Pitched as a way to stop big companies using their market power to overcharge households for the basics, Labour's policy would create a new law against price gouging on essential goods and services.

📋 Labour: Banning Price Gouging, September 2026 →

What it does

• Makes it illegal for big companies with significant market power to charge excessive prices for essentials, or to pay unfairly low prices to growers and suppliers.
• Covers food and groceries, energy, fuel, telecommunications, banking and insurance. Labour says it would apply only where customers cannot realistically switch, suppliers have nowhere else to go or new competitors struggle to enter, and would not touch small businesses.
• Sets a legal test for when prices become unfair and excessive, such as prices well above what they would be in a competitive market, sustained over time, or well above what it costs the company to supply.
• Gives the Commerce Commission power to investigate dominant companies and take them to court, and lets consumer, grower and supplier groups bring complaints. Companies found to have gouged would face penalties and have to repay what they overcharged.

The debate

Labour leader Chris Hipkins announced the policy on 16 September 2026, saying a company big enough to dodge competition can currently charge excessive prices for basics such as food and fuel without breaking any law. Commerce and consumer affairs spokesperson Arena Williams said similar rules operate in the United Kingdom, Europe, Canada and Australia. ACT leader David Seymour criticised Labour's ban alongside other parties' supermarket policies, saying he did not accept that the market is uncompetitive and arguing such interventions would destroy the confidence to invest. National announced a different approach the same day, proposing to separate Pak'nSave from New World if a Commerce Commission review found shoppers would be better off.