How NZ’s captured economy is eroding democracy & choking progress

The Kākā by Bernard Hickey · Sep 20, 2026 · 23m

Mōrena. The six things to know this morning in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate are:

* Labour has proposed forcing both Foodstuffs and Woolworths to run their wholesale operations independently from their retail stores. That appears to gazump National’s plan to only break up Foodstuffs, although that plan was itself a gazumping of Labour’s initial idea for a vague ban on price gouging.

* The trouble is both Labour and National have been here before, threatening to regulate or breakup the duopoly, but with little real action that reduces prices for consumers and…