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Ryan Bridge: What can Nicola do about inflation contributors? · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: Electricity and groceries are your two big ticket inflation targets.
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  Speaker 1: Punters want to pay less for both, and there are
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  Speaker 1: nuclear options available cut the gent tailors in half by force.
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  Speaker 1: Those who are pro wrecking ball argue, if you force
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  Speaker 1: them to separate out the generation side of the business
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  Speaker 1: from the retail side, you'd create more competition, lower prices.
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  Speaker 1: You could do a similar thing with the supermarkets. You
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  Speaker 1: force food stuffs and woollies to sell one hundred and
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  Speaker 1: twenty supermarkets sell two of their six distribution centers to
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  Speaker 1: a third player, and hey, presto, thediopol is dead. Long
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  Speaker 1: live Queen Nicola. Now we're still waiting to see exactly
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  Speaker 1: what cat she's going to pull out of her shopping
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  Speaker 1: bag on this. She has advice, considering the options all
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  Speaker 1: that stuff. Here's what I think she will do. We
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  Speaker 1: can get clues from the way that they're handling electricity,
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  Speaker 1: the regulators and the government, which is basically minor changes
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  Speaker 1: to bits and pieces around the edges on stuff like
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  Speaker 1: the super peak hedging contracts, and if things don't age,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: look out, we'll regulate, will be meaner, will be tougher.
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  Speaker 1: There's still the Frontier report of course which Cabinet is
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  Speaker 1: considering right now, and we'll decide on by the end
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  Speaker 1: of the month. In other words, you tinker and you threaten,
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  Speaker 1: you sound tough enough that voters know you serious, but
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  Speaker 1: not actually go death con one and risk spooking markets
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  Speaker 1: in which you're actually trying to attract investment, and particularly offshore.
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  Speaker 1: Plus Chris Quinn told my show the other day, they
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  Speaker 1: would lawyer up to high heaven and fight anything like this,
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  Speaker 1: so it gets messy. So I reckon they'll tinker on
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  Speaker 1: supermarkets options on the cards. You can put supermarkets on
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  Speaker 1: the fast track list, get them built quicker. You can
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  Speaker 1: ban pocketbook pricing. You can empower the existing franchises to
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  Speaker 1: be more independent, buying their stock from wherever they like,
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  Speaker 1: setting their own prices, et cetera, et cetera. Slap a
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  Speaker 1: threat to legislate for the nuclear option across the headline
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  Speaker 1: of your press release. If the tinkering doesn't happen or
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  Speaker 1: isn't working, throw the ball back in the duopolies court.
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  Speaker 1: This would simultane satisfy Act which hates the nuclear option
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  Speaker 1: and the politics of perception. It goes further than labor went,
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  Speaker 1: but doesn't risk the court battles, the potential for major
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  Speaker 1: changes not actually working and bringing down prices, which is
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  Speaker 1: the whole point, right, one thing certain, whether it's electricity
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  Speaker 1: bills or check out prices. The chances of a return
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  Speaker 1: to the good old days of pre COVID prices when
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  Speaker 1: we could butter the toast and fire up the heated
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  Speaker 1: towel rail with gay abandon while they're slim to none.
• 2:34
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• 2:40
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