Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): I must say listening to that last contribution I actually thought that we might have heard a retraction of a retirement speech come out there for the Hon David Clark who I do respect because there's a few spare seats on the bus opening up on that side of the House.But let's get into the Grocery Industry Competition Bill third reading—a bill that National will be supporting this evening. As the Minister who was involved in the initial aspects of this bill has articulated there are a number of components of this bill which will derive value in regards to the overall sector. National have outlined and continue to outline through the passing of this bill those aspects and comments.I do want to though comment on a couple of elements that have been raised by other speakers this evening in regards to the grocery sector and a line that has often been used particularly by that side of the House in regards to the super profits or the $1 million per day. I'd like to remind those that make those comments that the period in which those profits were derived were during the pandemic and during the period in which Auckland in particular was locked down for over 100 days. For those that don't remember or who were outside of Wellington or particularly living in the South Island they might not appreciate what it was like living in Auckland. The only place you could buy your groceries in Auckland during that period was from the two major supermarket chains. You couldn't buy it from your local butcher. You couldn't go to the local greengrocer. Many of the small operators were closed and you were not able to shop.So it doesn't take a mathematician to work out that if you close down all the other competitive environment and the competitors then the only place that you have to spend it is within the supermarket. So using this sort of super profits in a period of a pandemic where Auckland is locked down is a little bit rich to say the least and potentially not quite a reasonable basis in order to make those assumptions.The other fact just to remind people is that actually while we do have two significant players within the grocery sector one of those players in particular is 100-percent Kiwi-owned. Foodstuffs South Island has 200 stores and employs over 14000 Kiwis across their entities. Foodstuffs North Island—over 100 years old is that entity—100-percent Kiwi-owned 330 stores across the country employing over 24000 New Zealanders. So when that side of the House attacks the grocery sector when they attack those two entities in particular they are by doing that attacking all of those hard-working Kiwis within our Four Squares our New Worlds our Pak 'N Save our Countdowns our FreshChoices our Gilmours; those that at this hour of the night no doubt for those supermarkets that are starting to close will be doing the night fill shift in terms of stocking those shelves many of which aren't on significant high salaries. That side of the House is attacking them and saying that they are all villains.And that is the divisive nature of this Government's policies. It is a great shame that they need to get into that space particularly on a bill such as this which in essence at a fundamental level does have some positive comments. But when it starts to get into this conversation around attacking the profitability of entities then they need to balance up that aspect.The other aspect to raise is that food prices are and continue to increase in this country. But the food price element running at around 12.1 percent annual inflation is driven by a number of factors and to take it that it is solely the supermarkets profiteering that is driving up that food price is simply not the reality. The cost of the inputs into those products is a significant driver and again this Government's regulation and legislation has in part led to significant increases in costs on businesses in this country. That is a factor of why consumers are paying higher prices when they go to the supermarket checkout and look to get their goods.Lastly I also want to acknowledge those working in our grocery sector across our country and I think particularly of those in our urban centres when we see the impact of law and order and crime on our grocery sector and our grocery industry. I don't see that there are any components of this grocery industry bill that actually deal with one of the most fundamental issues that are facing our grocery sector at the moment and that is the out-of-control issues around law and order that are happening in the thing.In my home electorate of the North Shore at the local Countdown about three times a week someone walks out of that store with a trolley full of groceries without paying. In my New World store in Shore City in Takapuna a person only in the last four months walked out with a supermarket trolley full of food and actually physically assaulted and pushed over two members of the staff one of which was hospitalised because of the injuries sustained from that assault from someone stealing a trolley full of groceries. And it is very common and people are seeing it weekly and if not daily in this country. Because of the lack of consequences people are doing that within our grocery sector and those staff members as I have articulated before are the ones that are at the front line dealing with that. This is a lost opportunity in terms of an opportunity at least that the Government could have used to implement some changes to strengthen up the issues that we have in that space.But that's all I want to cover on this bill in its third reading. National will be supporting this bill and thank you very much.