Greens’ $2.8b KiwiMart plan sits inside $6.2b food package

Summarised by Centrist

The Green Party wants to compel Woolworths and Foodstuffs to sell 120 supermarkets and two distribution centres to the Crown, creating a publicly owned competitor called KiwiMart.

The party says Parliamentary Library costings put the purchase at $1.3 billion, with another $1.5b to capitalise the chain. 

KiwiMart would be expected to operate commercially while prioritising affordability. Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said governments had failed to attract a third major operator and called public ownership the “real solution”.

The less prominent figure is the cost of the Greens’ full food package. Herald calculations put it at about $6.22b over four years. Alongside KiwiMart, it includes $104m more for the Commerce Commission, a $600m Fair Food Fund, $72m for the Food Secure Network, $388m to double emergency food grants, and about $2.25b to restore the previous school-lunch model and extend it to another 150,000 children.

The gross $6.22b includes $2.8b of capital expenditure and does not subtract the value of the acquired assets, future KiwiMart revenue or funding redirected from elsewhere.

The Commerce Commission’s draft grocery-market report canvassed a government-backed entrant, but its final 2022 report did not recommend one.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said nationalisation was not Labour policy, while leaving “all options on the table” for increasing competition. National finance spokeswoman Nicola Willis said taxpayers would carry the risk if KiwiMart could not operate commercially.

Read more at  The NZ Herald

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