The Greens will introduce a bill to parliament that would create powers to force Coles and Woolworths to sell parts of their business if they were found to be misusing their market dominance — an idea also backed by the Nationals.
The Greens will introduce legislation that would create powers to force Coles and Woolworths to sell parts of their business.The Greens will introduce a bill to parliament that would grant powers to break up Coles and Woolworths if they were found to be misusing their market dominance.
But the prime minister has ruled out one of those responses being "divestiture" powers like those that exist in the United States and United Kingdom, which could force Coles and Woolworths to sell off parts of their business if they were found to be behaving anti-competitively. The bill would give the courts the option to order a divestment where a company is found to be misusing their market power to inflate prices, exploit their supply chains or keep out competition.
Mr Littleproud said the Nationals had urged the government to introduce divestiture powers since the end of 2022, and would continue to push for the powers to be created. "Particularly around the grocery code of conduct and existing horticultural code of conducts and dairy codes of conduct." "Those laws have worked extremely well in the US; for example, the break up of the AT&T telephone monopoly in the '80s has led to all those huge changes and improvements in the telephone over many years," Mr Fels said.The ACCC's current chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, told a Senate committee last year that she believed the concentration of power in the supermarket sector made it easier for there to be higher mark-ups in prices.
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