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ISSUE
Friday, September 25, 2026
Volume 17 . Issue 38
ACT leader David Seymour has hit out at promises to break up the supermarket duopoly, calling them "unethical" and a betrayal of "free enterprise".
Seymour was in Auckland on Monday speaking at engineering consultancy firm Aurecon in Newmarket.
During his speech, Seymour slammed his opponents and coalition partners saying it was hard to "overstate how bad these ideas are".
"Foodstuffs and Woolworths have spent 104 and 97 years respectively building logistics, procurement and distribution networks that run through this country like arteries.
"That's economies of scale. That's how the shelves stay full and prices stay lower than they'd otherwise be."
Each political party has promised some kind of supermarket reform: the Greens want to set up a publicly owned competitor, National and New Zealand First want to break them up, Labour would separate their wholesale and retail arms and Te Pāti Māori would spend $3.1 billion on tax breaks and seed funding for Māori-owned competitors.
Seymour said he was "so disappointed" to see the National Party "shamelessly join the pile-on".
"These policies aren't just bad economics. They're unethical. They undermine the rule of law and property rights in this country, and they betray the basic idea of free enterprise.
"It tells every Kiwi entrepreneur, and every foreign investor watching, don't bother building here. Grow a successful business in New Zealand, and if a politician spots votes in tearing it apart, they will."
Seymour disagreed food prices were going up because of the supermarket duopoly.
"Butchers, bakers, greengrocers, chemists - including large chains - hardware stores and liquor stores compete with supermarkets from every angle. It is wrong to say New Zealanders have only two options, we actually have many."
He pointed to over-spending during the pandemic, the war in Iran and New Zealand's geography which he said was "bigger than you think".
"We are thinly spread, dotted with small rural towns, split down the middle by a mountain range and across the middle by the Cook Strait.
"Geographically, we're about as remote as a country can be - next stop, Antarctica. Building and running supply chains here is expensive and complicated by default."
Seymour said ACT would set up a "one-stop consenting shop" for new market entrants to make it easier for them to get set up and pointed his work bringing product labels more in line with other countries.
"A one-stop shop means one process, one timeline, one government working with you instead of forty separate hurdles."
ACT leader David Seymour has hit out at promises to break up the supermarket duopoly, calling them "unethical" and a betrayal of "free enterprise".
Seymour was in Auckland on Monday speaking at engineering consultancy firm Aurecon in Newmarket.
During his speech, Seymour slammed his opponents...
ACT leader David Seymour has hit out at promises to break up the supermarket duopoly, calling them "unethical" and a betrayal of "free enterprise".
Seymour was in Auckland on Monday speaking at engineering consultancy firm Aurecon in Newmarket.
During his speech, Seymour slammed his opponents and coalition partners saying it was hard to "overstate how bad these ideas are".
"Foodstuffs and Woolworths have spent 104 and 97 years respectively building logistics, procurement and distribution networks that run through this country like arteries.
"That's economies of scale. That's how the shelves stay full and prices stay lower than they'd otherwise be."
Each political party has promised some kind of supermarket reform: the Greens want to set up a publicly owned competitor, National and New Zealand First want to break them up, Labour would separate their wholesale and retail arms and Te Pāti Māori would spend $3.1 billion on tax breaks and seed funding for Māori-owned competitors.
Seymour said he was "so disappointed" to see the National Party "shamelessly join the pile-on".
"These policies aren't just bad economics. They're unethical. They undermine the rule of law and property rights in this country, and they betray the basic idea of free enterprise.
"It tells every Kiwi entrepreneur, and every foreign investor watching, don't bother building here. Grow a successful business in New Zealand, and if a politician spots votes in tearing it apart, they will."
Seymour disagreed food prices were going up because of the supermarket duopoly.
"Butchers, bakers, greengrocers, chemists - including large chains - hardware stores and liquor stores compete with supermarkets from every angle. It is wrong to say New Zealanders have only two options, we actually have many."
He pointed to over-spending during the pandemic, the war in Iran and New Zealand's geography which he said was "bigger than you think".
"We are thinly spread, dotted with small rural towns, split down the middle by a mountain range and across the middle by the Cook Strait.
"Geographically, we're about as remote as a country can be - next stop, Antarctica. Building and running supply chains here is expensive and complicated by default."
Seymour said ACT would set up a "one-stop consenting shop" for new market entrants to make it easier for them to get set up and pointed his work bringing product labels more in line with other countries.
"A one-stop shop means one process, one timeline, one government working with you instead of forty separate hurdles."
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