My main question with this is if there is anything truly different from our current rules, and if those differences are clearly enough defined to actually be enforecable and make a difference.
this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2026
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I think this policy of Labour's combined with the Greens policy of giving ComCom some teeth would be the best outcome of this whole cost of living debacle.
At this point I'm just hoping someone invents a star trek style replicator to make money irrelevant.
I for one welcome our new Latnim plated Ferengi overlords!
We used to have this as part of the Commerce Act: https://youtu.be/pONRoLttdaU?t=1635
EDIT: That entire episode is worth a listen if you have the time.
To be honest I find it a bit crazy to think that we have a tribunal setting the prices of things right up to the early 90s. I find it really hard to see how something like that could come about today!
Cool video, a life long NZ economist who grew up in the wake of the Great Depression from a generation earlier. Thanks for linking, that was an interesting watch! We should really bring back state owned power and other essentials.
Politically setting prices never works as intended and always has highly problematic side effects. The real solution is to create conditions where no company can sustain a market dominating position. But this is a) hard and b) not easy to understand for voters. So "we'll make things cheap by law" is what it is.
Its also hard for new zealand to have the market to sustain a competition in a bunch of markets. I like this policy because it is using government for what it is ment to do. Regulate.
Yes NZ is a small market. Yes your offshore money means you can be in a dominating position and quickly squash home growen competitors. No you cant be a dick about it, you can earn some of the monies, you dont need to have ALL of the monies.
My concern would be that artificially controlling prices could lead to perverse incentives elsewhere.
Ie. if. Company can’t charge just $0.05 extra for a carton of milk, across 100,000 units a day. They might be incentiveised to find that profit elsewhere. Ie, $0.50/hr less for their staff.
Nationally, everyone’s a mouse fart better off. Except for the 1000 supermarket employees who are now $4/day poorer.
But equally, if you look at the competitive markets overseas, everything is a race to the bottom. Who can provide the cheapest product with the shittiest service, by people on equally shit pay. but not shitty enough that you lose customers.
How do you codify “don’t be a cunt” into law?
Realistically, if they could pay their staff 50c less an hour they would already be doing it.
The article mentions that many other countries already have similar laws, so we aren't starting from nothing.
It does feel like something that would be easy to never enforce though.