The Bull Ring

Inquiry looks into dodgy pricing at NZ supermarkets, but are they too big to bring down? An inquiry into the supermarket duopoly is unpacking claims of dodgy pricing practices and poor treatment of suppliers who are too afraid to speak out. But some question whether it will make any difference to what we pay at the till. The Commerce Commission is investigating a range of issues from prices, to the extent of competition - similar to its probe into petrol pricing. "Ultimately we'll get an answer to the question of whether we're paying too much for our groceries," says Consumer NZ head Jon Duffy. Today, Duffy explains to The Detail why the investigation into an industry that notches up sales of $22 billion a year is sorely needed. "There's a whole lot of behaviour that we see in the supermarket sector that is indicative of markets where there's low competition. It’s not just that fruit and veges are really expensive, for example, it's also that the sup...

For diaper Don, 20 days of fantasy and failure With his denial of the outcome, despite a string of courtroom defeats, Trump endangered America's democracy, threatened to undermine national security and public health, and duped millions of his supporters into believing, perhaps permanently, that Biden was elected illegitimately. The facts were indisputable: President Donald Trump had lost. But Trump refused to see it that way. Sequestered in the White House and brooding out of public view after his election defeat, rageful and at times delirious in a torrent of private conversations, Trump was, in the telling of one close adviser, like "Mad King George, muttering, 'I won. I won. I won.' " However clear eyed that Trump's aides may have been about his loss to President-elect Joe Biden, many of them nonetheless indulged their boss and encouraged him to keep fighting with legal appeals. They were "happy to scratch his itch," this adviser said. "If...