Election 2026: Green Party to campaign on banning supermarket price gouging
The Green Party has drawn up a member’s bill and unveiled a new campaign policy that it claims will ban price gouging by the country’s supermarket duopoly.
The party’s member’s bill - which would make it illegal to charge “unreasonable” prices for groceries - comes with only five sitting weeks left before the House rises for the election. For a member’s bill to be debated in the House, it must be pulled from the “biscuit tin” ballot.
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said New Zealanders were paying too much for their groceries while supermarkets were “raking in excess profits of a million dollars a day.”
“Parliament can now actually do something meaningful in its final few weeks before the election by supporting this common-sense bill, to reduce New Zealanders’ bills.
“At the end of the day, surely, that’s why we’re all there in the first place.”
The bill will be placed in the members’ ballot by Green Party MP Ricardo Menéndez March. It is also part of the party’s “affordable kai” policy which will be announced in full next month.
The legislation proposed by the Greens says grocery retailers “must not engage in excessive pricing in supplying or offering to supply groceries to consumers”.
It defines “excessive pricing” as “supplying, or offering to supply, groceries if, in considering all relevant circumstances, the pricing for the supply is excessive when compared to the cost to the regulated grocery retailer of the supply, plus a reasonable margin”.
However, the legislation neither defines what “excessive” nor what a “reasonable margin” is.
Its explanatory note says the Commerce Commission has reported the supermarket duopoly has been “making excessive profits to the tune of $1 million per day”.
Menéndez March said breaches would carry penalties of up to $10 million, three times the value of the commercial gain or 10% of turnover.
“It would be for the courts to decide whether a supermarket has breached the ban, on application from the Commerce Commission.
“Supermarkets would also be required to keep records of their pricing and provide them to the Commerce Commission on request.”
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.
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