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Mar 8, 2022Liked by Nick Rockel

Damn I think you're right. We're going to keep getting screwed. My wife is convinced groceries in Sweden are cheaper than NZ despite their high taxes

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Mar 8, 2022Liked by Nick Rockel

So depressing Nick. Do you know exactly who were the authors of the report or how many people were involved. Way back a million years ago when I was young I recall that profiteering was a crime. What happened? (Btw, I love the font, makes for easy reading)

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So depressing Nick. Do you know exactly who were the authors of the report or how many people were involved. Way back a million years ago when I was young I recall that profiteering was a crime. What happened? (Btw, I love the font, makes for easy reading)

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Your comparison with Australia is unfortunate, as their stranglehold over their producers is even worse than here. According to this chart, NZ is not the 5th worst country but the 20th, behind Australia. We all know it's not great, but let's check our facts please. National 's "crisis!" rhetoric is becoming infectious.

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Cost-of-living/Prices-at-markets/Groceries-index

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From the Commerce Commission report "Out of OECD countries, New Zealand ranked 5th highest in terms of grocery prices, as well as 4th highest in terms of grocery expenditures in the OECD and ICP datasets respectively. We consider these datasets to be the most reliable datasets of grocery prices due to their use of official data sources. New Zealand therefore ranked within the top five most expensive grocery markets out of all 38 OECD countries in 2017."

https://comcom.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/278403/Market-Study-into-the-retail-grocery-sector-Final-report-8-March-2022.pdf

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Did this allow for different rates of GST? Australia's is 10% with no GST on fruits and vegetables. They make up the shortfall with all sorts of other taxes like stamp duty, diesel taxes etc. There are no offsets with benefits and minimum wages like we do here to balance the gap between have's and have not's. Taking the cost of groceries out of context is deceptive really. It has to be taken in the wider cost of living context as other indexes do.

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