Speaker 1: Already and this this is the daily This is the
Speaker 1: Daily ours.
Speaker 2: Oh now it makes sense.
Speaker 3: Good morning and welcome to the Daily Os. It's Wednesday,
Speaker 3: the thirteenth of March. I'm Zara, i'm emma. The cost
Speaker 3: of living crisis has shone a light on Ozzie's supermarket giants,
Speaker 3: Coals and Woolies. The major supermarkets will face a year
Speaker 3: long inquiry by the Competition watchdog. You've got big corporations
Speaker 3: like Coals and Woolies making record profits, ripping off and
Speaker 3: consumers in the middle of a cost of living crisis.
Speaker 3: The retailers are facing mounting accusations of unfair prices and
Speaker 3: anti competitive practices, all.
Speaker 4: Against a backdrop of record profits.
Speaker 2: These concerns have escalated into multiple formal investigations, some of which,
Speaker 2: if I'm being honest, have been pretty hard to keep
Speaker 2: track of lately. So in today deep dive, we're going
Speaker 2: to take you through exactly what the supermarkets have been
Speaker 2: accused of, what these inquiries are trying to achieve, and
Speaker 2: we'll discuss if any of it is actually going to
Speaker 2: lead to cheaper groceries. That's coming up in the deep dive.
Speaker 2: But first, Zara, what's making headlines.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump has said he will release any riders serving
Speaker 3: a prison sentence for the jan six, twenty one attack
Speaker 3: on the US Capitol if he wins the presidential election.
Speaker 3: More than one thy three hundred people have been charged
Speaker 3: since the riots in Washington that led to the deaths
Speaker 3: of at least seven people. The attack started as a
Speaker 3: pro Trump rally after current President Joe Biden's election victory,
Speaker 3: but quickly turned violent. In a post on Trump's platform,
Speaker 3: Truth Social the former US president said if he wins
Speaker 3: the November election, one of his first acts in office
Speaker 3: would be to quote free the January sixth hostages being
Speaker 3: wrongfully imprisoned.
Speaker 2: Over a million homes not connected to the NBN will
Speaker 2: have the price of their super fast broadband capped. It
Speaker 2: comes after the competition consumer watchdog the A Triple C
Speaker 2: announced it'll step in to ensure retailers don't unfairly charge customers.
Speaker 2: The A Triple C said will introduce maximum wholesale prices
Speaker 2: for retailers to ensure their plans are fair for customers
Speaker 2: and businesses who don't have NBN access, and to encourage
Speaker 2: competition between retail internet providers.
Speaker 3: The twenty twenty six Commonwealth Games may have found a
Speaker 3: host country, with the Games's federation offering Malaysia a cash
Speaker 3: incentive to put on the event. Former Victorian Premier Daniel
Speaker 3: Andrews announced the state would not go ahead with plans
Speaker 3: to host the Games, citing budget concerns. The Commonwealth Games
Speaker 3: Federation has now made a formal offer to the Olympic
Speaker 3: Council of Malaysia worth nearly two hundred million Australian dollars.
Speaker 3: That money would go to planning and hosting the competition
Speaker 3: last hosted the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpa in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety eight.
Speaker 2: And today's good news, Scientists have discovered a way to
Speaker 2: treat infertility after successfully showing a skin cell can be
Speaker 2: used to create an egg capable of being fertilized, what
Speaker 2: will they think of next? Using the skin cell of
Speaker 2: a mouse, researchers from Oregon Health and Science University in
Speaker 2: the US discovered its chromosomes could be engineered to create
Speaker 2: an egg, which could then be fertilized with sperm. Senior
Speaker 2: researchers said the goal is to scale up the process
Speaker 2: to assist humans with fertility. Coals and Woolworths have dominated
Speaker 2: news headlines in recent months. I can't remember a time
Speaker 2: in my life when I had ever heard so much
Speaker 2: said about coals and Woolies.
Speaker 3: I will say, though, I feel like it's more Woolies
Speaker 3: than coals. Yeah, I know that's not the point of
Speaker 3: this podcast, but I do think I'm hearing woolies a
Speaker 3: lot more than coals, but both of them have the
Speaker 3: same accusations leveled against it.
Speaker 2: I wonder if that has something to do with the
Speaker 2: trust that Australians had in Wullies. A survey came out
Speaker 2: last week that found that Woolworth's had dropped from being
Speaker 2: the most trusted brand in Australia to the second least
Speaker 2: lost up to Bunning's. That is interesting, I think, something
Speaker 2: for us to interrogate another time. But right now there
Speaker 2: are multiple inquiries underway examining the supermarket giants to learn
Speaker 2: more about how they set prices, how they pay their suppliers,
Speaker 2: and what that all means for their profits and the
Speaker 2: big question if they're taking advantage of customers.
Speaker 3: And so I guess the reason that there's so much
Speaker 3: interest in coals and Woolies has a lot to do
Speaker 3: with their power, and without going too much into how
Speaker 3: competition laws work in Australia. Both Coals and Woollies control
Speaker 3: roughly two thirds of Australia's supermarket sector. Each company reported
Speaker 3: profits of more than a billion dollars in the last
Speaker 3: financial year, so those profits were probably grad headlines no
Speaker 3: matter what the contexts them. But why has the scale
Speaker 3: of supermarket earnings rubbed so many people the wrong way?
Speaker 4: Recently?
Speaker 2: Plenty has been discussed on this podcast on the Daily
Speaker 2: Ohs over the last two years about inflation. And that's
Speaker 2: really what this kind of curiosity or concern or anger
Speaker 2: against the supermarket giants has stemmed from. So rising prices.
Speaker 2: And I know we probably sound like broken records, but
Speaker 2: there really is no getting around it. You know, everything
Speaker 2: has become more expensive in recent years, but in particular
Speaker 2: the rising cost of food and household goods. That's something
Speaker 2: that most Australians will have been impacted by, something that
Speaker 2: most Australians can relate to. And that's why close attention
Speaker 2: has been paid to the practices at Coals and Mollies.
Speaker 3: I mean I have started to drive between the Coals
Speaker 3: and the Woolies to see which one will be cheaper
Speaker 3: in terms of well I mean it's just that sometimes
Speaker 3: even just between the two, there is a huge disparity,
Speaker 3: and it's because the price of everything has just gone
Speaker 3: up so much that so much is unaffordable for a
Speaker 3: weekly shop. And I have to acknowledge my own privilege
Speaker 3: that for so many they're being priced out almost entirely
Speaker 3: from buying.
Speaker 4: From those two supermarkets.
Speaker 3: And can you just remind me of what the actual
Speaker 3: figures of inflation are, like how much has everything gone up?
Speaker 2: So according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the price
Speaker 2: of food and non alcoholic beverages, so the goods that
Speaker 2: we buy from supermarkets had risen by four point five
Speaker 2: percent in December twenty twenty three compared to the same
Speaker 2: time in twenty twenty two. So inflation rising prices are
Speaker 2: a reminder. When we say that prices rose four point
Speaker 2: five percent in December, that means that in the twelve
Speaker 2: months to that point, that's how much more expensive food
Speaker 2: and beverage became. Supermarkets have also been accused of adding
Speaker 2: to inflation by setting their prices high than necessary, and it's.
Speaker 3: Those higher prices that are the focus of the Senate inquiry, right.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, so you will have probably heard the term price
Speaker 2: gouging thrown around a lot in the media, in headlines
Speaker 2: and in discussions about coals and bullies lately. So price
Speaker 2: gouging is when companies unreasonably increase the cost of their products.
Speaker 2: And what does unreasonable mean in this sense, Well, we've
Speaker 2: seen the A Triple C investigate or step in a
Speaker 2: few times before to monitor this concern around this thing
Speaker 2: called price gouging. So, for example, remember when there were
Speaker 2: no rats, covid rats, not to be confused for the rodents,
Speaker 2: many of them plentiful. When we couldn't get any covid rats,
Speaker 2: there were some places selling them for seventy bucks a pop,
Speaker 2: and the A Triple C the Consumer Watchdog investigated in
Speaker 2: that instance, and there were rules in place saying that
Speaker 2: those retailers couldn't do that.
Speaker 4: But it's not illegal to increase your price.
Speaker 3: So there's a difference between increasing your prices and price gouging.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's not illegal to increase your prices, but
Speaker 2: it is illegal to make false or misleading claims about
Speaker 2: why prices are that high.
Speaker 4: Okay, So talk me through that.
Speaker 2: So a price gouging inquiry was launched last year by
Speaker 2: the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and it said that
Speaker 2: thirty percent of submissions that it received, so it asked
Speaker 2: for members of the public to tell it what they
Speaker 2: were concerned about when it came to cost of living.
Speaker 2: Supermarkets were flagged as their main concern.
Speaker 4: Of thirty percent of submissions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So that then tells the a Triple C
Speaker 2: or governments or bodies that there is a community concern
Speaker 2: about prices being set in supermarkets, and then that kind
Speaker 2: of urges those authorities to look into whether or not
Speaker 2: these prices are increasing in line with inflation or as
Speaker 2: a fair and competitive business decision, or whether or not
Speaker 2: it's taking advantage of customers, and if there is transparency
Speaker 2: around that for customers.
Speaker 3: You and I both do some slots on breakfast TV
Speaker 3: every so often on the weekend. I think that we
Speaker 3: have both spoken about supermarket inquiries maybe fifteen times.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that's because there are so many inquiries currently
Speaker 3: going on. Yeah, can you take me through them all?
Speaker 2: It's meaningful. I think that you and I, we work
Speaker 2: in the news, we've spoken about these inquiries a lot,
Speaker 2: and even going into looking into today's episode, I was like, wait,
Speaker 2: which one. How many? There are so many so it
Speaker 2: is confusing. But let's start with the federal Senate inquiry
Speaker 2: into coals and Woolies, so that one is now underway.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: The Greens were the party that led the call for
Speaker 2: the Senate inquiry, and essentially they had accused Coles and
Speaker 2: Willworths of setting these really really high prices to drive
Speaker 2: up profits. And that inquiry, led by federal senators is
Speaker 2: examining a range of factors like the between rising profits
Speaker 2: by supermarkets and the growing costs of essentials, and whether
Speaker 2: supermarkets are falsely advertising discounts for products.
Speaker 4: What do you mean falsely advertising discounts?
Speaker 2: So if you think about when you go to the supermarket,
Speaker 2: and particularly in this cost of a thin crisis myself,
Speaker 2: maybe others might be really drawn to those big yellow tickets,
Speaker 2: those items that say reduced savings, things that appear to
Speaker 2: the consumer to be a bargain, a deal, particularly cheap.
Speaker 2: So the inquiry is looking into whether or not those
Speaker 2: products that are being pushed as discounted really are discounted,
Speaker 2: whether there are savings there for customers.
Speaker 3: Are the old two for six one three exactly, or
Speaker 3: whether customers are kind of being duped into spending their
Speaker 3: money on those items specifically. Okay, so that's what the
Speaker 3: Senate inquiry is looking at. And you said it was
Speaker 3: already underway, So what have we learned so far about it?
Speaker 2: So that inquiry has already held a couple of hearings,
Speaker 2: and farmers and growers have shared their experience with these hearings.
Speaker 2: So I think the perspective of farmers and growers suppliers
Speaker 2: is maybe missing or has been missing in this conversation.
Speaker 2: You know, we know about the relationship between the big
Speaker 2: retailers and the consumers, but that.
Speaker 4: Is often the focus exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the goods that are stocked on the shelves
Speaker 2: of these supermarkets come from somewhere, and that's from people
Speaker 2: like farmers. So the National Farmers Federation called these submissions
Speaker 2: to the inquiry horror stories about wholesale prices a quick
Speaker 2: refresher on the supply chain. Farmers and growers grow the
Speaker 2: produce that we eat and drink. So the apples and bananas,
Speaker 2: the cows for dairy milk, the oats for oat milk,
Speaker 2: if that's what you're into, close for my bon sooy.
Speaker 2: They're called primary producers because that's the first step in
Speaker 2: the process. And primary produce users sell their produce to supermarkets.
Speaker 2: They sell them for wholesale prices for large quantities in
Speaker 2: single transactions. So say you know, a couple of trucks
Speaker 2: worth of peaches, which Zara would run far from. Farmers
Speaker 2: and growers have told this Center inquiry in recent weeks
Speaker 2: that the wholesale price of fruit and vegetables hasn't increased
Speaker 2: in fifteen years, despite in store prices increasing.
Speaker 4: Wait, so I just want to stop you there.
Speaker 3: So they're saying the price that they are selling to yeah,
Speaker 3: the price that they are selling to the supermarkets at
Speaker 3: hasn't increased in fifteen years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but we as.
Speaker 3: Consumers have experienced an astronomical rise in the price of
Speaker 3: buying those goods exactly.
Speaker 2: And these anecdotes, and you know worth mentioning this is
Speaker 2: a group of primary producers who we have heard from.
Speaker 2: It doesn't necessarily mean that these trends are across the board,
Speaker 2: but from what we've heard in the inquiry so far,
Speaker 2: that really speaks to concern that had been raised by
Speaker 2: politicians in the lead up to the inquiry that supermarkets
Speaker 2: are selling produce for a higher profit margin, but that
Speaker 2: farmers are not benefiting from those increased prices. So there's
Speaker 2: still quite a way to go with that inquiry. Some
Speaker 2: more hearing scheduled, but it will hand down its final
Speaker 2: report on the seventh of May.
Speaker 4: Okay. So that's just one of the inquiries. What are
Speaker 4: the other ones?
Speaker 2: There are actually two inquiries that I'd consider the most important.
Speaker 2: So if you remember anything from today's episode, I think
Speaker 2: it should be that this Senate inquiry is marching ahead,
Speaker 2: and another one which is being led by the Australian
Speaker 2: Competition and Consumer Commission AKABA Triple C after calls from
Speaker 2: National's leader David little Proud late last year you need
Speaker 2: a tough cop on the beat that goes in and
Speaker 2: make sure that the consumer and the farmer and the
Speaker 2: processor are being protected from big supermarkets. That one is
Speaker 2: not government led. This is an inquiry independently run by
Speaker 2: the a Triple C. It's looking into how supermarkets set
Speaker 2: their prices.
Speaker 1: The a Triple C has significant powers to look at
Speaker 1: how things like online shopping, loyalty programs and changes in
Speaker 1: technology are impacting competition in the industry, and to examine
Speaker 1: the difference between the price paid at the farm Gate
Speaker 1: and the prices that people are paying at the checkout.
Speaker 2: So we heard from Anthony Albanezi earlier in the year.
Speaker 1: Today I also announced that the government will fund consumer
Speaker 1: organization Choice because across thousands of products and can be
Speaker 1: hard for people to find the best deal.
Speaker 2: And one of its goals is to establish a sort
Speaker 2: of standardized price list for consumers of what they should
Speaker 2: expect to pay for staple grocery items versus what Colson,
Speaker 2: Woolies or your local grocer is charging for those items.
Speaker 2: Interesting those findings, however, by the a Triple C are
Speaker 2: not due until about this time next year.
Speaker 3: And I mean that's one of the many criticisms, which
Speaker 3: is that inquiries are great, except they take an exceptionally
Speaker 3: long time and we might be out of a cost
Speaker 3: of living crisis by then, who knows. And you know,
Speaker 3: the pain is being felt right now for consumers and
Speaker 3: seemingly for farmers as well, So definitely one of the
Speaker 3: criticisms there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in this sort of supermarket duopoly, as it's
Speaker 2: been coined, there is concern that the timeline on these inquiries,
Speaker 2: you know, is not going to motivate Coles and Woolworth's
Speaker 2: to do more to make things fairer or easier for consumers.
Speaker 3: Okay, so there are a couple of federal inquiries. There's
Speaker 3: also a state one. I believe at the.
Speaker 2: Moment Queensland is investigating on its own with a parliamentary committee.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot going on there. How have Colson
Speaker 3: Woolies responded?
Speaker 2: So Coles and Woolworths have been pretty firm on rejecting
Speaker 2: suggestions of price gouging this entire time in admission to
Speaker 2: the Senate inquiry. So that first government led one that
Speaker 2: we discussed. Coles we heard from firsthand in that context
Speaker 2: saying that it understands the cost of living strains Australians
Speaker 2: are under and that it tries to quote deliver value
Speaker 2: to customers and is committed to helping lower the cost
Speaker 2: of living. That's the kind of retrick that we've heard
Speaker 2: time and time again with the supermarkets. Ultimately, they deny
Speaker 2: price gouging. They say customer value is important at the
Speaker 2: same time as meeting their increased costs supply chain costs.
Speaker 2: Woolworths have given a similar statement. They've said the company
Speaker 2: is acutely aware of the pressure inflation is placing on customers,
Speaker 2: and it added that it takes steps to provide affordable
Speaker 2: grocery products for all Australians.
Speaker 3: We did, of course see that the head of Woolworths
Speaker 3: announced he will be stepping down, denying that it was
Speaker 3: anything to do with any of what's going on here.
Speaker 3: But again, just this increased pressure on the supermarkets, lot
Speaker 3: of eyes on them, a lot of people demanding answers.
Speaker 3: It's going to be really really interesting to see what
Speaker 3: happens and whether that makes any kind of difference material
Speaker 3: difference at least to the way the calls and will
Speaker 3: lose operate.
Speaker 2: Each inquiry is going to hand down a final report,
Speaker 2: a review they will start coming in from, you know,
Speaker 2: may right up until next February next year. And whether
Speaker 2: or not individually those reports would mean a lot versus
Speaker 2: the kind of momentum of having.
Speaker 4: Them in bold public pressure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think maybe that elevated scrutiny could lead to
Speaker 2: some change, but these things are going to take time.
Speaker 2: Will certainly stay on the recommendations. The fallout of what
Speaker 2: happens here, the question of whether or not grocery prices
Speaker 2: will move, you know, we really can't answer that yet,
Speaker 2: which I know is disappointing people.
Speaker 3: Someone listen to this whole podcast to get to that
Speaker 3: answer in the final dying minutes of it now answer is,
Speaker 3: we don't know.
Speaker 2: I think that if anything, my prediction is we will
Speaker 2: see some tighter regulations, substricter reforms that will come in
Speaker 2: and ultimately they will be targeted towards making the industry
Speaker 2: fairer for all players involved, whether that's wholesaler's, retailers or
Speaker 2: you know, us, the little guys.
Speaker 3: We will have to wait and see if Emma's predictions
Speaker 3: they're ring true. But thanks so much for joining us
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Speaker 4: Have a great day. My name is Lily Maddon and
Speaker 4: I'm a proud Dunda Bungelung Cargoton woman from Gadigol Country.
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