So what
you're seeing is those numbers are increasing to make sure
that we're delivering good public services to people. The same time,
(06:26):
we have made actual cuts to those back office rolls
as we said we would. And at the same time,
either let's not forget the last government was spending hundreds
of millions on consultants as well as having all of
those policy advisors, and we have reduced that bill significantly.
In fact, we've over shot our own target.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
But I mean, this is a government that promised us
cuts off maybe as many as fifteen thousand public servants.
Can you see why people might be a bit disappointed?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Well, I certainly never made that promise, But you know
I am. I am kind of amused on one level,
which is that you get labor out there saying that
I've cut thousands and thousands of public servants, which just
sort of makes you think, well, if they get away
with that line and it's repeated at infinite and what
else are they telling you that mightily exaggerated at the
(07:13):
same time, what we are doing is focusing that we're
hiring more police, We're hiring more teachers, more corrections officers,
all of those frontline roles as we said we would.
But at the same time, as I said, first time
since twenty sixteen that a government has reduced the number
of policy advisors must.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Strikes me that this is the problem that you guys
have got, and this is becoming very much a pattern,
right that you you you go so hard on the
rhetoric and then cop all of the blowback for it,
and then in fact nothing really changes. So you're wearing
all of the stuff for not changing anything, and you're
disappointing the people who think you're changing things, and then
you're disappointing the people when they find out they haven't changed.
You haven't changed.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Well, from my perspective sitting there and looking at budgets,
it's changed pretty fundamentally because the last government every budget
was having to fork out hundreds of millions of dollars
more for a ballooning public sector. We have started from
a very different position. We started by reducing its spend
and then each budget, rather than them coming to us
with all of their ideas. They only even get invited
(08:09):
into the budget process at our rests. So it's a
very different environment, I know.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
But you know, you might be impressed, but it's really
hard to be impressed on the other side of the
say like this is incredibly disappointing. I think there's a
lot of disappointment over and over again.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Well, we have to make sure that we have the
resources in place to deliver our jobs, deliver our services, deliver,
deliver to New Zealanders, and we're ensuring that we do
while also continuing to put the hammer down, put the
pressure down on those back officels really quickly.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Barry Soper Reckins, You've got the big supermarket announcement in
about a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Is that right, Well, the Prime Minister is confirmed we'll
be making an announcement this quarter, so that this quarter
ends at the end of August.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Oh okay, so six weeks all right, hate well five,
Thank you very much, nicol I appreciated this. Nichola willis
the Finance Minister. For more from Heather Duplessy Ellen Drive
listen live news talk s it be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
With us as Nichola Willis the Finance Minister. Evening, Nikola,
good evening here then some research for us.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I have been doing a bit of detective work. You'll
recall you accused me of being the MP in Jacinda's
book who outrageously heckled her, and I've had it confirmed
that it was in fact, Amy Adams. She has confirmed
that herself, and I think it's fair to say she
doesn't regret it at all. The only thing that she
(00:26):
regrets is the fact that she was described as having
a private school voice. She's very proud of having attended
a large, public, co ed school.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Oh okay, So, so Amy said, it's okay for you
to out her absolutely.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I said, well, I think Heather would like to know this.
Are you okay with me sharing with the public, And
she said, no, I'm not ashamed at all. In fact,
I think heckling someone on your first term is not
to be ashamed of.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
No, totally, And I mean in the end, heckling Cinda
is actually about age of honor. But what do you
think That.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Was the exact phrase she used.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Amy is nothing if not hard as nails to this day.
What do you think about her? Accent. I mean you're
not a good judge because you don't think that you've
got a private school accent. I think you do well.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I think it's important in a job where you publicly
are communicating that you make yourself well understood and you
enunciate your words well. But then I also recall John
Key was a brilliant Prime minister and man, oh man,
did he mash his words from time?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
He made a lot of them up, didn't he? He
really didn't thank you? Thank you for doing that. Because
if there's nothing I love a fact and I love
clarifying the fact. And I shall write that in the
book that one Amy Adams. Now, what is going on
with the surcharge band, because I tell you what, I'm
getting a lot of texts from small business owner who
are pretty upset about it.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, look there's two things. First, last week, the Commerce
Commission came out with her ruling that said that they're
going to regulate down the chargers that retailers have to
pay merchants. So these are the interchange fees to Master
Car and Visa. So that is worth about ninety million
dollars worth of savings to retailers. It averages about five
(02:06):
hundred dollars a week for a small business, so very significant.
Then the second thing becomes, how do you make sure
that that overall reduction and cost is actually passed through
to the shopper and they're not just charged surcharges that
no longer reflect the actual cost to retailers. So rather
than coming up with a complicated formula, we've just said, look,
(02:29):
no more charges like that for MasterCard and Visa. And
if retailers do think they still have some costs, then
they need to reflect those in the same way they
do the cost of electricity, the cost of rent, the
cost of rates, all of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
So the charges that we're talking about in total, the
merchant fees, how much do you reckon retailers are getting
charged in merchant fees every year?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Well, I don't know that, and to the extent that
I would, it's commercially sensitive.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
It's billions overall. It's some billions in billions, right, because
the interchange fee, which is just a component, is one billion,
multiple billions. So what do you think, Nicle, you know
how this works, what do you think is going to happen?
The retailers can't pass it on to us now transparently
in a search charge. They're going to build it into
their prices. We're all going to pay this now, aren't we.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well I would reverse it and say, actually, it is
now going to be transparent because instead of it giving
you a little spike when you get to the counter
and you went factoring that in when you.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Don't have the power you wanted to buy the post card.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well not everyone has that choice, and it's actually a
bit of.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
A sometime postcard that has a credit card.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Well, there are a range of different rates that are
charged from store to store, and I would love to
meet the New Zealander who's never got stick a shock
when they went to pay and ended up with a
big surcharge when they did that. This is about transparent
fear pricing. So the price that you see on the
tag is the price you pay.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
If it truly is, then why didn't you guys deal
to Air New Zealand and ticket Master, who are frankly
the most egregious.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Well are you talking about online payment.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
So when you go and book yourself. I tried today
to see what is the New Zealand charging if I
book a couple of flights and it was a six
dollar fee. Laura the producer went to go look at
the bank's heart and she got charged eight dollars by
ticket Master. Almost she didn't go through with it in
the end because of that. She was going to get
charged eight dollars by ticket Master. So why didn't you
guys sort that out?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Well? I understand that the fees for that that retailers
pay or sellers of services in this Casey and New
Zealand are a lot higher because it's a much more
complicated system, because they need to be able to do refunds,
they need to protect against fraud, online scams and the like.
So there is a genuinely much higher cost that they
have to bear for those online transactions.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
You know that and show you guys that stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Well, that was that was reflected in the commers decisions last.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
But if you force a dairy to absorb all of
those merchant fees, and why can't you force you know,
ticket Masters, which is a global company to absorb the
handling fee.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, a couple of things there. First, it's because it
is genuinely a lot more expensive for them to do
those online transactions. The second thing is we remain quite
hopeful that fintech companies will be coming up with better
solutions in that online space, and there's now going to
be room for them to compete there.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Hey listen, Okay, So we have got some debate in
the numbers at the moment about how many public servants
you've actually managed to cut since coming into government. What
is it? Is it added one hundred and twenty one
or is it cut nine hundred and thirty four.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
A cut about two thousand? Nikolai three another I saw.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
No, that's only from the peak. That's the peak that
you reached when you guys were in there. If you
go from September just before the election, which is about
sixty four thousand, you've only managed to cut nine hundred
and thirty four. Why what's going on? Well?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Two things. The first is that this is the first
year since twenty sixteen that the number of policy, clerical
and admin staff has actually dropped, so we're very much
focused on those roles. At the same time, the number
of people hired by Corrections to lock up criminals has
increased many by hundreds, How many by hundreds? Hundreds? Well,
(06:06):
I'm advised that there are six hundred and forty five
more inspectors and regulators that there are hundreds more working
in our contact centers, around seven hundred and seventy seven,
So that's direct service delivery to New Zealanders. So what
you're seeing is those numbers are increasing to make sure
that we're delivering good public services to people. The same time,
(06:26):
we have made actual cuts to those back office rolls
as we said we would. And at the same time,
either let's not forget the last government was spending hundreds
of millions on consultants as well as having all of
those policy advisors, and we have reduced that bill significantly.
In fact, we've over shot our own target.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
But I mean, this is a government that promised us
cuts off maybe as many as fifteen thousand public servants.
Can you see why people might be a bit disappointed?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Well, I certainly never made that promise, But you know
I am. I am kind of amused on one level,
which is that you get labor out there saying that
I've cut thousands and thousands of public servants, which just
sort of makes you think, well, if they get away
with that line and it's repeated at infinite and what
else are they telling you that mightily exaggerated at the
(07:13):
same time, what we are doing is focusing that we're
hiring more police, We're hiring more teachers, more corrections officers,
all of those frontline roles as we said we would.
But at the same time, as I said, first time
since twenty sixteen that a government has reduced the number
of policy advisors must.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Strikes me that this is the problem that you guys
have got, and this is becoming very much a pattern,
right that you you you go so hard on the
rhetoric and then cop all of the blowback for it,
and then in fact nothing really changes. So you're wearing
all of the stuff for not changing anything, and you're
disappointing the people who think you're changing things, and then
you're disappointing the people when they find out they haven't changed.
You haven't changed.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Well, from my perspective sitting there and looking at budgets,
it's changed pretty fundamentally because the last government every budget
was having to fork out hundreds of millions of dollars
more for a ballooning public sector. We have started from
a very different position. We started by reducing its spend
and then each budget, rather than them coming to us
with all of their ideas. They only even get invited
(08:09):
into the budget process at our rests. So it's a
very different environment, I know.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
But you know, you might be impressed, but it's really
hard to be impressed on the other side of the
say like this is incredibly disappointing. I think there's a
lot of disappointment over and over again.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Well, we have to make sure that we have the
resources in place to deliver our jobs, deliver our services, deliver,
deliver to New Zealanders, and we're ensuring that we do
while also continuing to put the hammer down, put the
pressure down on those back officels really quickly.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Barry Soper Reckins, You've got the big supermarket announcement in
about a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Is that right, Well, the Prime Minister is confirmed we'll
be making an announcement this quarter, so that this quarter
ends at the end of August.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Oh okay, so six weeks all right, hate well five,
Thank you very much, nicol I appreciated this. Nichola willis
the Finance Minister. For more from Heather Duplessy Ellen Drive
listen live news talk s it be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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