The chief executive of The Warehouse Group says the news that online retailer Supie was in receivership showed how hard it was to “change the market” in New Zealand.

The Warehouse has recently expanded its grocery offering in a number of stores as it attempts to dent the supermarket duopoly.

Nick Grayston said in a statement that The Warehouse would not “be quiet” about a “lack of fairness” in the supermarket sector.

“We welcome the Grocery Commissioner setting out his priorities, and we’re encouraged by his areas of focus. Our additional ask is that he moves quickly and takes action,” he said.

“New Zealanders are struggling with high grocery prices, they need more than a list of priorities – they need more competition and to bring grocery prices down.”

Grayston said it had now been a month since The Warehouse raised concerns about Sanitarium pulling supplies of Weet-Bix from its stores. While this decision had since been reversed, Sanitarium had also increased the cost price The Warehouse paid, said Grayson. “So things are moving all the time and we need help.”

Every Word Counts follows three passionate Scrabble players from around the country as they hone their skills ahead of the fiercely competitive national championships.

Full documentary out November 7 on The Spinoff

Following in the footsteps of Epic Brewing, which went into liquidation in July, and Brothers Beer, which was put into voluntary administration soon after, Deep Creek is the latest craft beer brand to fall.

Liquidators were appointed to Deep Creek Brewing Operations Ltd today, reports Michael Donaldson for the Pursuit of Hoppiness.

It comes just weeks after the brewery put in an unsuccessful bid to buy Epic, reports Donaldson, and joined forces with Christchurch brewery Cassels in a North Island sales and distribution partnership.

In a post on Facebook announcing the liquidation this morning, Deep Creek said the Covid-19 pandemic had been a difficult time for the company “due to market pressures in NZ and also in our key export market of China”. The China market rebounded strongly, but a recent can-seaming issue led to Deep Creek’s beer being recalled from the market, said the post. “The cash flow impact of this recall was significant and proved to be a step too large for our team to overcome. We are deeply saddened by this.”

Deep Creek’s beers are highly regarded, reflected in the brewery’s success at the Australian International Beer Awards, where it was named Champion Small International Brewery in 2017 and Champion Medium International Brewery in 2019 and 2022.

Deep Creek began as a brewpub in Brown’s Bay on Auckland’s North Shore in 2011. In 2019, it moved into a full production brewery in Silverdale and the business was split into Deep Creek Brewing Operations Ltd and Deep Creek IP Ltd, with Waiake Holdings Ltd, largely owned by  co-founder Jarred Maclachlan, the ultimate holding company. Only Deep Creek Brewing Operations Ltd is in liquidation.

Creative New Zealand has announced that chief executive Stephen Wainwright will be stepping down in mid-2024.

In a statement, Wainwright said: “It’s been an immense privilege to lead CNZ, supporting artists, arts organisations and the wider arts community to create and deliver beautiful, inspiring and thought-provoking work. After a long time at the helm, it’s now the right moment for me to move on. So many things have changed since I first joined CNZ, but the commitment of the arts community to its craft is a constant.”

Caren Rangi, the chair of the Arts Council, added that it was “difficult to put into words” the enormous contribution that Wainwright had made to CNZ, to the arts in New Zealand and to the arts community internationally. “His leadership and service, over many years and much of it behind the scenes, has steered CNZ through the hard times and through the good times too,” she said. Wainwright had been discussing this decision openly for “nearly two years”, she said, and had given a significant notice period.

The announcement comes less than a week after Wainwright announced that CNZ would be adapting to the “prospect” of less revenue to invest in arts, and on the day that the final Arts Grant round of 2023 closes, the first round with the controversial limits on applications being removed.

We’re just a few days out from knowing what the shape of the next government will look like, which means it’s the perfect time for some educated speculation. I really enjoyed this piece from Newsroom’s Jo Moir taking a look at who could be in line to pick up a ministerial warrant in the next government.

Moir’s guesses rely on the assumption New Zealand First will be required to prop up the next government. On that basis, she’s suggested Winston Peters could pick up deputy prime minister once again as it’s not been a priority role for Act and David Seymour. If Peters was to become deputy PM – and potentially foreign minister – then that could mean more policy wins for Act.

Seymour has always made it clear that he was willing to forego the baubles of office in order to progress more substantive gains in policy areas.

However, Moir posits that the Act leader could also become education minister, which would be a blow for National’s Erica Stanford.

Of course, all of this is very hypothetical at this stage and there will no doubt be a few surprisies when the next cabinet’s formally announced. But if you’re a political nerd waiting in limbo, there’s nothing better than reading reckons on what might come next.

For further reading, the Herald’s Audrey Young made some early predictions well ahead of the election. Some of this is now out of date (NZ First is not included, for example), but it remains a good read.

National’s deputy leader and likely finance minister in the next government says she was “gutted” to hear that online retailer Supie had gone into receivership.

Nicola Willis said she remained of the view that a third entrant into the market was needed to break up the supermarket duopoly.

“If I do become the minister of finance in the next few weeks I will want to seek advice on how do we ensure that we do get a third entrant into this sector, and it doesn’t have get the sort of failure that we saw here,” she told RNZ’s First Up.

Supie, which was established in 2021, was intended to provide a cheaper alternative to traditional supermarket chains. It was announced yesterday that the company had gone into voluntary receivership, leaving about $3 million unpaid to creditors and more than 100 employees out of work.

Repealing the Three Waters legislation (or the Affordable Water reforms as they were hastily renamed) is on National’s list for its first 100 days of government. As Newsroom Pro’s Jono Milne reports, the party has been canvassing for alternative models that can be enabled by new legislation to replace the laws the party will repeal. As Milne notes, it can not ignore some realities. The status quo is not sustainable, the cost of maintaining and investing in water infrastructure has become too high for many councils to bear on their own, and it must be “acceptable to the Act party and New Zealand First, and to as many councils and ratepayers as possible”.

Comments by National’s infrastructure spokesperson, Chris Bishop, suggest a council-controlled organisation model, where regional entities, co-owned by one or more councils, own water assets like the pipes and charge ratepayers for their use. Bishop cites the Wellington Water as an example of what he doesn’t want to see, a regional organisation, yes, but one where the six councils retained ownership of assets, debt and revenue. “I don’t care what it is called but I want the assets off the councils and into a new organisation, with the quality and price regulation in our model,” he told Newsroom. Milne outlines three possible models that fit within the principles National campaigned on. As to who might hold some of the relevant portfolios, Newsroom’s Jo Moir has a run down on where those ministerial chips might land.

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Outgoing prime minister Chris Hipkins says he’s in something of political “purgatory” as he waits for the National-led administration to be sworn in. Today could mark Hipkins’ final round of morning media as prime minister.

The final vote tally from this year’s election will be released on Friday afternoon. That will reveal the shape of the next government and, crucially, whether New Zealand First is needed to form a coalition.

Until then, the Labour government remains in caretaker mode. Hipkins told Newstalk ZB he’s been spending “quite a bit of time packing boxes”. He’s still in his office, but he’s ready to shift out when the new government has been sworn in.

“There’s still a bit of work to be done, still a little bit of governing to be done,” Hipkins said. “The transition period is frustrating, it’s a little bit like purgatory. I can’t really embrace the role of opposition, I can’t really embrace the role of government.”

Cabinet met yesterday and Hipkins said it still had to sign off various things that keep the wheels of government moving. The main issue on the agenda was the Israel-Gaza conflict and New Zealand’s response to it.

Hipkins said he was open to former prime ministers releasing a unified position on the conflict, akin to what’s been seen in Australia in the past 24 hours. “A lot of the things they are calling for [in Australia] are things that New Zealand has been calling for,” he said.

As for why the vote count takes so long to tally up, Hipkins said that was because the Electoral Commission basically went back and started again from scratch in order to remove duplicates and ensure all voters were on the electoral roll.

The Labour Party would be reviewing its election campaign to determine what went wrong, said Hipkins. “We’ll need to take some time to reflect, review, renew, refresh. There’s a lot that we’re proud of, but what are the things we would do differently next time?”