OPINION: Rodney Hide.
Everything government monopolises, it botches.
Roads: potholes and gridlock. Schools: a decade of the kids’ lives and too many still can’t read or write. Hospitals: you wait, and sometimes you die waiting. Welfare: we pay people — crooks included — not to work. The state’s core jobs are a mess. Always another review. Always another failure.
Now walk into a supermarket.
Clean. Stocked. Thousands of lines. Fresh fruit, veg, meat, milk — today, not next financial year. No ballot for bananas. No waiting list for bread. If the price is wrong or the service is rude, you leave. That’s why the shelves are full. Failure costs money.
So what does this election offer?
Politicians who can’t fix a pothole want to run the greengrocery.
National will “pursue” carving up Foodstuffs — Pak’nSave versus New World — after a Commerce Commission think-piece. Labour will police wholesale, ban “gouging,” and rewrite how shops buy stock. The Greens want KiwiMart: a state supermarket, because nothing says ripe avocados like the people who run the DHBs. NZ First wants a break-up too. Only ACT mostly says: stop strangling entry and let someone else try.
Mad. Chaotic. And revealing.
They aren’t promising better reading. Or shorter waits. Or roads that work. They’re promising to become greengrocer czars — commissioners, firewalls, forced separations, public competitors — aimed at the one place Kiwis can still buy what they need without a ticket.
Why? Because bullying a supermarket is easier than teaching a child. Easier than clearing a hospital waiting list. Easier than admitting the state’s failure is not a PR problem.
Yes, groceries can be dear. Yes, two big players deserve hard eyes on land covenants and supplier squeeze. The answer is more rivals and fewer barriers — not putting the Ministry of Everything in charge of the lettuce.
Next time you’re in the aisle, look around. The private shop works. The public monopoly still doesn’t. And the politicians who own the failure want a new job: telling you what a tomato should cost.
They should stick to the potholes. They’re not finished with those yet.
