00:00Well, this report is 300 pages almost, but it doesn't make any specific recommendations
00:08or findings yet as an interim inquiry.
00:12As you mentioned, it looks at pricing and has found, as you'd understand, that consumers
00:17believe that prices are too high.
00:20It also raises concerns from suppliers that they are being squeezed by the major supermarkets
00:27and it looks at the market share of the major supermarkets, including Coles and Woolworths.
00:34Here is the Deputy Chair of the ACCC speaking specifically about those two companies this
00:41morning.
00:42They have 67% market share of supermarket grocery sales and certainly the observation
00:49is that they behave in an oligopolistic fashion, in other words, not trying to compete too
00:55strongly and mirroring practices and that's not a good outcome if that's the case for
01:03consumers.
01:04So that will be a real focus of our inquiry going forward.
01:06Well, the major supermarkets have seen this report and as you'd expect, Cath, they have
01:12come out today saying that they believe that they are offering consumers competitive prices.
01:18We have Coles and Woolworths both saying that they support diverse, robust and competitive
01:23supermarket retail settings.
01:26We've also had some reaction to this interim report by the Consumer Watchdog by the former
01:31Chair of the ACCC, Graeme Samuel.
01:34He actually says that this is quite a disappointing interim report.
01:39He believes that the most interesting things to come out of it are around things like land
01:44banking, that is when companies buy up sites and essentially sit on them and stop other
01:51companies coming into their regions to compete with them.
01:55Here is Graeme Samuel just this morning speaking about the interim report put out this morning.
02:00I have to say I'm a bit disappointed.
02:03The ACCC has been conducting this inquiry since February this year and it actually doesn't
02:08tell us anything that a very superficial knowledge of the industry would have you knowing.
02:14Yes, we've got dominance of Coles and Woolworths.
02:16Well, nothing terribly revealing about that.
02:19They've got 60 odd percent of the market share.
02:23Aldi has grown in its presence.
02:25You've got Costco growing in its presence.
02:28They talk about Metcash and the IGA outlets as being really not very competitive.
02:34We said that back in 2008.
02:36Well, we know that the ACCC is only in the early stages of this inquiry and this is just
02:43an interim report.
02:44They say that they've requested five years of pricing information off the major supermarkets
02:51and they now have around 60,000 documents to sift over.
02:56They will also be calling the bosses of the supermarkets before their inquiry.
03:03That's expected for November before the final report is put out next year.
03:07It is worth noting that these bosses of supermarkets have already fronted many other inquiries
03:13that have been put forward in this year.
03:17We know that, for instance, we have the Emerson inquiry into the Grocery Code of Conduct and
03:23that this means that this grocery code is now set to become mandatory.
03:28We also know that this ACCC inquiry that's going on at the moment was prompted by the
03:33federal government as we have had so much rage against the supermarkets from consumers
03:39amid a cost of living crisis.
03:41Here is the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, speaking this morning about the ACCC's interim
03:46report.
03:48People in this electorate are out there looking for bargains, looking for specials, looking
03:53for value.
03:55It is a breach of trust for supermarkets to be behaving like this.
04:00And today we've released the ACCC interim report, again indicating that supermarkets
04:07need to do better and indicating the ACCC's concern at what they regard as a virtual oligopoly
04:15when it comes to supermarkets.
04:17We want to make sure that supermarkets deliver value and that consumers are looked after,
04:24which is why we are mandating the Code of Conduct, unlike the former government that
04:30had a voluntary code.
04:32It is worth noting that the ACCC has put out its interim report into supermarkets.
04:38In the same week that it's also lodged action against the two biggest players, Coles and
04:42Woolworths, it's alleging that the supermarkets have been inflating the prices of groceries
04:50to then discount them to give what they say and allege is the illusion of better deals
04:55to consumers.
04:57The ACCC says that its investigations into those practices was actually going on before
05:03it was asked by the federal government to step in and look at this separate interim
05:07report.
05:09As I mentioned, that interim report is just released this morning and we expect the final
05:13one to come out next year.
Comments