Woolworths, Coles push back against Labor price gouging pledge

The supermarket giants say despite a 12-month inquiry, neither the government or the ACCC found any evidence of price gouging.

Anthony Albanese will start his second day on the campaign trail in Canberra. Picture: Jason Edwards

Supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths have pushed back against Labor’s pledge to create a taskforce into grocery price gouging if re-elected.

“Despite a 12-month inquiry into supermarkets, neither the government or the ACCC found evidence of price gouging,” a Coles spokesperson said.

“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.”

Woolworths later said a review had already found no evidence of the practice.

But the supermarket giant conceded it “fully” understood that “customers want us to make it easier to find value, especially as they remain under immense cost-of-living pressure”.

“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 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.”

‘Heavy fines’ threat

Anthony Albanese on Sunday threatened the big supermarkets with “heavy fines” over claims of price gouging, despite the consumer watchdog finding no single supermarket was vastly inflating prices.

The Prime Minister’s first major campaign policy to establish a taskforce to crack down on the likes of Coles and Woolworths comes just weeks after an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report said there was little that could be done to break up the duopoly of the grocery sector.

Mr Albanese said while the ACCC found there was not comprehensive ripping off by any particular company, he wanted the supermarkets to know they are “being watched”.

“People know when they’re being ripped off, and we want to crack down on supermarkets,” he told the ABC.

“This comes on top of the other measures that we’ve had, targeting things like shrink-flation, targeting the false specials that occur where supermarkets put up prices by a dollar, then decrease it by 50 cents and pretend that things are cheaper.

“We want to make sure that consumers are looked after … What we want to make sure is that they know that they’re being watched. They know that the government is prepared to take strong action and crack down.”

Legislation pledge

Speaking on Sky News on Sunday morning, campaign spokesman Jason Clare said legislation would be introduced by “the end of the year” if the government is returned to power.

This builds on Labor’s commitment to implement the recommendations from the ACCC’s final report into the supermarket sector, which includes greater transparency and pricing trends, promotions and loyalty programs.

Mr Albanese said the measure is part of Labor’s plan to address cost-of-living concerns.

“Labor will make price gouging by supermarkets illegal,” he said.

“Because Australian families deserve a fair price at the checkout and Australian farmers deserve a fair price for their goods.”

Anthony Albanese said shoppers ‘deserve a fair price at the checkout’. Picture: Brendan Radke

Queensland focus

Mr Albanese will start his second day on the campaign trail in Canberra, where he will do an interview with ABC’s Insiders program, while Peter Dutton will fly out of Brisbane early in the morning.

Queensland received most of the attention on the first full day of campaigning on Saturday, with Mr Albanese beginning his day in Mr Dutton’s outer Brisbane seat of Dickson before jetting off to the regional Queensland seat of Hinkler and the NSW seat of Eden-Monaro.

Mr Dutton visited the Greens-held seat of Brisbane, the Labor-held seat of Moreton and the more familiar territory of Dickson, which he holds on a margin of 1.7 per cent.

Both leaders were interrupted by protesters, with the Australian Federal Police to ramp up its oversight of both leaders from Sunday.

Labor holds just five out of 30 seats in Queensland, with the Coalition holding 21 and the Greens three.

Labor and Coalition hardheads believe the Greens seats can be won back by the major parties but are downplaying the prospect of many other changes.

The north Queensland seat of Leichhardt is Labor’s best chance of a gain from the Coalition, given the retirement of popular MP Warren Entsch.

Mr Albanese played down the prospect of working with the Greens in a minority parliament, while Mr Dutton said it was impossible for Labor to win a majority and the teals and Greens would have increased influence unless the Coalition won power.

In Dickson, Mr Albanese ramped up his personal attack on Mr Dutton at an urgent care clinic and claimed the Coalition would dismantle Medicare.

‘Economically responsible’

Despite his government last week delivering a budget forecasting a decade of deficits, Mr Albanese and Jim Chalmers denied their oversight of a structural budget deficit could force bigger cuts to essential services in the future.

“We have been a government that has been economically responsible, making sure as well that the cost-of-living relief that we have delivered,” he said.

While the budget increased spending by $37bn and only saved and “reprioritised” $2bn, the Treasurer said “to find billions of savings on the eve of the election is unusual”.

“That’s why we are managing the budget in a much more responsible way than our predecessors to clean up the mess that we inherited, but also to invest in Medicare,” Dr Chalmers said.

“And once again, this election is a referendum on Medicare.”

In Hinkler, a safe Coalition seat that Labor is not realistically targeting, Mr Albanese visited the Bundaberg distillery and talked up his support for Australian manufacturing days out from Donald Trump unveiling more tariffs.

Peter Dutton visits the XXXX Brewery in Brisbane on the campaign trail. Picture: Thomas Lisson

He said the government’s $20m “Australian Made” campaign was the best way to safeguard Australian jobs amid global trade wars.

Declining living standards

Mr Dutton sought to keep the focus on day one of his campaign on declining living standards, high power prices and soaring business insolvencies, asking voters who they would “trust” to steer the economy.

“It’s about who do you trust to manage the economy and keep Australia safe in an uncertain time? Who do you trust to help young Australians get into homes more frequently?” Mr Dutton asked at a press conference at the XXXX brewery in the seat of Brisbane.

“Who do you trust to deal with the problem that the Labor has created, not just in relation to inflation, but in relation to energy?

“Our plan, our positive plan for our country, will get our country back on track.”

Both Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton struggled on electricity prices, with the Prime Minister refusing to commit to lower household bills if he wins.

While Mr Dutton vowed to lower electricity prices, he declined to say by how much.

“If you bring more supply into the market … you’ll bring the price down,” he said.

“It will be a very significant reduction.”

When pressed several more times on the matter, Mr Dutton said modelling done by Frontier Economics – which had also done the work on the Coalition’s nuclear policy – would be released “shortly”.

NVES uncertainty

Mr Dutton was also unclear over whether he would revoke, tweak or leave the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard as is.

While the Coalition opposed the NVES passing parliament, it has not been clear what it would do to the scheme should it win government, despite many members of the Nationals urging it be scrapped completely.

When asked about his plans for the NVES, Mr Dutton reiterated his party had opposed legislating to enact the scheme.

“We will go to this election with a policy to bring down the cost of cars and utes, because Mr Albanese has applied a tax by stealth,” he said, in comments that left the door open to the NVES remaining in place but other legislation being passed to address concerns around heavy vehicle prices.