RODNEY HIDE: KiwiMart — The Great Leap Forward
The Greens have a plan for cheaper groceries. It’s called KiwiMart. Force Foodstuffs and Woolworths to sell 120 stores and a couple of warehouses into state ownership at a heavy discount, splash about $2.8 billion, ban “price gouging,” and — abracadabra — milk is affordable.
Competition, they say. Owned by all New Zealanders, for all New Zealanders. The slogan writes itself. So does the sequel.
Year 1. KiwiMart opens with a mandate to prioritise affordability. Prices are lower because the Cabinet said so. Shoppers cheer. The private chains, short 120 stores, and a few billion, and staring at a price-gouging ban, stop discounting specials that used to pull people in. Margins migrate somewhere the press release didn’t mention.
Year 2. KiwiMart is short of butter. And fruit. And truck drivers who will work Sunday for a state rate. The minister explains that suppliers are “not playing ball.” A temporary wholesale price schedule appears. Just until the shelves look decent for the cameras.
Year 3. Farmers discover the schedule. Milk solids somehow cost more to produce than KiwiMart may legally pay. A few herds go to the works. The Greens discover “food security.” Export controls on meat and dairy are floated so New Zealanders eat first. The Chinese buyer rings someone else.
Year 4. Freight is the bottleneck. “Excess profits” in trucking. Fuel, tyres, drivers — another gouging ban, another schedule. The queue at the distribution centre becomes a moral issue. A People’s Logistics Agency is temporary, of course.
Year 5. Urban gardens and community food hubs can’t fill the gap the price system used to fill in an afternoon. The school lunch programme expands again — not because kids were hungry for lack of compassion, but because the shop is unreliable. What began as a third competitor is now a rationing system with better branding.
Year 7. We have a Lettuce Board. Or a Kai Commissioner. Or both. Nobody remembers wanting either. Each failure proved the last lever wasn’t big enough. Nobody votes to collectivise the country. They just refuse to admit the first lever was wrong.
Supermarkets in New Zealand are incredibly successful at providing us what we want at a price we are prepared to pay. When I was a kid, oranges and bananas were a Christmas stocking treat. My kids have them sitting in the bowl everyday. There’s a real argument about competition law: planning rules, that’s the choke, and how hard it is for a third chain to get a site. Forcing the taxpayer to buy the aisles and then capping the prices is not competition. It’s central planning without the loyalty card.
If prices are a signal, smothering them doesn’t make food cheaper. It makes food scarce, then political. The next intervention is always “just this once.” Then it’s the farms. Then the trucks. Then the board.
KiwiMart isn’t the end of the story. It’s chapter one. It’s not like it hasn’t been tried before.
Rodney Hide is a former Minister and ACT Party leader
SUMMARY. Modern, or Neo Marxist theories and ideology have been promoted as a Utopian Dream in which everyone has the same social and economic status regardless of their individual abilities or efforts. In that dream, the people called THE STATE have the authority to make all the decisions that effect the lives of everyone else and the POWER to impose those decisions on everyone else. This sounds great to people who regard themselves as VICTIMS OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INJUSTICE and envy those they blame. The name of the Marxist Utopian Dream was and still is COMMUNISM. We have too much Communist State Control already. More will only make everything worse.
EXPLANATION The Modern Marxist ideology of the Green party authorities is based on ENVY and a…
And then, when it hits the fan, we will be in the same position as the drilling permits, no one off shore will want to invest here because its too unpredictable and governments cant be trusted to keep their word. People dont seem to understand NZ is a pimple on a pumpkin in the world scheme, when I was travelling overseas most didnt even know where we were ( closest said 12miles off the east coast of Aussie). To invest here is expensive, its a long haul, these idiots are only interested in promoting their socialist/communist agenders, what a joke.
I was in Poland before the wall came down. A general store had shelves with about 10 15% holding goods. Very tight limites on what could be purchased. Many common items not available. Surly unhelpful staff. Three queues - one to order, one to get your purchase and one to pay.
Outside were cars with their boot open selling small quantities of meat and veges, owners watching furtively for police to come and drive them out.
That is what the Greens propose.
The communists / socialists are blind to history - your narrative is a good prediction based on 20th century experience in USSR, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Venezuela etc etc - all the while claiming they understand "economic history" (as pronounced by Marx and all his intellectual heirs. Ther Greens & TOP are an intellectual joke that is very serious indeed because the poll so well, despite their naive, corrupt & economically ignorant policies. Actually Labour is nearly as bad & National are no different from Labour, just better managers.
Hmmmmm whats to see here ?
Dumb pricks have been part of the establishment for as long as I can remember and those idiotic clowns are prone to say anything. The Greens are renown for dribbling shit....
The only concern one should really have would be how many other dumb pricks in the establishment will heed and join their push.
Now, there is action that could well prove frightening, especially when you consider the size and the weight of the Labor movement.
Real scary, given their desperation to prove Labor still have worth in fiscal management since the rise and demise of Roger Douglas.....
I can imagine it could well be on the books..... Shit does happen
TPM ?, thei…