Patricia Karvelas:
Supermarket giant Coles has been accused by the ACCC of a planned campaign to mislead customers over price discounts on the first day of a bombshell Federal Court case. Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister responsible for competition policy and he’s my guest. Andrew Leigh, welcome.
Andrew Leigh:
Good afternoon Patricia, great to be with you.
Karvelas:
This is a very big case and quite consequential – Coles and the ACCC. Now the former ACCC boss, Allan Fels says that this is the case of the century because its implications are huge. Just describe to me what you think the implications are?
Leigh:
Look this is a big case with significant implications, with an allegation that so‑called discounts actually weren’t. Many Australians will shop at one of these 2 big retailers, which between them, control two‑thirds of the supermarket sector. And so the implications of this case are substantial.
Upon coming to government Patricia, we increased the penalties for anti‑competitive conduct and we gave additional funding to the ACCC – some additional $30 million so they could pursue cases of this kind. We’ve also commissioned the first big supermarket competition review in 16 years and set about a whole suite of reforms, both in order to ensure that families get a fairer deal but also that farmers are better treated in their dealings with the supermarket giants.
Karvelas:
You say that this, you know, has big implications and that’s, I think – there’s a consensus that that’s the case. Is this the sort of court case that the government watches closely to see if there’s also perhaps a need for even more law reform?
Leigh:
Yes, we’ve got a pretty substantial law reform agenda in terms of making sure Australians get a fair deal at the checkout. We’re banning supermarket price gouging, we’re reviewing the unit pricing code to tackle shrinkflation and we’ve got CHOICE out there doing quarterly grocery price monitoring so Australians get a sense as to where they can get the best deal on their weekly shop.
And that’s on top of what we’ve done with farmers with turning the old toothless code of conduct that existed under the former Coalition government into a mandatory code with multi‑million‑dollar penalties for supermarkets who do the wrong thing in their dealings with farmers.
Karvelas:
Outside of the case, do you still need – I you know you’ve outlined what you’re already doing, but do you still need a more radical supermarket policy to increase competition when clearly there is massive alarm? The fact that this case is even happening goes to this?
Leigh:
I don’t think any government in my lifetime has had as strong a supermarket competition agenda as ours does. We take the issue very seriously, and the work that we are doing through a whole suite of reforms has been important. We’re also looking at whether or not it should be a requirement for all supermarkets to post prices in‑store and for the big supermarkets to post prices online in a way that can be used by price comparison tools.
The ACCC’s supermarket inquiry also pointed to loyalty programs, and so we’re looking at whether there ought to be more transparency through those loyalty programs. And that’s on top of the broader reforms we’ve got in the competition space – banning unfair trading practices, subscription traps and drip pricing – in order to ensure that consumers get the best deal.
Karvelas:
And this issue of divestment is obviously always contentious. Is that something that needs to be revisited?
Leigh:
Divestiture powers haven’t been recommended by any of the significant supermarket inquiries – not by the ACCC, not by Craig Emerson, not by Hilmer, Harper and Dawson in their past reviews. We’re focused really on things that will make a practical difference for Australian shoppers and which will help put downward pressure on supermarket prices.
Karvelas:
I want to take you to another area. Today, the new Liberal Leader, Angus Taylor, suggested that there should be an audit – a budget audit that’s bipartisan. It’s already been rejected by your side of politics but I’m confused about that because if as a country we made an assessment which your side of politics – the government has conceded that you need to pull back on some spending. Why wouldn’t you do it in a bipartisan way so you can take some of the politics out of it?
Leigh:
Well Angus Taylor seems to be interested in airbrush politics. He wants to airbrush out the fact that he went to the last election promising higher taxes and more debt and now airbrush out any suggestion of particular policy reforms he wants to stand behind. You’ve just heard Abul Rizvi saying that Angus Taylor needs to come clear on which aspects of migration he would cut. Likewise, if he has saving measures he needs to articulate them. He needs to make clear to Australians which public services he wants to cut, not simply stand there sending letters but actually do the hard work of policy reform…
Karvelas:
Well he is asking, which is unusual. But he’s asking to do it with you. What’s wrong with that?
Leigh:
He doesn’t bring anything to the table of credibility Patricia. This is a man who at the last election was Peter Dutton’s Shadow Treasurer and wanted to raise taxes on all working Australians. This is somebody who was backing a nuclear plan which would have cost some $600 billion and not delivered any power until the late 2030s.
This is somebody who, alongside Jane Hume, was going to deliver deficits that were $14 billion higher for the first couple of years. So if Angus Taylor actually wants to get serious and do serious policy then he is welcome to do that. But all he’s doing so far is firing off letters and cliches.
Karvelas:
Okay. But the idea of some bipartisanship around what we spend in this country it’s not a bad idea, is it?
Leigh:
We would welcome bipartisanship for the government’s initiatives and the many savings…
Karvelas:
Well, that’s a bit different. That’s saying that you do something and that you just want them to support it. This is a process to come to a consensus, to come to an agreement?
Leigh:
From a political party which went to the last election saying they were going to subsidise long lunches for bosses. This is not a political party that is serious about doing the work of budget repair. The highest spending government in the post‑war era was the Morrison government. The highest taxing government was the Howard government. It’s taken a Labor government to deliver 2 back‑to‑back surpluses and make the tough decisions to reduce government spending by $100 billion. We’ll continue to do that, and we welcome good ideas wherever they come from.
Karvelas:
Is that a fair metric though, to say the Morrison government was the highest spending when you know there was a once‑in‑a‑generation pandemic?
Leigh:
They’d also increased debt well before that. I mean, they went to the 2013 election Patricia, promising a surplus in their first year and every year after that and delivered not one single surplus. It wasn’t just COVID. They’d doubled the debt before we got to COVID because they were just unable to make tough spending decisions. And Angus Taylor was around that cabinet table. Angus Taylor was very much part of the profligate Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments.
Karvelas:
On immigration, there’s a policy that I’ve been talking about all day – it’s in my Four Corners tonight – that the Liberal Party is looking at creating a list of countries that basically it basically designates as no‑go. You know, you can’t come from there if they don’t do a deal essentially, with Australia on returning their citizens that we don’t want. Isn’t that reasonable to create a list potentially of countries that are not cooperating that Australia sees as risky?
Leigh:
Well, you just heard from Abul Rizvi the suggestion that it would effectively dismantle Australia’s humanitarian program. A program which has helped Jewish Australians come during the Holocaust. A program which we have extended to people from war torn countries throughout past decades. If you cut back on the skilled migration program, you would be losing the 21,000 health care workers who migrated to Australia last year, or the 14,000 construction workers, or the 4,000 teachers who migrated to Australia last year.
Australia benefits at a time when we’ve got skill shortages from our targeted skilled migration program. We’ve significantly lowered net overseas migration since we came to office – 40 per cent down from the Coalition levels. And we don’t have any plans to change the current 185,000 permanent migration target.
Karvelas:
Thank you so much for joining us.
Leigh:
Thanks Patricia.