Grocery prices a growing concern
As the Commerce Commission is gearing up to release its final report into the grocery sector today, new research from Consumer NZ has found the top national concern is now the cost of living. This confirms how badly we need stronger competition and fairer prices in the sector.
Consumer NZ’s Sentiment Tracker survey — a nationally representative quarterly survey — found the cost of living has overtaken previous top concerns of Covid-19 and the price of housing.
The tracker also looked at ongoing financial concerns for New Zealanders, with the cost of groceries ranking highly, surpassed only by housing costs and unmanageable debt.
We’re concerned about the rising cost of living and how many New Zealanders are struggling to afford their grocery bills. We’ve been campaigning for much needed change in New Zealand’s highly concentrated supermarket industry.
With only two main players there is a distinct lack of competition that is contributing to high prices and higher than acceptable profit margins. The release of the final market study in the grocery sector provides a once in a generation opportunity to bring about real change in the industry, including fostering genuine competition and fairer pricing for all consumers. Our submission highlights what we believe needs to be done to fix the industry, identifying 10 key areas that could easily be implemented within the next year.
We are calling for 10 fixes for the supermarket industry:
The introduction of a mandatory code of conduct.
The appointment of a Supermarket Commissioner.
Allowing collective bargaining on behalf of suppliers.
Requiring supermarkets to supply other retailers with groceries at competitive wholesale prices.
Preventing supermarkets placing restrictive covenants on land use.
Introducing mandatory unit pricing.
Introducing a consumer information standard on supermarket price displays and promotions.
Preventing supermarkets offering price discounts only to loyalty card holders.
Requiring monitoring of retail prices and margins.
Increasing Fair Trading Act penalties for misleading pricing.
We hope to see positive and impactful recommendations for change by the Commerce Commission on Tuesday.
Consumer NZ also polled over 1000 people through a weekly email and social media about how they were faring with their supermarket shopping, 98 per cent said they are worried about the cost of groceries in New Zealand and were making changes to their weekly shop as a result.
More than four in five (84 per cent) have removed items from their usual weekly shop because of cost.
Jon Duffy
Government’s suggestion that pine forests should not be counted as permanent carbon sinks in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
The ETS should instead support investment in native forest and wetland restoration, which will provide much better long-term carbon storage than pines and other exotic trees.
A native tree planted today could still be sucking up carbon in 800 years, but a pine planted today will likely be dead in 100 years and
releasing carbon.
The Climate Change Commission told the Government that native forests and wetlands are a much better long-term carbon solution, and Forest & Bird completely agrees. Native forests stabilise land, create resilience in a rapidly changing climate, provide habitat for native species, and overall lock in more carbon for the long term.
On the other hand, pines are a fastgrowing monoculture that suck up water from flowing creeks, are really flammable, and hardly ever make it to 100 years old. Pines are not a longterm solution for the climate or our native wildlife.
As well as planting native forests, we must also protect them.
Forest & Bird has warned the Government that possums, goats, deer, pigs, and wallabies are destroying existing and new native forests, and work to control them must be sped up and coordinated across central and regional agencies.
Further, the National Policy
Statement on Indigenous
Biodiversity will be critical to incentivising the restoration and protection of native forests on privately owned land, yet has been languishing for over three years.
The solutions to nature-based carbon storage are obvious, and present multiple wins for the climate, the environment, and our communities. It’s time for the Government to get on with putting them in place.
Key actions the Government should take include:
Making sure the ETS is an incentive for permanent native forest carbon sinks.
Controlling feral deer, goats, pigs, wallabies and possums to protect young native trees — our future forests.
Implementing the National Policy Statement on Indigenous
Biodiversity to protect native habitat on private land.
Doubling New Zealand’s wetland area by 2050.
Putting in place a native forest restoration programme across all marginal and erodible land with pest control support, financial support for landowners, and restoration of degraded Crown land.