A new supermarket chain opening in New Zealand should be allowed to use fast-track consenting for new stores, making it easier and cheaper for them to set up shop here, Act leader David Seymour thinks.
“Nothing would send a clearer signal that New Zealand is serious than a bespoke legislative welcome mat ... giving permission for, say, Walmart to set up a whole chain in one go,” he said.
Seymour reckoned that after five years, the existing chains should be able to fast-track new stores in order to increase competition. He also thinks some of Labour’s supermarket reforms from the last term should be scrapped if they were not working.
Speaking at the Act Party’s annual “Free & Equal” rally in Auckland on Sunday morning, Seymour spoke about the cost of living and the inability of New Zealand governments to attract a third major supermarket chain to New Zealand.
He said that a fast-track law should allow any new supermarket applicant “building at least 10 stores or equivalent floor area to use the fast-track”.
“For five years, it would be limited to new entrants or smaller players, giving them a headstart before the major incumbents become eligible.
“A new entrant or smaller grocer could get approval for a full rollout of stores and warehouses within months, not years. For comparison, it took Costco three years and $100 million just to open one store in New Zealand.
“Projects should not be blocked, scaled back or burdened with conditions just because they’re outside existing retail centres or might compete with dominant supermarket chains.”
The idea is Act Party policy at the moment and is not policy for the wider coalition Government.
Seymour said new entrants should also get a liquor licence “automatically”.
“Alcohol policy is a nightmare for anyone trying to open a new store, but very little alcohol harm comes from supermarkets,” he said.
Seymour also took aim at reforms passed under the last Labour Government. These reforms grew out of a market study into competition in the grocery sector by the Commerce Commission.
The reforms were supported by National, while Act’s MPs spoke against the bill at its third reading. A party vote was not called and therefore Act’s votes in opposition to the bill were not recorded. Act’s opposition was recorded at the first and second readings, however.
Seymour said Labour “bet the farm on grocery industry reform” in that bill.
“Labour are constantly going on about the cost of living and how terrible food prices are under the coalition Government. But if their reforms worked, wouldn’t they be taking credit?
“If policies add cost, instead of saving us money, and not even their architects will defend them, they should go.”
This opened the door to getting rid of positions such as the grocery commissioner’s.
Seymour also used the speech to talk up Act’s local government ambitions. For the first time, Act will run candidates at local body elections this year.
Seymour also mounted a defence of residential landlords, saying they had been scapegoated as the villains of the housing crisis.
He noted that under Labour, rents went up, but by some measures, rents were beginning to fall under the coalition. TradeMe rental data published last week showed rents falling nationally.
Seymour said Labour contributed to the rental price crisis by scapegoating landlords, hitting them with higher taxes, in particular, the banning of the deduction of interest costs from their tax bills.
“They decided that landlords were to blame, and I suspect there’s a few reasons for that.
“Number one, politics. There are three million voters and only 120,000 are landlords so there’s 23 other voters per landlord ... Two, they have an asset. Many are very cash-poor, but they look like someone who can pay.
“Three, they’re the people collecting the rent. They’re collecting it to meet a bunch of other costs, but it’s easiest to connect them with the price rises.”
Seymour noted that since the Government began phasing in the deduction of interest costs from landlords’ tax bills, rents had begun to fall.
He also said the reforms to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants greater rights had made tenants and landlords “almost co-owners in property”.
“None of these policies worked,” Seymour said.
“They failed to recognise that landlords and tenants faced the same basic problem: the high cost of housing in New Zealand. Both parties really needed ways to reduce their costs, but zero-sum politics distracted everyone from that.”
Trade Me’s analysis of why rents are falling has focused more on the fact that there are many more properties available for rent, rather than landlords’ costs falling.
Trade Me said a year-on-year comparison showed rental listings to be up by 41% in March 2025, with inventory at the highest it’s been since early 2014.
This has been put down to many factors: falling house prices have seen people put properties up for rent instead of selling them, while planning reforms, begun under Labour and not significantly altered by the coalition, have led to more supply being built. This has happened at a time when low net migration has reduced demand for new housing.
The coalition has copped immense political heat for reinstating interest deductions, despite all the government departments consulted on the plan agreeing the change would – eventually – lead to lower rents than otherwise would be the case.
However, there was disagreement over how long this would take. The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) was the most bullish, saying that continuing with Labour’s taxes would make “rental housing an unattractive proposition for many investors”.
“Over time, this is likely to reduce the supply of housing and rental housing (relative to what would be the case if interest expense was deductible).
“This would place upward pressure on rents, which would increase housing costs for tenants and decrease the equity with the tax treatment of other investments that are taxed on a net basis,” IRD officials warned.
While Labour had allowed new builds to be temporarily exempt from the policy, the IRD deemed the lack of consistency over all rental properties would have reduced investment into rental property, increasing rents.
Treasury and the Ministry for Housing and Urban Development were more circumspect, agreeing that restoring interest deductions would lead to lower rents, but over a much longer timeframe.
Treasury reckoned the change would “not significantly impact rents in the short run” and the Ministry for Housing and Urban Development reckoned the impact of the change would be “negligible” in the short term, but would reduce rents in the long term.