Coles and Woolworths decry Labor supermarket taskforce promise

Anthony Albanese has struggled to define price gouging and claimed it is when supermarkets ‘take the piss’, as supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths decried Labor’s election attacks.

The supermarket giants pushed back against Labor’s pledge on Sunday, saying a months-long ACCC probe had cleared them of substantive wrongdoing. Picture: Getty Images

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Anthony Albanese has struggled to define price gouging and claimed it is when supermarkets “take the piss”, as supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths decried Labor’s election attacks.

Labor’s pledge to impose “heavy fines” on supermarkets found to be price gouging follows a recent Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigation that found no evidence of price gouging.

The 441-page report nonetheless said Coles and Woolworths were oligopolies with entrenched power and limited incentive to compete vigorously, but did not provide evidence of wide price gouging.

Asked on the campaign trail on Sunday to define “price gouging”, the Prime Minister said it “was when supermarkets are taking the piss off Australian consumers”.

“That’s what price gouging is,” he said in Canberra.

The supermarket giants pushed back against Labor’s pledge on Sunday, saying the months-long ACCC probe had cleared them of substantive wrongdoing.

“Woolworths provided thousands of documents, millions of data points to the ACCC, and several senior executives participated in public hearings, as part of a 12-month long inquiry into the supermarket sector,” a company spokesperson said.

“We were able to explain how economy-wide inflation was impacting our suppliers and our business, and how we are always working to deliver value to our customers.

“Following this year-long inquiry into supermarkets, the final report found no evidence of price gouging.”

Similarly, Coles said the inquiry did not find evidence of price gouging.

“What’s needed are measures that tackle the real factors driving higher grocery prices, which are rising costs such as energy, fuel, labour, insurance, production, freight and distribution,” a spokesperson said.

The Prime Minister said that while the ACCC investigation did not find “comprehensive ripping off”, the policy was designed to “make sure … they know that they’re being watched”.

“They know that the government’s prepared to take strong action and crack down,” he told the ABC’s Insiders. “We will introduce legislation making price gouging illegal by the end of this year.”

Labor’s new taskforce on ­supermarkets comes just weeks after Jim Chalmers claimed the ACCC report and its recommendations would ensure Australian shoppers are no longer “treated like mugs” by the big supermarket chains.

The consumer watchdog this month conceded there was “no silver bullet” to cure this, but recommended a collection of legislative and policy reforms and other actions to address aspects of the market that are not working well, including areas where competition is unlikely to emerge.

But crucially for Woolworths and Coles, it had not recommended forced divestiture of parts of their sprawling retail empires, as Peter Dutton has threatened if he wins the May 3 election.

The Coalition slammed this as the “sixth policy review” by the Albanese government, and the Opposition Leader on Sunday accused Mr Albanese of trying to create a “massive distraction from his own failings”.

“He is as weak as water, and the supermarkets know it, and Australians know it,” Mr Dutton said in western Sydney.

“I think you’ve got a Prime Minister who can’t stand up to the supermarkets. We have said to the supermarkets, you rip off Australian consumers and you continue to believe that your market share gives you power in the market.

“I will act as prime minister, and this Prime Minister has indicated that he won’t.

“So we have spoken about, and our policy is, in relation to divestiture. It is in relation to a supermarket commissioner. It is in relation to significant fines that start at $10m.”