Commerce Commission Right To Point Finger At Regulatory Taxes
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the Commerce Commission’s report on competition in the grocery sector, spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says:
“The recommendations to cut the regulatory taxes preventing more competition are exactly what the Taxpayers’ Union has been calling for. Both major supermarket companies have exploited provisions in the Resource Management Act to delay or block their competitors from building supermarkets.”
“It’s telling that the Commerce Commission, an agency generally focused on regulating more, has listed as its top recommendation the removal of land use planning rules that are used to block the development of new supermarkets.”
“Introducing new regulations,
including those proposed by the Commission, will create new
compliance costs and may come with unintended consequences.
We shouldn’t impose any new regulations until we’ve seen
the effects of rolling back the existing damaging rules
rightly highlighted by the
Commission.”