Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission this week launched its latest assault on—guess what? Australian airports is their next target. The ACCC said it is 'stepping up pressure to smash the monopolistic powers of the country's leading airports'. My reaction to this statement? A bloodcurdling scream that had my staff half scared to death. Last week it was time to talk tax; this week, airports. But why do we refuse to address, let alone discuss, the toxic duopoly that is choking our grocery market?

Woolworth and Coles between them now account for more than 80 per cent of grocery sales. Australia has the most concentrated grocery market in the world. The ACCC's terrible track record as a regulator aside, are airports really the most pressing competition problem Australia is facing? In 2007 the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs released its report A decent quality of life. The committee investigated the impact cost-of-living pressures are having on older Australians. Its findings should make us all question why the government refuses to act on this issue.

The committee was inundated with research from various interest groups. However, most telling was data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showing that fresh foods such as vegetables, fruit and meat have seen significantly higher rates of price increase compared with either the consumer price index or food in general. The ABS data also saw analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers, with findings showing that the rate of price increase in food as a whole, and in fresh food in particular, can be traced to an increasing concentration of the retail grocery market in the vertical integration of fresh food supplies. Buried in the PwC report was one of the most insidious findings you will find in a report of this nature:

… it appears that food price inflation has potentially boosted supermarket and grocery store turnover as a proportion of total retail turnover.

There are also suggestions that the measured level of food price inflation may underestimate the true rise in the cost of grocery goods.

That is, the MGRs maybe running "loss leaders", or providing lower prices, on high-volume food staples included in the CPI food basket, thereby hiding the rise in prices of other grocery goods which are growing at a greater rate.

Even if the ACCC can find some justification to ignore the 80 per cent market concentration of Coles and Woolworths, how does it explain away the deliberate manipulation of the CPI index and obvious price collusion by these two multinationals? Further, how exactly does the ACCC conclude that a supposed airport monopoly is having a wider impact on all Australians compared with that of the grocery market?

Recently we have seen 'Occupy Wall Street' protests highlight the control America's financial sector has over the nation's leaders, its economy and the average worker. In this case I would not begrudge GetUp! or the like picketing Rod Sims and the ACCC in an attempt to get them to move on the grocery monopoly as swiftly as they are moving on airports. The ACCC must take action to dismantle the largest grocery duopoly in the world.

The coalition must be willing to take this fight to the government, or into government. If we are to be the party who believes in a free market and small business, we must enforce this central tenet of our charter. With an issue that affects so many Australians, we cannot afford to be gun-shy. The coalition should be prepared to draft policy breaking up Coles and Woolworths if the ACCC refuses to act on these clear breaches of competition and consumer law. The ACCC, under governments of both persuasions, has not stopped the slide into hyperconcentration. If that is because of deficiencies in legislation or deficiencies in regulatory activity, the matter must be considered by federal and state governments. The ability of every Australian to live comfortably is at stake and must be addressed before another fringe issue gets right of way. (Time expired)