Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Despite the interjections, I will try really hard to draw attention to those additional pieces of work that he believes need to be done. One was the implementation of creeping acquisition law. I want to talk about that one specifically. Creeping acquisition is the practice whereby one large company buys up its smaller competitors one at a time, thereby surreptitiously, if you like, taking them over. For example, rather than buying a chain of fruit and vegetable stores all at once, it may buy ‘Fred’s Fruit and Vegetables’ one month, ‘Tom’s Fruit and Vegetables’ the next, and so on. It can also be used to lock out competition by buying out a store or a potential site in a particular area at an inflated price, if they are big enough—and they are big enough—in order to stop a competitor from buying out the site.

This brings me to a local issue which I have been involved in and know about and which was the subject of ACCC work during the grocery inquiry process. Just over the border from me, in Queanbeyan—where Woolworths owned a number of supermarkets—a small, insignificant store came up for sale. I think I am correct in saying that the owners of that store made it known to Woolworths that it was going to come onto the market and Woolworths said, ‘No, thank you; we’re not interested.’ So an independent who operates here and in New South Wales said to the owner of that store, ‘I’d like to buy it.’ That would have given them an opportunity to bring in a full-line supermarket in direct competition to Woolworths in a local community. As soon as Woolworths heard about that, they said, ‘Hang on; maybe we’d like it after all.’ The ACCC looked into this and they brought out a press release in June of this year saying that they were in fact going to oppose the proposed acquisition of that supermarket in Queanbeyan by Woolworths. They said:

“The ACCC concluded that the acquisition by Woolworths would be likely to substantially lessen competition in the local retail supermarket market surrounding the store,” ACCC Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said today.

“The ACCC had strong evidence to suggest that in the absence of the acquisition by Woolworths, the supermarket would instead be acquired by an independent operator … which has intentions to expand the supermarket to operate as a full-line supermarket in strong competition with Woolworths and other supermarket operators.  The ACCC found that—

the independent—

supermarkets offer a different proposition to existing operators in the local market …

And so on.

I applaud that decision by the ACCC. It is the sort of work that we should be seeing. While I know that that is not a direct recommendation within the report of the ACCC, when you read the report you will realise very quickly that, whilst also recommending three or more direct actions to government, the ACCC has a very strong interest in looking at other issues—including one of the most important, from my perspective, and that is the creeping acquisition law. It took me a little time to understand what it really meant. It means, as I have outlined, that a big company like Woolworths—Coles could do it as well, but Woolworths seem very good at it—can go in and pick the opposition off one at a time, but they can also try and do what they tried to do in Queanbeyan, and that is to find a site that is up for sale and buy it only because they know that someone else wants it, that someone else is not Coles and they want to come in in competition. So, when we are criticising the ACCC and the process, I think we need to slow down and have a very careful look at what the ACCC actually have in their target sight. I am going to applaud them every time I know that they are trying to stop this type of behaviour.

I can also talk about a small greengrocer in my electorate. A few short years ago, but in the life of the previous government, he had a greengrocer shop in a small local group centre which he operated across the corridor from Woolworths—how dare he! Woolworths used to send their staff out a few times a day to note down the prices this bloke was selling his goods for and Woolworths would then mark their goods down below his prices. It drove him out of business. A TV current affairs program put that story to air but it did not save him. He was put out of business. I am very pleased that there is now concentrated interest in this area. This little bloke is now back in the same shop—though twice the size—knowing that he can get protection from that sort of behaviour, that Woolworths cannot do that to him again and get away with it. A lot of us now shop there and he has a very strong customer base. If you look at that Woolworths store, very rarely will you see people walking out with lettuces and celery; they buy those things from him. They feel very strongly about the fact that the little bloke is having a go. He is not even a supermarket; he is just a greengrocer.

In conclusion, can I say I appreciate very much the passion displayed by the member for Kennedy and I appreciate very much the argument he has put on behalf of the primary producer. I understand that argument; we all do. However, in this discussion and in this argument, it is really important that we do not lose perspective in what this government actually want the ACCC to do. We should stand with them and support them and give them all the power they need to carry out the sort of work that I know we all believe they should be able to do.

See this speech in context