Chris Luxon: Prime Minister talks National's supermarket policy, police targets and the public sector
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What is National’s controversial supermarket policy and why does Luxon defend it?
Monday morning, the Prime Minister with us, Christopher Lux and good morning to you. Good morning, Mike. Do you need a hug today? No, I don't. Disgusting. Yes, it was. Disgussing was the word I use.
Yeah. That's not gonna happen. So So
you s did the T V get broken? Did you chuck something out of it? No, I wasn't ang
no I wasn't angry about it. I was sort of I was disappointed about it. It was like you've been deeply internal. Yeah, there is a little bit of that. Now Are you sold this supermarket thing, so you you know what's coming from a person like me now, don't you? You this is not you. This is not the national party that I know. This is you are the party of enterprise and party and hard work. And now suddenly you just start picking on industries you think are a bit suspect.
Oh that's rubbish. No, that's not true. No, the reality is we are a party of enterprise and hard work. You see that when those store owner operators are hard workers, they've done you know, they've done they do great things. Weekend. They can't believe what you've done. But we're also a party of competition. And when you see a market that's actually just fundamentally not competitive, I I've been in this sector for 18 years, that's where I started my career. And I can't think of a single country on earth that has um eighty two percent market share consolidated in two grocery players. I can't think of any four to five million people country on earth that doesn't have three, four, five grocery operators in in in their markets.
You know, they make a four percent return. sound like a lot, but it's it's two and a half in Australia it's one and a half. Okay, so
I was told the other day in Auckland it's nowhere near that domination because you've got all the independent Chinese operators, you've got about thirty percent share in Auckland.
How does Luxon justify the claim that New Zealand’s grocery market lacks competition?
We don't see in Auckland a materially different marketplace than we do from the rest of the country. How so?
You've just got to s
you
You I mean, just if you just take a step back at it, I mean you've just got a supermarket sector in New Zealand that has been over the last twenty five years. Stephen Joyce made that point actually in the article he wrote like last year. He said his family actually was in the supermarket business. And what you saw even twenty five years ago versus what you're seeing today is there's been a lot more consolidation, rightly or wrongly because of the decisions of commerce commissions around different mergers that took place at different times you know over that period of time. But but I just say But speaking from a global experience of having worked in grocery markets in one hundred and ninety plus countries, I I there isn't I can't think of one that has eighty two percent tied up with two plus four percent margin that's available for the three.
Okay, so that answers my answer. So
you're not captured by Nicola Willis and a bunch of consultants and And we haven't
been we have done this really thoroughly. You you you were giving us grief for saying, look, you've opened up a conversation on supermarkets and you haven't got a solution to it. Well, actually it's because we're trying to get the right analysis, modelling, and independent um you know appraisal of it. It's not something you rush into. There's a really high bar for making an intervention like this. This is why it's supermarket specific. That's why it's delivered through the Grocery Competition Act. Uh and actually we've got as a government, we've got all the analysis that's led to say banners separation. Three nationwide chains competing with each other is actually, we think the benefits outweigh the cost.
Now, I've got all that analysis sitting there. Uh, what we're saying is we don't think as politicians just dreaming up where it feels like Labour's going for a policy that actually was rejected by the Commerce Commission, Kiwi Mart's and other sort of intervention, you know, that's very communist and socialist. We're actually saying let's put it out of the hands of politicians, give them six months. It's only six months, and if they say no, uh
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is National’s controversial supermarket policy and why does Luxon defend it?
0:00–1:42
2
How does Luxon justify the claim that New Zealand’s grocery market lacks competition?
1:42–4:10
3
What evidence does Luxon cite about market concentration and profit margins in the sector?
4:10–6:04
4
Why does Luxon say the government should wait six months before intervening in supermarkets?
6:04–7:35
5
How does Luxon respond to Labour and the Greens on food‑price inflation?
7:35–9:29
6
What are Luxon’s plans for increasing police numbers before the election?
9:29–10:59
7
Why are construction wages rising faster than other sectors, according to Luxon?
10:59–12:12
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