Barry Soper: Senior Political Editor on a third supermarket competitor and where the Government stands on Eden Park

Finance Minister Nicola Willis is set to announce plans to encourage a third supermarket competitor on Sunday. 

Senior Political Editor Barry Soper says this means the Government will outline the process they'll use to make it easier for a third party to start up in New Zealand. 

Barry Soper talks to Ryan Bridge about the announcement and the Eden Park upgrade. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Barry Soper here this afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hey Barry, good afternoon, Ryan, how a good thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Now should we be able to get rid of and
how would we go about getting rid of a prime
minister if they had lost their marbles?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Well quite easily, really, just hatch a coup and get
rid of them, you know, I mean a caucus can
get rid of the prime minister. But this is research
that's been done. And they looked at four New Zealand
prime ministers. They were, you know, Michael Joseph Savage when
he served between thirty five and forty, Norman Kirk, who

(00:33):
of course was the leader in seventy two to seventy
four when he died. The third was Joseph Ford. Finally,
the one that to me is well, the one that
I knew and is more interesting. They didn't look at
ill necessarily ill health. They looked at his problem with
a bottle. And there was no doubt that Rob Muldoon
in his final years had a significant problem with a bottle.

(00:56):
I'll give you just one example. I remember on the
Thursday night before the poll in the eighty four snap election,
which was known by many as the Snap's election for
obvious reasons, but I said to Muldoon, can I come
and interview you after you've finished your wind up speech
here in Auckland And he said, ay is come up

(01:18):
to my hotel room an hour after I finished speaking. Well,
I got up to his hotel room, which was the
old South Pacific. He was slumped in a chair. There
was an empty wine bottle lying on its side, and
I gin inflected in front of him, put the microphone
up to his mouth and said, do you think you've
won the election? Prime Minister? And he went nope. No,
he didn't say nap. He shook his head and I

(01:40):
said radio, Prime Minister, do you think you've won the election?
He said nope, and he went on how he had
lost it. Well. The next morning, at we were going
to air with it that Muldoon had conceded defeat, he
held a news conference at about eight in the morning,
denying all knowledge of it. And I went, well, hang on,
I was sitting in the front row. It's going to

(02:01):
wear now, prime minister. So you know that's an example,
I guess of a prime minister being out of control.
And that was just one little vignette of many many
instances that I witnessed with Muldoon in the four years
that I worked in the gallery when he was the
Prime Minister.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
In part fascinating story Berry by the way, in part
and what we just had David Seymour on He's I
love politely saying no, we're not giving you any money.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, you know one hundred and ten million is going
to cost to I guess put on a retractable roof
and increase the seating and create a pedestrian promenade. Incidentally,
I think the council made exactly the right decision. These
pretty pictures that you can see down on the waterfront
look fantastic, but between that and the realization of seeing

(02:57):
the actual actual structure is going to be much more
than the billion dollars that they were saying it was
going to cost. This is what one hundred million dollars.
Unless they can get good business backing, and they've got
a pretty strong board, the eden Park Board. They're not
going to get government money in the short term, There's
no doubt about that. But I think the council have

(03:19):
made the right decision. It was an overwhelming decision. Only
two dissenters. I think Eden Park had to be it
and don't forget that this is going to be rail
enabled in a very short time. And the biggest criticism
I think of people that go to and from Eden
Park is actually getting from it after an event. You

(03:40):
can pay a lot of money in a taxi to
get a very short distance. But rail hopefully will overcome
that problem. But it's a wonderful venue and we saw
it used what four times in the last week for
big events, and I've been to several concerts there. It's
phenomenal and you know, even the residents are on board,
with the excs of one perhaps Helen Clark.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
You know, it's actually quite interesting how they've turned that around.
They've turned the local residents around, and they clean up
after themselves and they've totally changed the vibe for the
local neighborhood.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
So well, I think that's got a lot to do
with the chief executive thing.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, now these supermarkets are we are you expecting big
things on Sunday?

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Well, I would have loved to have said, yes, there's
going to be a third player announced on Sunday, because
don't think that we had that investment conference and maybe
somebody was there and they said we would like to
open a supermarket chain in your country. No, they're not
going to an outside on Sunday. What you'll see on
Sunday is basically the process that the government will enable

(04:42):
to get a third player into the market here, to
make it easier for a third player to start up.
And one can only hope that that happens in the
fairly short term because the duopoly, as we've seen, hasn't worked.
It's not competitive. Prices are too high at the supermarkets,
and a bit of competition is exactly what it needs. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Absolutely, as somebody is pointing out, and I didn't want,
but the one hundred million dollars is just for stage one.
It doesn't even get you the wrong That just gets
you the seating of changes. Then the stage two, this
is the PPP that gets you your accommodation. Stage three
under the PPP is the roof.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
I mean honestly, oh well, thank you for that listener.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
It's from Peter.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, go on your pete.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Another one asked, and I actually wondered about this the
other day. We've got one minute, but are you going
to Is Barry going to write a book? I'd love
to read it. I wanted the same thing the other
day Barry.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Well, yes, I'm in the proceeds on.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
There we go.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
So a publisher has approached me about five years ago
of equivocated, equivocated, equivocated, and I finally agreed.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
So the timetime future, you'll have to mend your finger
before you write a book, I'd imagine, Oh I can
still right, Well, there you go. You've got the scoop
whoever that was texting, and thank you for that. For
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