Scenario Lab
Model a policy intervention and see its cost and effect before it reaches the Minister.
Interventions
One measure is modelled at a time. Selecting a measure expands its parameters.
- Lines covered · 14 of 14
Duty-rate weight of the selection: 100% of the watchlist.
Duration
Modelled effects — Duty suspension on essential staples
Recomputed live against the active climate (steady, mid intensity, phase 3). Nothing here is stored until it is submitted.
Fiscal cost
$18.4M full-period cost · 2.6% of FY-to-date customs & excise collections ($712M).
Forgone import duty across all 14 watchlist lines for 90 days. The lines carry 100% of watchlist duty by rate.
CPI effect
Food-basket inflation −2.1 pts (from 4.2% to 2.1%), headline inflation −0.3 pts — not immediately, but 5–7 weeks after the measure takes effect.
Relief does not land immediately. A duty change reaches the shelf 5–7 weeks after it takes effect, so the modelled paths stay together for the first month and separate from week 5.
Reserves and import cover
Import cover moves from 6.1 mo to 5.9 mo.
Forgone duty is paid out of the same external position that funds imports, so cover falls slightly even as prices ease.
Distributional note
Households in the lowest income quintile spend roughly a third of income on the watchlist basket, against a national average near one fifth. 31% of the modelled relief reaches that quintile — the most progressive of the seven measures here, because the basket itself is progressive.
Pass-through risk
3 of the 14 lines have historically been retained by importers rather than passed to consumers — rice (78% importer concentration), cooking oil (66%) and infant formula (84%). Modelled CPI relief assumes full pass-through on the other 11 lines.
Recommended condition: require these importers to file weekly shelf-price attestations for the duration of the suspension, with Consumer Affairs authorised to spot-check and refer non-pass-through cases to the Comptroller.
Scenario Lab · deterministic policy model v1 Tue 4 Aug 2026 · 06:00 Applied to the active climate, intensity and timeline point. Duty weighting from the 14-line watchlist duty schedule; pass-through lag and retention history from Consumer Affairs price files.
Take it up the chain
The model recommends. A human approves. The audit trail records both.
- Measure
- Duty suspension on essential staples
- Amount
- $18.4M
- Priority
- P1
- Destination
- Minister's queue
Nothing has been submitted yet. Every figure above travels with the request, so the queue carries the evidence and not just the ask. Pass-through lag stated as 5–7 weeks, consistent with Prices & Cost of Living.