Clark David; Rurawhe AdrianHon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Kia ora Mr Speaker. The Labour Party's approach to COVID means New Zealand's economy is recovering faster than almost anywhere in the world. Economic forecasts released with the Budget saw a return to surplus in 2024-25 almost a year earlier—well it will be a year earlier—than National did after the global financial crisis. We've received two world-leading triple A credit ratings something very few countries in the world could claim. GDP up 5.6 percent. Unemployment is at a record low of 3.2 percent. Wages have outpaced inflation under this Government up until the recent inflation spike and are projected to increase again ahead of inflation after 2022. Our debt is set to peak at around half of Australia's around a third of that in the UK and around a fifth of that of the US. Our strong economic management—and credit to our Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson—means we can invest in critical services and help ensure Kiwis who need it are supported while we keep a lid on debt.I want to speak a little bit about supermarkets. They are something that I am spending a lot of time thinking about right now and this Government is taking action to ensure that Kiwis get a fairer deal at the checkout. We put supermarkets on notice and the message is clear: change at pace to increase competition and be prepared for regulation.The Government has instructed the Commerce Commission to go away and do research. It's come back with findings that show that competition is not working that shoppers aren't getting a fair deal and that we have a duopoly in New Zealand that needs to be sorted out. Their estimate is that that duopoly is getting excess profits that currently amount to over $1 million a day coming out of ordinary Kiwis' pockets every single day so we're determined to act. People are rightly fed up at paying a premium for the basics and Budget 2022 of course delivered the cost of living payment to 2.1 million Kiwis to help with the impact of rising prices. Fixing our supermarkets is another action the Government can take to meet people with the challenges of the cost of living.The commission itself made 14 recommendations. We've adopted 12 of them and have said that we reject two on the basis that we want to go further and faster. The two that we're going further and faster on are around wholesale access—making sure there's a mandatory backstop so that the pledges supermarkets have made to open up their wholesale arms to competition to potential competitors in the market is something that they can deliver on and if they don't deliver on it we'll help them with regulation to make sure that that happens. These issues can't be kicked down the road. We also think we need to go faster on a review to make sure that competition really is working. It's not a three-yearly review as recommended by the Commerce Commission but an annual review which will be conducted by the regulator and we're progressing work on the regulator as well. We think the underlying drivers of a lack of competition need to be addressed.Now supermarkets know they're under the spotlight. We've already seen some gestures from the supermarkets some price roll-backs. We want to make sure though that we're addressing the longer-term issues here. Those price roll-backs are for a short period of time. We want to address the underlying structural issues and make sure there is competition in the market so we will implement a wholesale access regime and develop a regulatory backstop and if supermarkets don't strike good-faith wholesale deals with their competitors our regulatory measures will make it happen for them.So right now that work is progressing. We're also doing further work on retail divestment to see how that stacks up. We're also progressing compulsory unit pricing. That is currently out for consultation and is something that we will see in place by February next year. A mandatory code of conduct is being progressed and we'll shortly be seeking views on that. That is being developed with suppliers and the major grocery retailers. Access to sites is being progressed through planning law reform.The Commerce Commission will act as an interim regulator as we develop the permanent watchdog who will produce those reports on the state of competition and of course Budget night legislation is already in play driving through change in the area of covenants and leases where there have been restrictive prohibitions put on with supermarkets trying to block their competitors from coming into town.The momentum of change is already with us. We're seeing the covenants rolling back—the supermarkets have signed up to that already. We've seen the mandatory code of conduct coming into effect. We've seen a regulator be accepted by the duopoly—something they'd never accepted before—and we're already seeing them making gestures—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.