Coles and Woolworths continue to undermine the public’s trust

An opinion piece by Jeremy Griffith, Head of Government Relations and Advocacy, APAL.

A senator in Canberra recently joked that when you get a person in an Akubra (The National Party) and a koala suit (The Greens) standing together and agreeing, you know there is a major problem. These two parties have been strongly aligned on the disproportionate power the supermarkets wield for a long time now.

So, when the ACCC announced that it was initiating a legal case against both Coles and Woolworths over allegedly misleading consumers over hundreds of ‘price drop’ claims, nobody was surprised. And I mean nobody.

The idea is that the retailers would deliberately manipulate the public so obviously even challenges the English language for suitable words – cynical, unscrupulous, predatory – particularly when you overlay it with their ongoing positive ‘feel good’ PR stories.

It also asks the broader question – what else are they capable of doing? And what else have they done?

Regarding public opinion, the decision has already been made – their practices do not align with accepted moral standards. The test will now be on the ACCC to prove it in court. If the court does not find them guilty, it will highlight that the legislation is failing the public.

Unfortunately, this has been the major complaint of the anti-competition legislation for decades, it does not have the teeth to do the job properly, particularly when it comes to protecting growers.

Hopefully, the upcoming ACCC review of supermarkets will finally address this and level the playing field. It should also now be a reminder that every regulator and elected member of Parliament should be very cautious of the lobbying practices of the major retailers and their guns for hire in Canberra – the large law, accounting and lobbying firms – the retailers are truly testing the bounds of trust.