Ernie Newman, Director of Ernie Newman Consulting Ltd
Opinion | Ernie Newman, Director of Ernie Newman Consulting Ltd.
Sorry, Pierre van Heerden, the best mark I can give your 100-day plan and “Top 3 fix-it list” is two out of ten.
Seldom have we seen a public official with a more social license to act than yours. Hardly a cafe chat goes past without our appalling supermarket duopoly getting a mention. People want, need and expect you to get in there with mongrel-like determination and razor-sharp teeth to lead meaningful change.
The first two of your three “fix-its” are diversions. Misleading pricing and “undesirable behaviour” by influential suppliers are side issues. They’re important but common to many industries. Your teams in the Commission’s fair trading area have had the tools to deal with them for years.
So give the team a rocket and some performance metrics, and make them get on with the job they should have been doing all along. While these issues sit on your personal “fix-it” list, they will simply be diversions - allowing each trivial pocket of success to deflect attention from lack of progress toward your real purpose.
That will allow you to focus, laser-like, on your number one priority – which you have named as number three – “alternative players”.
But even here, you have defined the challenge wrongly. We are decades past the point where we could have removed barriers so that, by magic, alternative players appear. We have no shortage of supermarkets – arguably far too many per capita. The issue is not new entry but the concentration of existing ownership in too few hands - market failure.
We desperately need either total separation of the wholesale from retail functions as was done successfully with Telecom or a split of banner groups into separate entities that deliver real, rather than fake, competition.
That’s utterly mission-critical for you. That, and nothing else, will define your role. New Zealand can’t wait a decade. Kids are going hungry; the duopoly leaders are taking a huge bite out of their every meal before it reaches their plate. Your role alone stands between them and decent nutrition.
Supie’s failure was a great opportunity for you to make a statement. You missed it. You said you were “disappointed.”
Sorry, Pierre, disappointment is not good enough. You should have been freaking livid. Or gutted. At the very least, frustrated or angry. Here you are 100 days in, and one of the few fragile shoots of competition has been snuffed out in front of your eyes.
I suspect “disappointed” wasn’t your choice of word. It feels like one of the staple soothing terms served up daily by lazy government PR consultancy teams - part of their diet of emotionally neutral language to trot out for every occasion without risking pushback. Bypass these people, please, Pierre - speak from the heart.
You come across like a decent man. How do you want your term as New Zealand’s first Grocery Commissioner to be remembered? Will you disappear quietly into the anonymous depths of the public service and measure your progress by getting the font on the price tickets in the local Four Square a couple of points larger? Or will you be an activist in your role who makes a real difference to our country and people? The Commerce Commission has had activists before – think telecommunications.
The choice is yours. But sorry, right now, two out of ten is the best I can give. Ask me again after another hundred days. Good luck.
See my blog post here.
Ernie Newman is a Waikato consultant with a background in business advocacy, including both the telecommunications and grocery sectors. His new career memoir, “Thank God It’s Monday”, is available on Amazon as an e-book.
