It's not just the big supermarkets. It's the service stations. And the food manufacturers (not the farmers or growers). It's the chain stores such as Bunnings, Specsavers, and everything in between.

Woolworths chief executive, Brad Banducci, is being threatened with being held in contempt for refusing to answer a direct and reasonable question from Nick McKim. Banducci should be made an example of and hung out to dry, the Senate inquiry really needs to show the public that this is not just a stunt but a genuine attempt to reign in the supermarkets.

This is the only common sense logical discussion I've heard on the topic so far. Every Australian can sense the dwindling options available in the economy. Unfortunately both parties have been bought off by big business lobbyists.

I am so grateful to The Australia Institute and the Senate for taking on this problem in Australia. Financially, my husband and I are barely keeping our heads above water, and we have two small children to provide for.

The problem is they have a duopoly and no morals.

I'm actually a bit surprised that Australian competition law doesn't already contain divestiture powers. That seems like a major part of the toolkit is missing.

As someone who is a supplier to both majors, please REMOVE REBATES. The rebate system is essentially a hidden tax and gouge by major supermarkets with rates charged at their discretion and creates an unfair balance in competition. One supplier may have a 2% rebate and the next may have a 5% rebate within the same category. This in turn doesn’t allow the free hand of the market to operate and skews supplier efficiency. Aldi do not charge a rebate to their suppliers whilst Coles, WW and Metcash do. Make rebates imposed by companies above a certain turnover illegal. It will immediately increase competition.

A DUOPOLY for Supermarkets and a DUOPOLY for Government is the issue with Australia!

Basic economics that used to be accepted as fact, duopolies and monopolies are bad for the consumer, and the suppliers. Why have we forgotten this fact that we have known for centuries?

Really appreciate you sharing this! It's great to see it first hand and not just 'bits' from the news.

Better prices for farmers….I don;t mind paying more if it goes to farmers but I do object to paying more to go to the coffers of the supermarket chains.

Albo and Chalmers need to listen!!!

Get the Power Companies and Fossil Fuel Monopolies into a Public Hearing. The greedy side of big Business.

When did government stop serving the people? Good legislation is government responsibility... Good for the people that is! Has the meaning of 'democracy' changed... Or, the very reason it came to bare in our world.

Coles and woolies are both listed on the ASX. Both are run for profit to benefit shareholders and the more profits = higher shareholder returns which in turn gives the CEO greater renumerations. Why would they care about their customers when they have these profit goals to reach. I call it a huge conflict of interest, A company can not achieve both results. Profits over customers is what we are stuck with. It needs to change.

At 34:35, Louise completely has missed what was going to be a great point by the Australia Institute about ABS tracking industry competition fluctuations more closely in order to direct better policy. Railroaded him and starts talking about her data, anf 10 dollars she gets back. she missed the point completely and interrupted.

Vanguard and Blackrock are two of the largest shareholders of Woolworths. Woolworths is not an Australian company.

the problem is government allowed 2 companies to take over the entire market, so no competition left.

The supermarkets have continued to creep price higher as well as using shrinkflation

shareholders profits that's bottom line, they couldn't give a shit about their customers.

Nice discussions

Next a review into land banking and the corporations on stock exchange like Stockland and Mirvac that drip feed their land creating demand and increases prices. These corporations own currently over $20 billion in residential land holding release back. It’s a ponzi scheme that caused the current housing crisis. Now they expect government to use taxpayers money to provide homes while they have made astronomical profits. Other first world countries have laws that prevent land banking by heavily taxing land owners for property that has not been built on after 2 years of purchase.

This is soo frustrating. I really really hope this doesnt just go away

haha the size and population being harder to make a profit! eat that coles CEO. Nice throw in there

Brilliant

The big 2 Supermarkets bullied the major 2 bread suppliers into paying less than it costs an item to be produced. Example, 1 loaf of homebrand bread costs 16 cents to make, the Supermarkets come in and said theyd only pay 14 cents a loaf, otherwise we'll take our business elsewhere. Thats why we saw a rise in the brand name breads like Helgas for instance. Not long after this, there were massive lay offs at these bread baking plants, quantity went out the window and that showed in the final product. Farmers aren't the only ones veing screwed by corporate fat cats and shareholders

It’s in their name “super market “

When did these companies get confused and think they should be growing like a start-up? They are supposed to provide stable dividends. Not be volatile.

Cooperative food chain like in Europe would work very well in Australia. The farmers themselves can actually be part of the cooperative. More food markets especially in suburbs will be good.

How good would Australia be if instead of helping America pay for their Proxy wars around the world The government looked after their Own People

the government should create a metadata file similar to medicare/health services that is the property of the account holder with a huge checklist of retailers with rewards programs to select which ones they want and then set a price on metadata that is comparable to the international price and a checklist of the advertising sites that can buy the data and which ones you are okay with selling to. then the government also makes the social media websites operate using this system and they can also list themselves as an advertising site but have to pay you for your metadata. if they did that, then the Australian government will have not only done a world first but also ensured the digital safety of Australians.

Coming from the industry I know the extra profit margins the big 2 ask for, though what we do need to be careful about when talking competition is that companies like ALDI are not Australian owned. I suggest you would find that most Australian's have Coles & Woolies shares in their superannuation portfolio, so whilst they operate with high profit margins at least a large % of the money stays in Australia. We need to find a balance that supports pricing and profit margins but keeps the money in Australia, especially with so much of the money already going overseas where so many of the products and components on sale are manufactured.

When you have the mainstream media making huge profits from advertising by these giants,Coles, Woolworths and Bunnings, it is no surprise we don't hear more about price gouging. The problem is also convenience. Break up these 3 and we will see staples like meat, dairy, bread and fruit and veg, go back to individual stores. Like we had before the advent of the 'mart' concept. Yes prices will go down. And I bet quality will most likely go up. But us as consumers will sacrifice convenience of a one stop shop.

so why is this not a royal commission rather than a faction based attack on private enterprise? I have not found food cost to be significant in my cost of living compared to Rates, taxes, Health and Insurance. We should not discount the simple fact that shoppers go where it is easiest to get groceries locally . Just like housing there is a massive difference between supply and demand of available land. In Brisbane there are some suburbs where available small and large shopping precincts are sparse and others like Capalaba or the newer subdivisions where there is plenty of commercial land available so competition is much higher and prices are lower..

Thanks team 🎉 ❤

Coles is cracking down even more on suppliers now. It's driving me nuts. THEY are the ones that have played apart in this, not the suppliers.

Profiteering the scourge of this century !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What about price remaining neutral for smaller quantities or packaging

Another waste of taxpayers money nothing ever happens in the end eg: robo debt

I wonder when we can have the RayWhite, Meriton, and other feudals over here

Where do these inquiries lead to? We’re all well aware of past inquiries into a variety of establishments and organisations with little or no tangible results. So although we are all aware of the current situation in the increasing costs of grocery stores, what can hopefully come from this? I admit that it’s good to see select committees taking notice, what will be most interesting is the flow on efforts of this particular group. Greed is not a term used by business when talking up their profits and returns to investors. But like the Wall Street saga of 2008-09 where investment bankers by and large escaped with very little consequence is it likely that the duopoly of the big two supermarket chains will not be held accountable.

Ask Telstra,Optus,Banks,health funds,fuel stations,even buying a land from builder have gine up 100%.

$50 a kilo for scotch fillet, what a joke, the farmers are getting screwed and so are we. There'll be no small farmers left soon

Coles & Woolies CEO's say you can shop at Aldi but Aldi sell very little Australian products personally I DON'T want to eat Chinese veg which has been grown in sewerage although Coles brand stuff can be just that although it says canned in New Zealand

Woolworths bakery cheesecakes contain palm oil aswell..

Allow people to freely sell products on the streets. That's what keeps big supermarkets in check in Asia.

This is what happened when you keep increasing the minimum wages! it doesn't make people better because the big guy would just increase the price on the back end and people have no where to go. But it makes small businesses harder to enter that would create much less competition! This leads to less innovation, fewer job opportunities, and ultimately hurts the economy as a whole. the big corporation love higher minimum wages and more regulation! The more there are, the harder the barrier to entry.

3% net profit margin for Coles and Woolworths. $3 every $100 in profit. I think that is very reasonable. 80% of profits in Coles' case goes back to shareholders, of which many Mums and Dads are direct shareholders, and many millions people will hold in their super funds. Both great companies - employ over 200 thousand people between them. Pay plenty of taxes. How about we do an enquiry into the ~$12b black economy rather than wishing our successful business make less money.

Competitive free markets might help curb abuse of environment and wildlife also, when it comes to exploitation of natural resources. We would have more power to boycott certain businesses who ignore ethics and conscience, and a sense of responsibility. I’m surprised we don’t have a watchdog on abusive business practise in that area

Although perhaps outside the scope of this inquiry, does it deal with the gobbling up of small liquor retailers and/or the ownership by supermarkets of liqour franchises like BWS, Dan Murphy's, Liquorland etc etc and the virtual elimination of suburban butchers. Shouldn't there be parameters placed around the kinds of goods which supermarkets can sell? Finally, while I on a rant, is there actually any alternative competitor to Bunnings?

This could easily be fixed by having a similar structure to personal tax, applied to company tax. Either by total profit or by creating a system based off market share.

Looks like Corporatisation (like in the US) are here to stay. Like to see what we can really do.

Why is there still no result from any of this ?

Partial SOLUTION! Shop at (fresh produce/farmer's) markets. They are everywhere, even in major cities. - Cheaper fruit and veggies - Fresher produce - Directly from farmers OR - supporting people working outside of the big supermarket system. - Be served by human beings, not 'team members' or 'employees'. - Cash friendly - No cameras, tracking, or information collecting. - Great atmosphere.

Palm Oil is also present in their, “Go Natural,” health food snack products.?!?!?

when businesses forget their customers also work in government lol

Just here to boost the algorithm ❤

Meanwhile Woolworths have no problem using palm oil in their bakery section. Coles cheesecakes don’t even bother to use recyclable plastic. They’re obviously not making enough profit when they resort to these measures. Conscience and ethics aside.This is business…law of the jungle.They need to survive somehow….😮

Following the Supermarkets and Mr Emerson's Logic then all Stores should be Government owned or monopolised by a Non - Profit organisation that has all it's records open to the public giving us the absolute cheapest prices.

What happened to CEO of Qantas did he get away with it

A record number of businesses are going into bankruptcy, and everyone keeps for competition means lower prices, this is not always the case. You would think that food growers would be raking it in, but sadly many are becoming unviable. The world relied on cheap energy and consumer imports, along with wage suppression to keep inflation down. things are produced based on a unit of energy and raw materials, human labour is a unit of energy, along with the cost of land or rent to house everything and the people. Energy costs, rental or land costs, and insurance costs are sending manufacturing and retail to the edge of viability. With the war in Ukraine, fertilizer costs are rising, and people want to ban gas, we need gas to produce the nitrogen that farmers need. Food insecurity is going to be a major world problem without fertilizer. The central bank wants to reduce demand and suppress inflation, the government wants to supercharge immigration to inflate overall GDP and ramp up infrastructure projects, which increases inflation. Forcing the population to switch to electric cars and tax those who dont will increase inflation. Carbon tax on farmers and cow fart tax will increase inflation. The rapid increase in interest rates actually pushed up inflation initially, some central Banks around the world have jacked up interest rates to double digits and still, inflation is up to 80%. Devaluation of currencies and increase in energy cost will do that, not overspending by poor people. We need cheaper land to build, cheaper energy costs, reduced immigration and allow Australia to catch its breath.

Suppliers should also bare some responsibility. Who would give up 30% or more of their supply to one channel?

If they won't give you the data, survey the vertical market for cost, from growers/manufacturers suppliers, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and buyers. Make educated assumptions and put it in their face. The problem is the actual foot print of each store is MASSIVE, physically excluding other players..... And with each center they have 1, 2 and more massive shops. Maybe there should be a limit to each store so that each store is more, say "energy" efficient. Allowing for more smaller competitive stores/brands to entre each centre. In the Sydney triangle from Newtown to Blakehurst to Punchbowl, there are 16 massive Wooloworths stores, of which Hurstville and Marrickville has 2 and 3 massive stores, respectively, in one suburb. Of these 16 stores 13 of these massive stores are in local community centres with no hope of any competition entering, because Woolworths has smothered each of these centres/areas. This does not include Coles, Aldi, IGA and the rest, that have done this in other areas that does not include a competitors. I haven't counted but there must be 100 massive stores ALONE!!! And they are all MASSIVE!!! I suggest by "design". Because of their massive size they have rental power in these centres and call the shots with landlords. The national, state and local planning laws should be altered to instigate and reduce the size of retail lots/tenants to an "efficient" more smaller size. As has happened to the residential construction industry. Outlaw "SUPERmarkets" and introduce "MIDImarkets".

You didn't have this problem about 30 to 40 years ago when there were lots of little green groceries and corner delis. It's because Coles and Woolworths own everything and have forced the small shops out of business. There needs to be more competition for these big companies so that they don't own everything and price gouge or be monitored by a special government department. Spread the wealth and don't get greedy for God's sake!

67% of Australias population lives in the capital cities. When you have populations concentration, you then have business concentration. No-one wants to change, so nothing will.

“…any thoughts on that.” Thats mostly what these economists are doing, guessing. It’s their thoughts. What an easy job they have. Just because a store is in one spot doesn’t make it easy for a small business to buy it out and continue to make a profit. They should use WA as a good model to study. We are lucky to have Woollies and Coles here. It took years and years for Costco and Aldi willing to venture here. There’s reasons for that.

Allow free street markets to open up not just Sunday markets.

Matt - Coles Flybuys - $1 = 1 point. 2000 points = $10. Which is a rebate of 0.5%. Quite clear

Imagine if governments were put under the same level of scrutiny.

Our wonderful proactive federal governments, past, had divestiture opportunities when Kaufland was looking to invest here, but, no just sat on their hands, and this company decided to leave.

In Adelaide Woolworths is sourcing herbs from a backpackers farm that doesn't pay the backpackers only give them food a lodgings often working in 40 + degree temperatures then having to package the herbs in a hot shed

Do not forget BUNNINGS.

A manopoly like butcher shops and hardware Bunnings is the biggest manopoly it’s a joke what has been allowed to happen in this country

So why is No-one talking about the Petrol Companies Selling petrol at twice the price at the pump then what they are paying wholesale But Coles and Woolies 🤦

can someone tell me what the powers are? Ive had it at full volume with my head pressed to the speaker. Devestager powers? Closed captions says devesta jows so that's not it. Just want to read into the powers they are looking to give the ACCC and form my own opinion on if they would help or not. But can't figure out what they are saying and many google attempts later its not helping either.

Is this because of concern for citizens or another international group using the government to open a door into the food market in Australia? The entire Australian economy belongs to either a British, German, USA or Japanese corporations. Yes they register on Australian stock exchange because they also want the citizens’ capital as well as profits from selling to them with this capital and then take profits out of country and don’t pay taxes. How ridiculous that someone sit in a government chamber and have never heard of the word monopoly!!! OMG what has he heard before?

I’ve been shopping at Aldi for nearly 10 years and will not go to Woolworths and Cole’s people need to vote with the wallet and stop being lazy, but definitely Australian is all about monopoly business’s! Well done thank god we have people speaking up now

Won’t it be nice when Cole’s and Woolworths start charging heaps more in country towns, than city towns. Cairns for instance.

This is why i can't buy Golden Wok dim sims...because Marathon got the contract and you only buy those once personal opinion.

It’s even more concentrated than New Zealand.

Good time to start a farm to plate company.

I am married with ten children three of school age still. Myself and my wife have had to leave the city buy very cheap land west of toowommba and raise goats, sheep, cattle, chickens, ducks, pigs to eat. grow our own fruit and veg. It was my only option. Once upon a time we could afford steak for us all now this is the only way we can all eat.

Keep talking about it but nothing happens

Why.

This interrupting senator sounds like she’s had a few glasses of wine (or 3) before this meeting. If I sounded this way at work, HR would be having a chat with me. Just saying 34:27 35:46 37:16 38:15

The classical idea that competition lowers price is a fallacy. Demand is generally steady for these types of goods ie no reason for more! The larger profit margins come from reducing staff numbers per outputs and implementing technology such as self serve and digital advertising to influence the consumer. Its complicated and it depends-a classical assumption is always false here…

Go after the banks and real estate dont worry Australia become like usa pay more for less and ACCC its all bs

Do something about it

Supermarkets should not have shares in stick market, ie do nit make find a commodity, same as shelter.

Too late farmers are giving up their business

Competition should apply across all aspects of businesses, Banking, Insurance,Media, Markets,Transport etc. Monopolies is the Globalist Model

Only watched the first 5 minutes and nothing new.We all know supermarket tactics even before covid.If they are going to put the price up on an item first put it on special half the price of new price then a week later before you know it it's gone up. Asking questions and getting answers not going to change anything.What can be done about it, absolutely nothing in a free market.

We get one hour videos of the technicals and only 2 min videos of grilling of the bosses common KZfaq do better.

They both rip us Off less talk MORE ACTION

Nothing that a Labor government with balls can't solve. But can we find one? I am constantly disappointed by the spinelessness of the Neo Liberal ALP.

Go get ‘em. Criminals all. Aussie Bob

I wonder if the prices from the Big Pharma companies for medication would be included.

You are all blinded by the rewards, points and discounts......

I wonder if videos like this should be on the TV? (They'd have their licence to air revoked, or not renewed! I'd image government sphincters clenching so tightly you'd need a microscope just to see them.)

There is competition from aldi, markets & smaller stores. I suspect reducing thenl market share of Coles, & woolworths will actually cause higher prices. These large companies have small profit margins. They have economies of.scale