IN MID-JUNE, an Ipsos Issues Monitor survey revealed that Labour had overtaken National as the party New Zealanders thought could do something about the cost of living. These are hard times for a growing number of New Zealanders. Even though Labour has provided little in the way of an economic alternative, the coalition government, after nearly two years in office, is paying the electoral price for its austerity agenda.
Its not a coincidence, then, that an 'angry' Minister of Finance should announce that she has written to the country's two supermarket chains to remind them of her 'basic expectation'. She says they must take all steps to comply with the Fair Trading Act and ensure shoppers aren’t subjected to misleading price claims. She also said that the Government 'could' impose penalties if the supermarket duopoly is seen to misbehave.
This is nothing more than spin. It's a desperately lame PR campaign cooked up by Willis and her office, designed to fool New Zealanders into believing that her government really does have their economic interests at heart. But as Abraham Lincoln said: 'You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.'
And New Zealanders know that Willis is trying to pull the wool over their eyes, every time they visit the supermarket. The problem is not dodgy supermarket practices, but the fact that prices remain high right across the board. Food prices, for example, jumped, 4.4% in the 12 months to May 2025, following a 3.7% increase in the 12 months to April 2025. I suspect that one of the main reasons that supermarket staff have faced increasing abuse from customers is because they are copping the flak for the high and rising prices.
The cost of living crisis comes at a time when the Minister of Finance and her government continue to pursue an austerity agenda that has placed the economic burden squarely on the shoulders of ordinary New Zealanders. And it has had little to offer us but the ludicrous claim that the benefits of 'economic growth' (yet to be seen) will eventually trickle down to the rest of us. It's smoke and mirrors stuff, and the problem for the government is that more and more New Zealanders are beginning to see through it.
Pushed on by its two minor and unpopular coalition partners, Act and New Zealand First, the government is pursuing an economic agenda that benefits the few at the expense of the many. We're now living in a country where landlords receive a $2 billion tax break while about half a million people have to rely on foodbanks simply to survive.
We should also take note that it was the inaction of the previous Labour Government that opened the door to the situation that we are now confronted with. While Jacinda Ardern might have claimed that tackling poverty and inequality would be a central priority of her government's agenda, she shrank from making the fundamental economic changes that were required. She neglects to mention in her memoir A Different Kind Of Power that from 2017 to 2023, the number of children living in material hardship increased by 6.4 percent from 135,000 to 143,700.
While the Government might have nothing to offer but more of the same failed neoliberal policies, we have yet to see any evidence that the Chris Hipkins-led Labour Party is prepared to do more than just tinker with the economic settings.
Although the Government and its cheerleaders in the media might want us to believe otherwise, it is no longer radical to argue that the New Zealand economy requires deep, economic transformation. With the power to set taxes, levels of public spending, wages in the public sector, and regulation in the private sector, the New Zealand state is the only institution capable of enacting such a transformation.
Right now, the only parliamentary party that recognises this is the Green Party, and that's largely due to co-leader Chloe Swarbrick. In January last year, she wrote: 'Do we want to keep tinkering, or do we want a brand new deal? Are we willing to reset the rules?... It's not going to happen overnight, and it's not going to be easily handed over, but history tells us we can, and the demands of the future require we must.'
For as long as economic policymaking is dominated by people like Nicola Willis, whose views are formed without reference to the needs of ordinary people, New Zealand's economic crisis can only continue to get worse. What we require in New Zealand is the kind of economic populism that has benefited politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and New York's next mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Like most things, the government just talks with no real action. Every week, families see the first reality at the supermarket with sky-high prices and fake “specials.” Then on the way home on the radio, they hear taxes are going up, at home the bill comes in stating rates power and water prices have climbed too. Meanwhile, the government just blabs on and on while everyday Kiwis keep paying more.
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