John MacDonald: What's with National going anti-business?

What on earth has happened to National being the party for business?

The party that encourages people to take risks, start businesses, work hard and enjoy the rewards?

I never would have imagined National, of all parties, coming up with this idea of forcing Foodstuffs to split its supermarket operations.

Business NZ feels the same. Saying today that it’s just like Labour banning oil and gas exploration.

It says the National Party’s plan to use legislation to separate Pak'nSave from New World and Four Square is alarming and sends a chilling signal.

And I couldn’t agree more.

Because, unlike the oil and gas ban, which makes it very clear to oil and gas exploration companies that they’re not welcome here, National’s supermarket idea tells the world that they can still come here, but the rules might change once they set up shop.

Which is why Catherine Beard from Business NZ says it’s not just the local supermarket operators who are going to be worried. She says all businesses, here in New Zealand and elsewhere, will be too.

National’s finance spokesperson Nicola Willis, though, isn’t having a bar of that.

She says no current supermarket owners would be forced to sell. They’d just be part of the Pak’nSave chain, or they’d be part of the New World/Four Square chain.

She says we’re being ripped off by the supermarkets and something has to change.

But using legislation to fundamentally change the structure of a business, that is not a centre-right policy. It’s an anti-business policy.

Another weird part of this is that National wants to force change on Foodstuffs, which is a New Zealand outfit. But isn’t touching Woolworths, which is an Australian outfit.

Nicola Willis told Newstalk ZB this morning that that’s got nothing to do with Woolworths being publicly listed on the stock exchange over in Australia.

But she did say that Woolworths shouldn’t be complacent and will be expected to offer lower prices as well.

But I’m with Business NZ. This is an anti-business policy from the dark ages.

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