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Ryan Bridge: Nicola's supermarket bust up isn't serious · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Nicola's supermarket smash-up is not serious. She's playing a very
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: risky political game, and I think she knows it too.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Costa Living is the only game in town this election.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Win on the Costa Living battle and you win the war.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Nicola thinks by looking tough on supermarkets, she will earn
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the respect of the squeezed middle. But as I've said
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: many times before on this program, even if you wipe
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: out all of the so-called super profits the supermarkets are making,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: you benefit by a few extra bucks a week. And
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: there's a big if in here. Our supermarkets are run
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: very efficiently. Yes, they are dominant, too dominant maybe, but
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: that allows our economies of scale in a small country
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: of 5 million people. Mess with that for political gain
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and you risk prices actually going up, not down. That
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: is not my view. That is the view of the
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: very report which Nicola Willis relied on to make her
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: grand pronouncement yesterday. In other words, this whole thing could
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: end up costing us more than it saves us. Nobody
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: knows for sure. No government in the world has gone
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: in with an axe and split up a live supermarket
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: chain in real time before. The very threat of it
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: will put the willies up investors. Who's going to be
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: investing in New Zealand's supermarket industry before the second half
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: of 2027? That's how long a second report will take
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: to answer those questions. And guess what? Those risks, those scenarios,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: those best guesses on calculators by modellers will still be
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: there in 12 months' time. At which point, National will
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: shelve this idea. It won't happen. This isn't happening. It's
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: not serious. It's politics. It's election year. Some are saying
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: this is Nicola's Jacinda nuclear-free oil and gas moment, but
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: it's not. Jacinda actually did the ban. Nicola's not. Jacinda
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: fired the gun. Nicola's just waving it around the supermarket
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: aisles for a photo op.