Destroying the pharmacy ‘monopoly’ would destroy a healthy community
Allowing the supermarket duopoly to sell medicines would bring the Walmart effect to Australia and decimate small business and jobs on main street shopping strips.
As regular as clockwork, there are again,suggestions from hard-nosed economists and those jealous of the power of the Pharmacy Guild, that the duopoly – Coles and Woolworths – should have pharmacies in their stores. If that happens, communities will die. This may seem an emotional exaggeration, but it is less emotional than the responses that come from those who detest the Pharmacy Guild and want its so-called monopoly broken. It is not a monopoly; there are thousands of independent pharmacies in Australia.
They want community pharmacy replaced by something worse – a duopoly. That may be good in the short term, but long-term it would force up prices, remove choice and make life more difficult for the less well-off.
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Peter Strong is a small business advocate at Community Economics and a former chief executive of the Council of Small Business of Australia.
