When Nicola Willis came into Parliament, I thought we had a Minister of Finance with her finger on the pulse around business. Prior to this we had the Grocery Commissioner, Pierre van Heerden, spouting off how he was going to shake the duopoly up and reduce grocery prices. He wanted to encourage a new player to come into the NZ market. Here we have Australia with 27 million people with 3 main players and little old NZ with 5.3 million people and 3 main players. What new supermarket chain would come to NZ to not only fight over monopoly money but also to be told that they cannot make exorbitant profits. I mean tell me how you define an exorbitant profit. What is the magic number? Every financier would have a different take on this. Then along came Nicola Willis with the same old rhetoric. Potential businesses have now and truly run for cover.
