Duncan Garner's new Gold Coast investment property. It cost significantly less per square metre than a similar home in New Zealand.

OPINION: Every time one of my Kiwi mates returns from overseas, I guarantee he'll be gobsmacked, verging on angry, at how expensive New Zealand has become.

Cheese, beer, butter, beer, milk, beer, nuts, chips: the price of the Kiwi staples seriously stings, leaving a nasty hole in the wallet.

So New Zealand is expensive, especially when you look at how low our annual wage growth is. It makes arriving at the checkout a nervous wait.

Nothing is proven, but it feels like we just ain't big enough to drive down prices, or push for better procurement.

READ MORE:

* Garner: Six months in a leaky boat

* Garner: Our states of emergency

Shane Jones, I think, got close to getting pricing and purchasing dirt on the supermarkets, but he got bored and took a taxi to the Koru Club. And it's not just food prices that have our eyes on stalks.

Think banking and petrol too.

I actually applaud Energy Minister Megan Woods for seeing through the crap on petrol prices and hauling international giant BP on to her Beehive naughty mat.

This is politics 101. And Woods played it damm well. Find a bad guy we love to hate, give them a limited chance to look good, and emerge even more furious than when you went in.

Woods wants transparency where clouds of corporate smoke and public confusion deliberately reign supreme.

Maybe she's naive to expect a result, but if nothing else at least she's provided a distraction from her own Government's petrol tax hikes.

In Woods' case, her resting angry face on this issue is genuine.

She was looking for a fresh excuse to nail BP and the company stupidly gave her the inside oil on pricing without realising it. Duh.

They then denied it was their practice. BP should quit while they're behind.

And remember, nothing they have done breaks any law. Maybe this is bullying, but who has sympathy for oil giants.

And not to let Woods be the only stick in the corporate mud, Phil "the builder" Twyford is promising to use any new powers of investigation to turn over the building supplies market.

This I support. And not before time.

Building products cost 30 per cent more here than in Australia. It is daylight robbery, and we allow ourselves to be plundered by the day.

The housing crisis starts with over-inflated prices for building products.

How do I know? I just built an investment property on the Gold Coast. She's brand new.

It cost me a $1000 deposit to get in, and $510,000 all up. Four bedrooms, media room, double garage, air conditioning units, landscaping, letter box, fences, a garage remote, everything, even tenants.

A nice 220-square-metre house at a realistic price. It cost me about $1000 a square metre to build; in New Zealand the same house costs $3000 a square metre.

Twyford and Woods; putting New Zealanders first.

Let's hope it's more than just cheap talk. Although cheap is what we're after, we'd prefer cheap to be useful, and not just gums flapping in the wind.