Don’t you just love Jacinda Ardern’s election promises? She’s out on the campaign trail promising the same thing she promised last election, that they will look into supermarket pricing.
Labour leader Jacinda Ardern says food prices are thought to be too high, but has stopped short of saying New Zealanders are being “fleeced” at the supermarket.
That was the language she had used in 2018 about gas prices – “consumers are being fleeced” – when talking up a new law allowing the Commerce Commission to launch a market study into fuel companies.
Ardern said the next industries the commission would look at – if Labour was re-elected – were supermarkets and building supplies, with studies into the fairness of prices starting by the end of the year.
Except the Commerce Commission has already looked at supermarket pricing. Moreover, Labour already announced that three years ago.
TVNZ’s Q+A reported that this year has seen the biggest hike in food prices since 2011 when GST was raised to 15 per cent.
Labour withdrew it’s policy during the election campaign to remove GST on basic food, and instead party leader Jacinda Ardern promised an inquiry into the cost of food.
So with Jacinda Ardern you get the same thing promised twice over. If she couldn’t deliver it after three years why should we believe she can deliver it this time around?
How many of the government’s own policies have impacted prices in supermarkets?
- Regional fuel tax
- Water policy
- Labour costs
- Stalling upgrading of roads
- Minimum wage increases
- More leave “entitlements”
- New holidays
- Road user charges increase
- More compliance costs and uncertainty for farmers, the list goes on.
All of those things have an impact, but silly Miss Ardern seems to have no idea why supermarket prices are so high.
She also forgets that we’ve just experienced a drought so it’s no wonder fruit and veg prices are so high. But no, it’s just the supermarkets.
No one is forced to buy a cauliflower at $13. The market dictates the price. If no one buys them then the price will drop
But the elephant in the room over Ardern’s targeting of supermarket pricing is the gate price supermarkets screw the supplier down to as well.
Farmer margins are very slim and pale into insignificance compared to the supermarket margin.
By all means lower the price of caulis from $13 (seriously, $13?) and think about instead cutting the margin at the supermarket and bumping up gate prices.
Then the farmer makes more, and can therefore take on more labour at a better rate, which makes farm working more appealing (combined with trimming of the dole and benefits) thereby boosting the economy.
What we have here is an environment where crippling regulation is issued at every breath, including regulation to “stop the efficient guys because the others cannot survive,” and this is exactly what I see with these sorts of policies.
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