Clayton Mitchell New Zealand First MP

Successful Kiwi businesses provide us with a sense of cultural achievement. They undergird our society. And often, they lead the way for innovation in their fields. So, when we think of successful, responsible businesses, it is easy to agree that turning a profit is essential. Profiting from business is necessary and good.

However, I am concerned by the growing number of businesses replacing the term profit with profiteering.

Profiteering is what happens when businesses take advantage of people's needs, overcharge for services when they've created a monopoly or a duopoloy and outsource manufacturing to countries where they can exploit the most vulnerable.

I was aghast to hear that a young man in the United States recently purchased the patent for a drug widely used to treat HIV/AIDS and subsequently increased the price so significantly as to place it out of the financial reach of the common person. These types of behaviour are unethical and irresponsible.

Now, we could sit and discuss the difference between paternalism and free trade all day, but at the very core of this debate in New Zealand will always stand a very significant principle of our Kiwi culture. And that is simply this: What is the most important thing in the world? It is people. It is people.

Politics must concern the common welfare of the people.