Treasurer Jim Chalmers has expressed his concern over the prices charged for groceries at Australian supermarkets and has vowed to review the grocery code and competition laws to ensure families and pensioners “get a fair go”.
Mr Chalmers spoke at a press conference in Queensland on Monday and said he will be speaking with Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb this week to discuss monitoring arrangements for supermarkets.
“We want to make sure that people who are doing it tough enough are getting a fair go in the aisles of our supermarkets right around Australia,” Mr Chalmers said.
“If the supermarkets are buying it cheaper they should be selling it cheaper too.”
The Treasurer insisted the government’s $23 billion cost-of-living plan was easing electricity bill prices, childcare costs and rental payments, taking “some of the edge off inflation”.
Meanwhile, supermarkets such as Coles and Woolworths have continued to rake in billions of dollars in profits sparking growing calls for an ACCC investigation, as well as a Senate inquiry to start in February.
Mr Chalmers’ expression of concern comes shortly after Nationals leader David Littleproud called out the “extraordinary” mark-ups on food imposed by the major supermarkets, suggesting the ACCC investigates allegations of price gouging.
In an interview with Nine’s Weekend Today on Sunday, Mr Littleproud highlighted the massive gap between the value of groceries being shipped from farms and the prices supermarkets have placed on them.
“We saw it with the beef prices where we saw a 60, 70 per cent reduction at the farmgate, but only an eight per cent reduction at the checkout and the same’s happening with fruit and vegetables, melon producers getting paid a $1.50 a kilogram, yet they’re charging over five dollars,” Mr Littleproud said.
The Treasurer said it monitoring of supermarket prices was a a “fairly regular topic of conversation”.
“We want to make sure that monitoring is right so people get a fair go… but when the price of meat and fruit and veggies goes down for the supermarkets to buy, it should go down for families and pensioners to buy as well,” he said.
Mr Littleproud said the ACCC was the right group to “look underneath the bonnet of this and to understand how the supermarkets are gouging this”.
Former ACCC head Allan Fels, who has also been leading an Australian Council of Trade Unions investigation into price gouging, agreed with the call, saying it was “about time” for the body to have another look into pricing practices.
(SKY NEWS)
