Māori seek seat on competition watchdog after supermarket study let-down

Tuesday, 29 March 2022

Commerce Commission chairwoman Anna Rawlings and commissioner John Small insist proposed supermarket industry reforms will make a difference, even though they are making no promises they will lead to a third entrant.

The National Māori Authority is seeking the right for Māori to nominate a commissioner to the Commerce Commission in the wake of disappointment over the watchdog’s supermarket industry study.

Chairman Matthew Tukaki said he intended to raise the matter of a Māori commissioner with Commerce Minister David Clark at a meeting on Thursday.

“The Crown and Māori organisations should work together on an appointment process,” Tukaki said.

“That comes down to the spirit of the treaty-based partnership between Māori and the Crown.”

* Supermarket report 'disappointing', Matt Tukaki blasts Commerce Commission

* $430 million a year in excess profits but no supermarket split

The appeal for a Māori seat at the competition watchdog’s table comes amid queries over whether the commission has done enough to fix competition problems it identified in the fuel and groceries markets.

National Māori Authority chairman Matthew Tukaki says the Commerce Commission lacks a Māori lens.

The commission completed its final report into the $22 billion groceries industry earlier this month.

The commission rejected calls for a major structural reform of the industry while recommending a mandatory code of conduct that is expected to strengthen the hands of food suppliers in their commercial dealings with Countdown and Foodstuffs.

Tukaki said he did not believe the market study had ended debate over competition in the supermarket industry.

“I think everybody, including in government whether they say it or not, acknowledges that the report is deeply flawed,” he said.

The commission’s $3 million groceries study found food prices were the fifth-highest in the OECD, based on its preferred calculation method.

But the commission made no promises that the reforms it proposed for the industry would be sufficient to attract a major new competitor into the market.

Tukaki said the commission had left consultations with Māori interests over its groceries study “to the very end”.

“There was no real thinking about, or understanding of, the depth of the involvement of Māori in the primary economy,” he said.

“There is more than a business case for a Māori commissioner to be appointed – particularly to bring what has been absent from the commission so far, which is that Te Aro Māori lens.”

The commission has 10 commissioners, including chairwoman Anna Rawlings who is due to step down in May.

Rawlings has not responded to a request for an interview on public perceptions of the commission in the wake of its groceries study.

The Government cross-appointed two members of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to the Commerce Commission in late February, reviving a collaboration first established in 2010.

But Clark has knocked back a request from Tukaki that it ask the ACCC to conduct a “peer review” of its supermarket industry study.

“The Commerce Commission’s investigation was thorough, engaging experts throughout the process. There is no intention to peer review this study,” Clark said.

However, Clark said other market studies by the commission could be peer-reviewed by the ACCC in future.

Tukaki said he was encouraged by a statement from Clark that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment was “testing the Commerce Commission’s supermarket industry recommendations with key stakeholders”.

“What this says to me, is that by no means is this ‘over’,” he said.