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Story: Prices and inflation

Maximum Retail Price (MRP) scheme

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Maximum Retail Price (MRP) scheme

In 1974 Minister of Trade and Industry Warren Freer attempted to restrict price rises by introducing a scheme which prescribed maximum prices for retail goods. It was not a success since it encouraged evasion and was highly bureaucratic. However the following year Freer proposed reviving the scheme, which the cartoonist Bromhead obviously regarded as a ‘dead horse’.

Courtesy of Peter Bromhead

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Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: A-314-1-011

by Peter Bromhead

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Adolf Stroombergen, Prices and inflation – Controlling inflation, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/cartoon/23088/maximum-retail-price-mrp-scheme (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Adolf Stroombergen, published 15 February 2010.