The Week in Detail: Duopolies, polytechs and Niue

Every weekday, The Detail makes sense of the big news stories. 

This week, we looked at the supermarket duopoly, the problems plaguing Auckland’s CBD, the polytech mega-merger and the sector’s financial strife, Niue’s decision to open borders to tourists and bring Covid into the island nation, and the hoo-ha surrounding Film Commission boss David Strong’s conflict of interest. 

Whakarongo mai to any episodes you might have missed. 

Shopping for change: Busting the supermarket duopoly

Have you been stung at the checkout recently?  

Seven dollars for a cauliflower, four dollars for a capsicum, more than twenty dollars on a block of cheese – inflation has been hitting the supermarket trolley hard. Why? 

For two decades now, New Zealand's supermarket sector has been a duopoly, dominated by Foodstuffs (New World) and Woolworths (Countdown). 

Following a damning report by the Commerce Commission, the government has committed to monitoring industry behaviour and stimulating competition in the grocery market. 

CEO of Consumer NZ Jon Duffy tells The Detail how duopoly conditions enable higher prices. 

"When you own the entire supply chain it makes it a lot easier to control the prices that are charged through that supply chain, and that's what we end up wearing at the supermarket checkout,” he says. 

How to fix Auckland's ghost CBD

Downtown Auckland is suffering from vacant shopfronts and offices, rough sleepers, crime and construction noise. 

But it's too important to write off. This area of 4.3 square kilometres generates $23 billion, or 20 percent, of the city's economic output and 45,000 people live here.  

The Detail is on Queen Street with NZME journalist Simon Wilson, to find out what's wrong and how it should be fixed. One fix, he says, is the Town Hall and surrounding civic square. 

"Auckland has an opportunity there to have the European-style cafes spilling out to the piazza. We've actually got it, we built it, it's right there, we don't use it like that," says Wilson.   

Jeremy Hansen, communications and community manager for Britomart Group, explains how the CBD has shed some of its daily population with workers shifting to work-from-home models during the pandemic. 

The boom and bust of our polytechs

On January 1, the country's 16 polytechnics will be merged into a new entity, Te Pūkenga. 

It's meant to be a one stop shop for vocational education and on-the-job training – with skill shortages throughout the country, the government has pipped the polytech sector as an important lever in rebuilding from the pandemic. 

The merger is also meant to provide some financial security for the sector, which has been teetering on the edge of viability after years of instability and fluctuation. 

But how did we get here? RNZ's education correspondent John Gerritsen explains to The Detail the polytechnics’ unique situation. 

"They tend to do better when the economy's doing worse," Gerritsen says. 

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, there was a big jump in the number of people enrolling in tertiary education. 

"What happens is as they move out of that sort of cycle, as the economy improves, then suddenly their enrolments start going down and they've got to cut costs or they're going to start making deficits." 

Niue's cautious reopening to the world

Two years of preparation and planning were in place when Niue reopened for tourism. But having done all the hard work, the island nation would have been justified in hoping for a bit of luck, too, as the first flight from New Zealand touched down in late June.  

But Niue had no luck at all that day. Five people on the flight tested positive on day one, with one passenger hospitalised. Niue's premier, Dalton Tagelagi, was one of several close contacts who needed to isolate.  

Niue had done everything right. The system worked. But Covid-19 still got in. Was it inevitable? 

RNZ senior producer for podcasts and series Justin Gregory joins The Detail for this episode, speaking to Niuean-born public health expert Sir Collin Tukuitonga and chief executive of the Niuean Chamber of Commerce Catherine Etuata Papani about the risks associated with reinvigorating the nation’s tourism industry. 

"What happens if someone in accommodation contracts Covid? What happens if the business doesn't want them there? If business has to lock down, who provides support for them? Because the only income they have is from their business,” says Papani. 

Drama behind the scenes at Film Commission

Members of the screen industry are seething after finding out that the head of the Film Commission, David Strong, had received public money to develop his project The Pilgrim into a TV drama series, working with TVNZ and independent production company Great Southern Television. 

Strong has been on paid leave for several months while a conflict of interest review is under way. The board's role is under scrutiny, lawyers have been called in, and the leadership is in a vacuum. 

The Spinoff’s chief executive and publisher Duncan Greive, who broke the story in May, tells The Detail there’s a great deal of scrutiny over public funding decisions in New Zealand. 

"It's a small industry, heavy government participation, very relationship-based and the volatility between getting a project and not getting a project is enormous," says Greive. 

Sharon Brettkelly also speaks to Irene Gardiner, president of the screen producers’ guild SPADA, about the fallout from the conflict. 

"You can't have the head of one of your major funding agencies still swimming in the production waters,” she says. 

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