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Tackle the high cost of almost everything in New Zealand
I am very concerned (embarrassed even) about the ludicrously high cost of almost everything in New Zealand, especially in light of our relatively low wages. This is severely limiting people's quality of life, and leaves virtually no discretionary spending ability for many. The perpetrators of this seem to consistently blame "distance & isolation" and "the small size of New Zealand's market", but to me this is codswallop. I believe it's because we are too small for an effective competitive market to operate and so we end up with a couple of dominant players who effectively control each sector. There are numerous sectors that need to be looked at, but groceries and building products would be good places to start as these have the most impact on peoples everyday budgets. I would really like to see some proper and gutsy investigation done so we can get some transparency across these sectors. Once we have this transparency we can decide as a country what we may be able to do about out it.
Do you like this suggestion?
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Lester Williams commented 2016-12-01 23:26:39 +1300I agree in principle. We all pay to much in proportion to what most people have to exist on.
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Lester Williams tagged this with essential 2016-12-01 23:26:38 +1300
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Jeanette Garnett commented 2016-11-28 21:49:31 +1300De regulation has failed hasn’t it? Some of the truly appalling examples I see are dentists/dental treatments and food wastage by supermarkets, supermarkets also operate to force people to buy more than they want, thereby driving spending up and adding more waste from the purchasers end.
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Jeanette Garnett tagged this with interesting 2016-11-28 21:49:30 +1300
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Bart Brichau tagged this with important 2016-11-25 14:36:57 +1300
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Philip Wilkinson commented 2016-11-25 14:25:00 +1300I have found over the years that the smaller the country the higher the costs… increasing the market size (population) might give you what you want BUT then be contrary to our nice small country image.
I do agree that ensuring our costs are on a level playing field is important i.e. currently I can buy ex China freight free but for me to sell the same products to the south island costs me freight… similarly I can import plastics made in factories with no emission controls BUT I cant make the same plastics here without those controls… this is our government giving my competitor an advantage because of our environmental policy. How about like for like rather than killing local manufacture. -
Philip Wilkinson tagged this with low priority 2016-11-25 14:24:59 +1300
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Nathan Rattray tagged this with interesting 2016-11-25 14:19:37 +1300
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Nathan Rattray tagged this with important 2016-11-25 14:19:37 +1300
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