JOURNALIST:
Yeah, sure – I’m happy to. I guess, can I just start, Stephen, with your reaction to Coles and Woolies’ response [indistinct] Arnott’s why Tim Tams are cheaper in the UK than here? Is that fair enough? Should it be up to Arnott’s or up to Coles and Woolies to explain?
STEPHEN JONES:
It’s simply not good enough that Coles and Woolies are flick passing this one to Arnott’s. Australians are doing it tough. They know they’re paying too much for their groceries when they go to Coles and Woolies into the supermarket. We want a fair deal. It’s why we empowered the ACCC to take further action against them. The predatory pricing that we’ve seen the use of up down pricing and of course, cracking down on unit pricing to ensure that shrinkflation isn’t used to rip Australians off at the supermarket. Collectively, these actions will ensure that Australians are getting a better deal at the supermarket. But nothing in all of this is stopping the big supermarkets from doing the right thing by their consumers. It is up to them to explain why a packet of biscuits made in Western Sydney costs more in Sydney than it does in London. That doesn’t make sense.
JOURNALIST:
Sorry, would you mind just saying that again, Stephen? Because you just said it’s up to them to explain. Would you mind saying it’s up to so and so to explain.
JONES:
It’s up to Coles. It’s up to Woolies to explain why a packet of biscuits that are made in Western Sydney cost more to buy in Sydney than they do in London. That just doesn’t make sense.
JOURNALIST:
Now, I’m not specific to Tim Tams, but both the supermarket giants today made reference to the fact that suppliers have increased their costs. I think Woolies said that a thousand suppliers had asked for increases on 12 and a half thousand items. Coles also said that the cost of shipping and packaging is flowing on from supplier to the consumer. Do you buy that? Or do you suspect that Coles and Woolies are adding a little more on top?
JONES:
Well, Coles and Woolies are obviously protecting their profit margins at every step of the way. It’s the Australian consumers that is missing out. We know that they’ve been doing tough on their suppliers. We know that they’re doing tough on their customers. The one person they go soft on is themselves when it comes to them maintaining their profit margins.
JOURNALIST:
And, Stephen, obviously we have seen a lot of measures and initiatives announced by the federal government recently to take on the supermarkets. You’ve mentioned a few of them just earlier. Treasury and the ACCC were asked about this in the Senate Committee today as well, and they couldn’t give a dollar figure on how much they think this will‑ these initiatives will help consumers. Do you have a dollar figure? Has that modelling been done?
JONES:
I haven’t got a dollar figure but what I do know is, when we’ve beefed up the powers and the resources of the ACCC, they’re able to take strong enforcement action against the big supermarkets and we’ve given them more powers to ensure that they can take on these sort of egregious behaviours. We want to ensure that they’re brought to heel. We want to ensure that Australians are getting a better deal with their shopping in the shopping trolley, at the checkout, at Coles and Woolies and the other big supermarkets. And what’s going on at the moment is simply not good enough. A strong regulatory cop on the beat doing their job is what is needed here. More powers through better competition laws, more powers through stronger consumer protection laws are on their way. But there’s nothing stopping the supermarkets getting ahead of it and putting their customers first.