Labor commits to outlaw supermarket price gouging if re-elected

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Federal Labor is promising to make supermarket price gouging illegal, if it wins next month's election. But Labor has indicated that changing those laws could take some time.

Transcript

00:00It's promising to set up a task force to investigate how it could go about making price gouging

00:08illegal.

00:09Price gouging is usually defined as kind of charging too much, excessive pricing beyond

00:15any sort of point of reason for goods that are often fairly well sought after.

00:19So supermarket goods, things like food, groceries, other items like that.

00:24Now, this all comes after a pretty substantial ACCC inquiry that reported back only in the

00:31past month or so.

00:32The competition regulator took a really good long look at the supermarket sector in Australia

00:37and found that actually couldn't conclude if that practice of price gouging was occurring.

00:43But Labor is now taking this step, it says it'll accept all the recommendations from

00:48that inquiry and take this further step of this action towards making price gouging illegal.

00:54So this task force that was set up would include both Treasury, the Department of Treasury

00:59here in Canberra, but also the ACCC, that competition regulator that conducted that

01:04inquiry.

01:05And it would be that regulator, the ACCC, would be given the powers to police this issue

01:10down the track under these new laws that Labor wants to set up.

01:14The Prime Minister says that both farmers and families deserve fair prices in their

01:19supermarkets and this is what it sees as the best step to take.

01:23Now, it's also worth noting the coalition has its own policy when it comes to supermarkets

01:28as well.

01:29It's promised to set up, to enact divestiture laws, laws to literally break up the supermarket

01:34sector if it finds that Australia's sector is too concentrated.

01:38It is, of course, dominated by two major players, Coles and Woolworths.

01:42That's essentially what the ACCC was looking at.

01:45The coalition says it needs these powers as a last resort to break up the sector if need

01:51be.

01:52And Tom, you're on the campaign trail with the Prime Minister and Anthony Albanese is

01:56starting the day back in Canberra today.

01:58Yeah, as you can see, Dan, the campaign trail hasn't gone terribly far today.

02:02We're back in Canberra today, but for very good reason.

02:06The Prime Minister is appearing on the Insiders program on the ABC in just a couple of hours'

02:12time.

02:13This is a significant moment.

02:14This is his first major televised interview of the election campaign.

02:18Probably not his last, but certainly his first.

02:21So certainly one to watch later on this morning.

02:23He will be back out on the trail later today.

02:25We're expecting him to be out spruiking this new supermarket policy and then back out on

02:30the road across the country later on this afternoon.

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