Although Labour leader and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won't call the current cost of living a "crisis", Labour MP Tamati Coffey described the situation in Aotearoa as an "inequity crisis".
Checkpoint has had a flood of feedback on the cost of petrol and other everyday essentials like groceries and rent.
So we decided to call a few MPs of all stripes to see if they reckon it is a crisis and ask what their ideas are to make it better.
How would you describe the cost of living in New Zealand? Is it a crisis?
Labour list MP Tāmati Coffey: "I noticed when I went to last fill up my petrol tank and last went supermarket shopping, yeah, I'd say that we were in really, really tough times. I wouldn't say it's happened overnight. This has been a crisis [for a while] - I'd also say it's a bit of an inequity crisis that's going on as well between those that have and those that don't.
"It's a pretty serious thing."
ACT list MP Karen Chhour: "Our working class are getting poorer and struggling. The ones that were surviving are now not surviving. You know when you're looking at the added pressure of $4000 to $5000 a year, and the extra costs just on basics like food, rent and gas, it's not looking good.
"I really think at the moment people are seeing it as a crisis when they're having to choose between feeding their children or putting petrol in the car. I think that shows we're at crisis point."
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: "Poverty and hardship has become worse as the cost of living through Covid has become higher. So I know some people are debating if there's a crisis and for a lot of our community, there was a crisis pre-Covid and it has only gotten tougher."
Green Party list MP Ricardo Menéndez March: "I mean the cost of living in New Zealand is far too high and it's a result of an inequality crisis that has been brewing for some years now."
MPs asked about prices of everyday items
Asked about the price for a litre of 91 petrol, Chhour said it was "near the $3 mark at the moment, depending on where you are".
But she wasn't sure too sure about the price of broccoli, because it had been a while since she bought some herself.
Asked for an estimate price on a pound of butter and a kilogram of a homebrand cheese, Coffey said it cost about $5.50 and $14 respectively.
"I went down to the supermarket recently and I was quite shocked," he said of the cheese price.
Asked what the inflation was for the past year and how much more people were pay due to that inflation, he said those figures were not at the top of his head.
On the minimum wage, he said he was a small business employer himself and was "tethered" to the living wage.
"I've been on the living wage for quite some. So it is, $21.75 if I remember rightly." (The living wage is $22.75)
Ngarewa-Packer said she believed the price for a pound of butter to be about $5.
But on broccoli, she said: "I don't know anybody who buys broccoli, it's too expensive, just like cauliflower so I mean, we tend to probably use our community gardens around here when we can. There hasn't been broccoli for a while, but tomatoes at the moment are $3 a bag down at the Patea Gardens."
Menéndez March estimated the cost of a kilogram of a homebrand cheese block to be about $12 and $3.50 for broccoli.
What would you do to make the situation better?
Ngarewa-Packer said: "What I'd really like to do is to see what the Welfare Advisory Group recommended in 2019 and that we were able to increase the low incomes and benefits to a livable rate to be able to at least bring those who are at the worst up."
Chhour said: "The main thing we would do is provide tax relief. Cutting the 30 percent tax rate down to 17.5. That will give the average worker an extra $2000 in their pocket, and they can decide what they want to do with it."
Menéndez March said: "Rent controls need to be on the agenda. Rents continue to be part of one of the biggest costs of living for people. But as well one of the things that we have explored, particularly in response to the ComCom report on the supermarket industry, is to explore setting up more stringent measures such as a state-owned competitor."
Coffey: "I know that was a Labour Party policy quite a few elections ago, but actually taking the GST off fruit and vegetables is something that's been raised with me locally amongst my local Labour members, so it's something that I wouldn't mind seeing us have another go at.
"I'll have a talk to more than just the leader [about it], to quite a few people actually that I engage with."
Checkpoint also called National Party MP Maureen Pugh, but she didn't want to speak to Checkpoint and referred the programme to the National Party press team.
*Checkpoint looked online at the cheapest plain homebrands that were available to purchase via online delivery.
