Jones Shane: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJones Shane: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 12 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:15845. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon SHANE JONES (Labour): Greetings in the year 2014. This is the first time that I have stood as a parliamentarian and thoroughly appreciated the value of absoluteprivilege because today I am going to fulfil my duties as a member of the House of Representatives and I am going to bring to the attention of the House and my fellow New Zealanders a quality of conduct being visited upon New Zealand firms selling products produce and stock to an Australian-owned supermarket called Countdown in New Zealand. The people who have requested that I publicise this issue live in fear. They live in a climate of threat intimidation and menace. It is without a sliver of doubt I believe that in this speech I am fulfilling my duties as a parliamentarian to alert us to a level of extortion that is going unchallenged in our food and grocery sector.It was galling enough for us as New Zealanders to watch the violation of the CER. It was disgraceful for us to see our New Zealand exporters blacklisted by Woolworths and the other Australian supermarkets. We have come to understand that the Aussie corporate culture in that sector is akin to a dingo culture but we never thought that our Prime Minister would go there be confronted by the dingo culture and come back as Abbott’s poodle. Well I want this Prime Minister and I want us as parliamentarians to challenge a more repugnant story of supermarket behaviour of monopolistic malice and of extortion. Once I have laid out the sequence of events I have got no doubt that members of this House will regard this episode as the “Countdown shakedown”.Let me elaborate without any ambiguity on what is happening to Kiwi firms that are employing thousands of New Zealanders up and down the country as they seek to secure business opportunity with the Countdown supermarket chain which is run by a corporate culture that can be described only as something that Tony Soprano would be very proud of—something of racketeering something of extortion and certainly something imported from Australia that corrupts established commercial practice in New Zealand. A number of firms have contacted me. They have however sworn me not to reveal their identities. They have been ordered to meetings with managers of the Countdown supermarket chain they are taken into a meeting room and the following is happening to our fellow New Zealand employers and businesses and indirectly employees. They are being told by the Australian-owned supermarket that “Our profit margin did not suit the shareholders’ expectations last year. We want more profit out of you.” Naturally our Kiwi suppliers say: “It’s not flash on our side either. What can we do to assist?”. The Aussie managers are saying to our Kiwi employers and our Kiwi firms that “We’re not here to talk nursery rhymes.” They are demanding of Kiwi businesses payments backdated cheques and recompense for the losses the supermarkets assert they suffered last year. If they do not pay these cheques they are being told they will have no shelf space into the future.In any other sort of country that is blackmail. That is extortion. Why should we as New Zealanders allow the Australian shareholders and the Australian supermarket chains to treat our fellow citizens our fellow taxpayers and our fellow businessmen and businesswomen in that fashion? It is an offence. OK in Australia it may be the corporate culture that extortion is some sort of casual liaison between consenting adults. That type of extortion that I have outlined is an offence in our country. Now let me be very clear. A number of firms have been told their products will not be placed on the shelves of our supermarkets unless they make backdated payments and offer remuneration for losses sustained by the supermarket. It is not the fault of New Zealand producers that an Aussie-owned supermarket could not compete with our New Zealand - owned cooperative supermarket chain. Not only is that anti-competitive that is a type of commercial culture repugnant to most New Zealanders. This is how it works. The Aussie-driven owners and managers of the supermarket chain—and I know their names because I have been contacted by the people who were in the room—are saying to our Kiwi managers and our Kiwi firms: “You will hand over a cheque for my historic losses or you will never gain shelf space in the supermarkets. If you breathe one word of thiswe will blacklist you permanently.” That is not extortion; that must be approaching a crime. What better place than to use the highest court in the land to outline and air their grievances?Without a doubt the first thing that I am going to do after delivering this speech is deliver an official letter of complaint to the Commerce Commission because this monopolistic abuse these threats and this intimidation are driving our fellow Kiwis to their wits’ end. They begin to fear now whether their businesses are viable and they have told me that if they are forced to make these retrospective backdated cheque payments they will start laying off workers. This is the feral culture in this Australian-owned supermarket chain that saw them bring a Tasmanian devil out 6 years ago to smash the union movement. They sought to smash the union movement in that particular supermarket chain. Eventually consumers turned and supported the workers. I only hope my fellow citizens and consumers from all around the country say they will not acquiesce with the importation of this corrupt culture from the Australian shareholders into our business environment.Let me be absolutely explicit. This covers a whole host of sectors in the New Zealand economy. Let me be absolutely explicit. This type of behaviour is causing God-fearing Kiwi businesses to live in abject fear. Indeed they have sought legal advice as to whether they should even have spoken to me. But I feel that we as parliamentarians ought to stand up for our fellow Kiwis in the face of this type of supermarket fascism. What possessed the Government the Ministers and apparently the richest man in Parliament our Prime Minister to come back after a brief discussion with Ralph Waters—a man who chairs Woolworths made a handsome fortune out of New Zealand and has done nothing to lift his finger or to change this operational corporate culture and obviously convinced our Prime Minister because he is from the big end of town—to let it slide?Well it might be slippery enough for him but on this side of the House let us stand up against this monopolistic extortionate and menacing behaviour because once these people start to lay off workers the employment rate will only worsen in the regions. We should not be intimidated by their corporate lawyers. We should not be intimidated by their lobbyists. We should say as I am today to the Countdown management: stop threatening. Stop your Mafioso tactics against Kiwi businesses. Treat them with a decent shot. Give them a fair go. Stop threatening that they will be bankrupted or blacklisted if they squeak about this extortionary behaviour. This verges on corruption. It has been imported into our business culture by the Australian-owned supermarkets. I will go to Pak ’N Save because the Aussies should pack up and go home. Kia ora tātou.