Nicola Willis: Economic Growth Minister on the Government's plans to break up the supermarket duopoly

The Government's confident it can bring an end to New Zealand's grocery duopoly. 

It's laying out plans to challenge the incumbents, Foodstuffs and Woolworths, and remove regulations discouraging competition. 

It wants to pave the way for a new player to enter the supermarket sector. 

Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis told Mike Hosking there has been competition in the past. 

She says the country let the supermarkets merge together and turn into two mega entities. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think the good lord we found Nichola Willis, Economic

(00:02):
Growth Minister, good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Good morning mate. Sorry that I'm no, don't apologize.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
I was worried that you took that ft in motion
striet dog home and then you fell off it and
you couldn't join us this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
I was very tempted. I tell you it was great.
Fun was around on that thing.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
No good stuff, was it all? Nois no action yesterday?
Did you yet again reiterate and fair enough that you
want another supermarket? What actually did you give us by
a way of tangible help to get them here?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well, look, I think the difference in approaches. I think
the best way for all of this to be resolved
isn't with more codes and regulations and Commerce Commission reports.
It's actually a new entity opening its doors. It's a
private sector player saying I want to take on the
New Zealand supermarket scene. Now. I think there are things

(00:49):
the government could do that would make it easier for
a private sector player to enter the scene, because we
know from talking to those who have thought about it
in the past that when they went to do it,
they said, well, look, I've got the overseas investment Act.
I've got the Resource Management Act. It's just about impossible
to find sections that haven't been land banked. I'm worried

(01:09):
about predatory pricing. There's all of these issues. Those are
all issues that the GUP sort could reasonably sort. So
all I see yesterday was let's bring that on. And
we are a government who will be incredibly facilitative if
a private sector player wants to enter. And I do
know there is some interest out there, so it was
worth saying.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Okay in the same week that McDonald's couldn't open an
outlet in Wonicah. I mean, come on, is it real
or not?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, this is why, of course we're replacing the Resource
Management Act. This is why we've put the past track
legislation in place. And look, that was a decision which
really surprised me. I love Wonica, it's an amazing place.
But seriously, guys, it's just a McDonald's exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
So is it possible? Two part question? And this is
my argument. Is it possible? As much as you may
want something, we are a tiny nation at the bottom
of the world. It's only five million people. We can't
have two or three year lines. We can't have eight
or nine banks. We can't have three supermarkets. We're just
too small.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, no, we do have choices about that. We don't
have to accept that there are only two major entities
in the market. Of course, in the past, Mike, we
had many more supermarkets that were actually competing against each other.
And that was the point I made on my speech.
What we've let happen as we let them all merge together,
we let them be acquired and turn into these two

(02:27):
mega supermarkets. That was a choice for us, and actually
commerce commissions in some parts of the world would have
said no to that.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
I just gave out the Treasury numbers that came out yesterday.
What a bleak, bleak scenario we have.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, look, we're on track, is what that six month
update shows. And I know that's a small thing, but
remember for many months now, the forecasts haven't been coming
in on track. So we're on track. And look, we
do have a plan. That means we will get the
books back in balance. That means we will start paying
down deep. But it is a hard road. The aftershocks

(03:04):
from COVID were actually pretty massive, both in terms of inflation,
interest rates spiking up, massive damage done to our economy,
because of the response that we had, and that's just
reality and New Zealand just needs to get on and
deal with it.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
How much was that street dog?

Speaker 2 (03:21):
You might had twelve thousand dollars worth it? I loved it. Now.
I don't have that twelve thousand dollars for that thing,
but if I did, I would go for it. It
was great fun. I'm not allowed to endorse products or
services under the Cabinet Manual, so a motorbike like that
would be fun.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Okay, good stuff. Nice to see it. Nicola Willis, Finance
and Economic Growth Minister.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
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