Jones Shane: Financial Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJones Shane: Financial Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 04 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16273. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon SHANE JONES (Labour): Kia oraanōtātou. We are talking about the commerce portfolio and I want to direct our attention to the need for the Minister of Commerce to show a greater degree of commitment to interest in and ownership of introducing a way of improving the conduct of our supermarket sector. I will say nothing about the issues that I am still working on with the Commerce Commission but I want this Committee and consumers to know that that was not a consequence of Minister Loss—Foss—Hon Annette King: Gloss.Hon SHANE JONES: —Gloss. OK whatever—Hoss. It was not as a consequence of anything to do with him; it was because suppliers had raised their concerns with him and his officials and in desperation they raised their concerns with me.A solution after the Commerce Commission has completed its process—and I do not want to do anything that impedes that process—is to establish an adjudicator to establish a code of conduct that is enforceable. There are some models that can be emulated. I do not think it is a good idea to bring holus-bolus over to New Zealand what passes in the UK where there are actually more operational supermarkets but there is a model also in Australia. I will have more to say in the not too distant future about the conduct of a certain Australian-owned supermarket in New Zealand and its treatment of Lotto but that is another matter.I think that the Minister needs to be prepared to work collaboratively with this side of the House and in particular Clayton Cosgrove and take a bipartisan approach. Indeed one of the rare sensible things I have heard from the Green Party that I actually agree with is that it too not only has a very important part to play but also has already done a considerable amount of work on a model that can be relied upon to police the corporate culture the managerial conduct and the treatment not only of the employees of these veritable empires but also those people who are seeking to earn a living through the sale of goods and services to the supermarket empire. That adjudicator cannot come into being until there has been a decent review which I hope will follow after the Commerce Commission exhaustively goes through the process and protects the identity and the investment. I know there are issues of natural justice if serious and egregious cases are referred to them—the supermarket needs to take responsibility—but a review could actually empower people to hold the supermarkets to a higher level of conduct.The Woolworths-owned supermarket in New Zealand is accountable to no one. It is obvious that the chief executive officer does not know what is going on and the board of directors is so distant in Australia across the Tasman that it has no genuine idea as to what is happening here other than the fact that the supermarket may have been suffering declining revenues recently. Now the supermarket is panicking and paying inordinate amounts of money for full-page advertisements but that is a commercial decision. The level of interest it is showing in emblazoning its concerns through an advertising campaign in the daily newspapers also needs to be visited upon the corporate culture and the corporate values that it has engendered in its organisation.I have indeed been criticised by the Minister for being a bit polemical but I am not the architect of the corporate culture that has fed the concerns that now resonate throughout the public and occupy the attention of the Commerce Commission. It is a central commerce policy issue. There is an opportunity for that Minister to be bipartisan and work with our side of the House in particular Clayton Cosgrove. He has got experience in these matters. After all he brought forward a solution to the egregious conduct that blighted the real estate industry. So this is a rare opportunity for this Minister whose work ethic could do with a tremendous degree of growth and improvement to work with our side of the House.