Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

As the member for Kennedy has said, the ACCC found that Coles and Woolworths are dominant. We can argue about whether it is 70 per cent, 80 per cent or 50 per cent; at the end of the day we all agree that they are dominant in Australia. But what we have to do is say this: if there were to be a forced divestiture of Coles and Woolworths, if the ACCC were to recommend to the government that they be broken up and the government were to legislate accordingly, you would need very clear evidence that that was in the best interests of the Australian people. You would need very clear and researched evidence that the Australian consumer would be better off by the breaking down of Coles and Woolworths, by the breaking down of those economies of scale—and that evidence simply is not there. When you look at the margins of Coles and Woolworths, they are no greater than—

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