Greens Unveil $2.8 Billion Supermarket Plan, Decline to Say What It Saves You on Eggs

The Green Party wants to spend $2.8 billion buying 120 existing supermarkets and two distribution centres to create KiwiMart, a state-owned chain that would hold around 15 percent of a market currently split between two players holding 82 to 90 percent. It is, on the numbers alone, a serious and specific piece of policy. The number missing from the announcement is the one shoppers actually asked for.

Asked how much cheaper groceries would be under KiwiMart, Chlöe Swarbrick declined to say, arguing pricing decisions should sit with the Commerce Commission rather than politicians. “I am not saying what the price of an egg should be,” she said, which is a defensible position for a politician to hold and a slightly strange one for a party asking voters to fund a $2.8 billion supermarket on the promise of cheaper eggs. The plan does include over $100 million to strengthen the Commission’s powers and a mandatory pricing accuracy code with automatic compensation for overcharges, which is real detail, applied to everything except the headline claim.

KiwiMart would need to be self-sustaining, not a non-profit, which means it will set its own prices too, presumably also without a politician anywhere near the till. The billboard writes itself. The number on it does not.