Smith DamienDAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you. The bill is to address supermarket competition and the duopoly but it's using the smokescreen of supermarkets' successive profits to justify its existence. I'd like to get that number checked at some stage before the select committee or during the select committee because I believe that was a COVID number. We handed the mandate to the supermarkets to actually keep the system going.This to me is just another dangerous stunt policy that's made for PR but sure to backfire. Labour wants to distract from the real cause of rising food prices i.e. that they've created rampant inflation and a recession by their economic management. The Government has announced that it will force supermarkets to supply wholesalers and it shows they completely understand why groceries are expensive. Mr Clark has managed once again to adopt and overlay his central planning model which takes competition out of the market. Who would've believed that the way to regulate an increased competition in the supermarket sector would've been more regulation? That's an outstanding solution to what is going on here. Only Labour could think more rules will increase competition when those rules will require them to price perishable goods in highly variable circumstances. In reality they're disincentivising ambitious people from entering the industry and creating more competition.The Commerce Commission actually rejected this idea when it was tasked with investigating the grocery sector stating that the regulation could reduce rather than improve competition and induce significant additional costs. The commission also said it had little support from submitters and was subject to well-founded concerns from the two supermarket chains.Whether the Government is capable of executing this plan is another question. In the supermarket sector of thousands of products that range in cost and quality by the day policing such a regime when these products are distributed in a fair and equal fashion has the potential to be a bureaucratic nightmare. For the regime to work the commission will have to ensure that the groceries are sold for a fair price to potential distributors. How much should six pottles of yoghurt be Minister Clark for them to be sold? Does it matter how close their expiry date is? What if their location is more or less remote and does the size of the order count? What about the condition damage in refrigeration? Policing supply contracts for fast-moving consumer goods is something no Government would try if they thought about it logically.Faced with this bureaucracy new players considering entering New Zealand and the market here will be dissuaded. What will happen to Costco? Having invested into New Zealand will they have to become a distributor? So many questions unanswered. If not how can an exemption be justified? If yes what message does that send to any other entity ever considering entering the New Zealand market? This is just another dangerous stunt policy that is made for PR but sure to backfire. Labour wants to distract us from the real cause of food prices: the rampant inflation that it's caused by its economic mismanagement.Don't get me wrong—ACT agrees that the supermarket sector needs more competition but dividing up the existing cake is not the solution. In order to achieve this we need to make New Zealand an attractive place for direct investment. ACT would repeal and replace the Resource Management Act to make it easier to build new supermarkets logistics infrastructure and farm improvements. We'd exempt OECD members from the Overseas Investment Act allowing foreign supermarket chains to invest in New Zealand with certainty—otherwise we'd just end up with a hybrid version from The Warehouse. We'll also make our society productive again by tackling the labour shortage that is reducing production and pushing up prices. We'll do this by dumping the labour market test industry-specific wage requirements and transfer restrictions. Foreign workers should be able to work for accredited employers as long as they're employed consistent with the New Zealand law. If we want more competition it must be possible for investment to come into this country sites to be developed for property and their properties and skilled people to come through the border and new employees to employ people without endless bureaucracy.It's time to move on from toothless stunt policies and start thinking practically to address the cost of living crisis Kiwis are battling in this recession. The Government should take another look at the supermarket sector regulations in the Grocery Industry Competition Bill. ACT will not be supporting the bill at this stage. We look forward to hearing more detail at the select committee.