Supermarket competition lessons from the last time NZ broke up a monopoly

Finance Minister Nicola Willis wants to break the grocery duopoly and former communications minister David Cunliffe likes it. (Image: NZME)

Dileepa Fonseka

Mon, 31 Mar 2025

When Finance and Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis gave a speech in February promoting the Government's eagerness to disrupt the supermarket duopoly and other oligopolies, the man who broke up Telecom’s monopoly was in the audience.“Competition between grocery retailers is muted, profits are high, product ranges are limited and shoppers pay higher prices than people in many other countries,” Willis told her audience at the University of Waikato's 2025 New Zealand Economics Forum.“In this environment it is al...

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