Everyone in this country relies in some way on Coles and Woolies. It’s impossible to avoid their Down Down and Prices Dropped advertising campaigns.
The ACCC’s seismic action against Coles and Woolworths alleging industrial-scale price gouging of the nation’s consumers is the perfect intersection of politics, cost-of-living pressures and Australia’s poor excuse of a competitive supermarket industry.
But the social licence that has been extended to them could disappear if the ACCC can prove their actions have contributed to the inflation problem that has made the Reserve Bank lift interest rates and put the federal government under enormous political pressure. But the government can also claim credit. As ACCC boss Gina Cass-Gottlieb noted, she didn’t have the power or resources to track supermarket prices until given a directive by the government which Anthony Albanese revealed in January last year.The ACCC’s allegations are centred on price changes that occurred in the final three months of 2022. In Coles’ case, for instance, it allegedly lifted the price for a 16-pack of Strepsils throat lozenges from $5.
But if the ACCC’s argument is proved, it does undermine all the experts and economists who claimed there was no sign of price gouging causing inflation. The evidence, as mapped out by the competition watchdog, is sitting there in your kitchen cupboard.
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