Government urged to 'end supermarket rip-offs'

Australia's big supermarkets are continuing to rip-off consumers and suppliers and should be regulated by a new industry body, according to the consumer group Choice.

Choice has suggested that the government form a new regulator to enforce fairness and competition in the grocery sector, areas it claims the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) has failed to address.

"There is a need for real leadership on resolving supermarket issues in Australia – rip-off prices, endemic unfairness and the lowest level of competition possible," said Nick Stace, Choice CEO.

"These are industry-specific problems, which economy-wide regulators have been unable or unwilling to tackle head on. It will go on like this for another 100 years unless radical and bold action is taken."

A spokesperson for the Australian National Retailers Association, which represents the big supermarkets, told ninemsn that supermarkets had already made changes.

"Our general feeling is that this duplicates the ACCC," the spokesperson said.

"Changes, such as unit pricing, state and national pricing and reducing restrictive leases, have been made by the supermarkets."

However, Choice spokesperson Christopher Zinn said the ACCC was not doing enough on dealing with the big supermarkets' growing power.

"The problem with the ACCC is that they have been leaning back on dealing with supermarket power," he told ninemsn, adding that the changes made by supermarkets were 'window dressing' that failed to address the real issues.

Mr Zinn added that Choice expected the supermarkets to oppose the move.

"In the UK when the supermarket ombudsman was created, the supermarkets didn’t like it," he said, adding that the big Australian supermarkets had strongly rejected scrutiny of their prices by Grocery Choice, the aborted plan to publish all supermarket prices online.

A retail source told ninemsn that Choice was still smarting from the Grocery Choice debacle. "They are floundering a after the loss of Grocery Choice and this is an attempt to remain relevant in this sector," the source said.

Mr Zinn added that Choice's research suggests that "consumers are not happy with the duopoly" operated by Coles and Woolworths.

16 Mar 2010 money.ninemsn.com