But he’s only half-right. Australian retailer Woolworths owns the Countdown chain of supermarkets in NZ. Countdown is locked in fierce competition with the NZ-owned Pak n Save chain. The other Australian player, Coles, doesn’t operate here. And there’s nothing preventing Countdown offering milk at $1/L as does its parent company. Joyce acknowledges cheap milk has hurt dairy farmers for years, a problem now made more harmful by depressed export prices.
As Australia's competition watchdog gears up to investigate that country’s dairy crisis, Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce has pointed out that New Zealand doesn’t have $1/L milk marketing ploys despite having the same retailers.
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