Competition - National has Lost its Way

19 June 2026

Read any public opinion survey and you’ll be left in no doubt that “cost of living” is among the very top concerns of today’s Kiwis – in many surveys it heads the list.

And there’s evidence aplenty that the industries at the forefront – electricity, groceries and finance – are united by a common failure – that of competition doing its job in constraining prices. That means small businesses that would normally stimulate and refresh the market cannot grow because their distribution channels are closed off, or because incumbents use their unconstrained dominance to block new challengers from entry.

In the past, generations of politicians embraced competition. Competition’s as essential to capitalism as baking powder to a batch of scones. It ensures that big businesses are always under challenge from newer, smaller innovators.

But the National of today has clearly abandoned that principle. It is clearly very contented to see big incumbent businesses make mega-profits, while small and medium enterprises die off and consumers pay the price. That’s transformed our economy into a lazy oligopoly controlled by the very rich – including our increasingly wealthy political class.

It will be very, very hard to recover from that. Today we have government of the people, by the wealthy and sorted, for the wealthy and sorted.

Consider this. On 30 March a year ago Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced in a fiery statement that she had commissioned specialist external advice on ways to improve supermarket competition, including demergers and structural separation. A flurry of expectation-raising press statements followed.

Outcome? Absolutely nothing.

Then this week I received from my local MP, Minister Louise Upston, an invitation to complete a survey. The first question involved ticking boxes to indicate the three issues that are most important to me. There were 11 to choose from. But the cost of living, and proper competition, were not even on the list. Nothing resembling these.

How out of line with well-publiised public sentiment is that?

The National Party once enjoyed a proud history of looking out for all Kiwis. Its one sentence “core values” statement commits it to “economic prosperity and equal opportunity.” Over the years I’ve voted in support many times. It had ethics (remember that quaint old term) and principles around social justice.

Theres no way standing by while competition is snuffed out – while the drawbridges are smashed so new entrants have no means to get aboard – can be construed as “equal opportunity.” That’s a deliberate move to perpetuate a lazy oligarchy comprising top-level businesses so that super-profits can be generated by the most well-off – our “Political Class” included.

No doubt many traditional National supporters will continue to vote the same way out of habit. That’s their right. But count me out – National of today is nothing like the party of earlier generations.

This year’s general election will be the most important for many years.