Where's the grocery commissioner? Wasn’t he going to get cheaper groceries for all of us?

That was the idea. But he hasn’t.

So is Nicola Willis going to do it? My prediction, is she won’t.

Because, no matter how much we would all like to pay less at the supermarket, the two ideas she announced yesterday are duds.

And I’m picking that, if you did a grocery shop yesterday afternoon, the Government’s announcement-of-an-announcement yesterday morning did nothing to soften the blow when you went through the checkout.

So the Government wants to see a foreign operator coming here. Which is never going to happen. For the simple reason that foreign operators have bigger fish to fry elsewhere.

German supermarket company Aldi is often touted as a potential foreign outfit that could come here and create more competition.

It’s kind-of here already, because it's been registered with the New Zealand Companies Office since 2000. But it hasn’t bothered doing anything more - focusing on Australia, instead.

But, despite Aldi operating across the Tasman, Australians are still paying through the nose.

Just over a week ago, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission put-out a report saying that Coles, Woolworths and Aldi are among the most profitable supermarket chains in the world.

Prices there have risen sharply over the past five years. With the supermarkets increasing profit margins during that time, as well. Sound familiar?

And just like here, politicians in Australia are all promising to do something about it.

But, like here, it will be all talk and won’t amount to anything. And, in five years time, shoppers on both sides of the Tasman will still be paying through the nose and politicians will be floating go-nowhere ideas.

But if you forced me to pick one of the ideas Nicola Willis announced yesterday that I think could actually work, it would be this threat she made yesterday to force the two big companies to sell some of their supermarket brands, to create more competition and reduce their dominance.

If you forced me to choose one, I’d chose that one. But it's a terrible idea.

David Seymour doesn’t like it, either. Saying that, if the Government poked its nose in this way into Foodstuffs and Woolworths operations, it would put businesses off investing in New Zealand.

Which I agree with. I think it could. And it’s a weird thing for the Government to be proposing just two weeks after it had all the money people over here from around the world trying to get them to invest in New Zealand.

Looking at the rules the Commerce Commission uses to decide whether to allow things like mergers to go ahead, they're all about preventing situations like we have with supermarkets in New Zealand. Not enough competition - all that stuff. Which is fine when you’re deciding whether-or-not to allow a merger. But for the Government to try and do that retrospectively, which is what it would effectively be doing, would be a terrible thing.

It would be a terrible thing for the supermarket companies. It would also be a terrible thing for the Government’s sale pitch to the world. That New Zealand is open for business; that we want businesses to come here; and that we’re getting rid of some of the red tape to make it easier come here.

It would say 'we’re doing all that but, if you do come here, we might tell you what to do with your business if we think there are a few votes in it for us'.

But the ideas Nicola Willis announced yesterday won’t win votes. Because they won’t go anywhere.

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