The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO PERTH, MORNINGS WITH DAMIAN SMITH
MONDAY, 26 JANUARY 2026
SUBJECTS: Albanese Government helping Australians get a fairer deal at the checkout
DAMIAN SMITH: Now, when you go into the supermarket and buy something on special, there is always that sneaking suspicion that maybe the discount price is really just the normal price. It's hard to know if you're actually getting a good deal. Well, the federal government is thinking about tightening up the rules that supermarkets have to abide by. Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Competition and I spoke to him a short time ago.
ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning, Damian, great to be with you.
DAMIAN SMITH: What is the problem that you're trying to solve here? What concerns are you trying to address?
ANDREW LEIGH: The big two supermarkets have substantial market power. They've got a bigger share of the market in Australia than in many comparable countries. As they say in Spider-Man, “With great power comes great responsibility,” and one of those responsibilities is transparency with consumers. The ACCC Supermarkets Inquiry found that current pricing and promotional practices sometimes make it too hard for customers to assess value for money, and it suggested a couple of reforms that we're consulting on.
One is for large supermarkets to be required to publish prices online and to ensure that web scraping technology can be used so you can have online comparison tools. Another is for very large supermarkets to have to provide members with six-monthly information summaries for loyalty programs so you can see in dollar terms what you're getting. And a third, which is more relevant to people in regional areas, is for all supermarkets, including remote stores, to have to publish prices in-store.
DAMIAN SMITH: Okay. So some of those aspects, I mean, do they touch on this issue that a lot of people tell us about, which is that you buy something which is supposedly a discount, but it actually turns out to be more like the regular price? It's a little hard to tell whether something is genuinely discounted or not?
ANDREW LEIGH: Absolutely. And that's a concern that's led the competition watchdog to bring legal action against Coles and Woolworths for what it says are dodgy discounts. Discounts that weren't, because effectively what the supermarket was doing was hiking the price briefly and then trying to persuade consumers that they were getting a real deal. Alongside that, the government's taking action to make supermarket price gouging illegal, strengthening the unit pricing code to crack down on shrinkflation and also funding CHOICE to produce quarterly grocery price monitoring reports on where's the best deal for shoppers.
DAMIAN SMITH: And on loyalty programs is the suspicion that people are not getting value out of those programs?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, the estimate that the ACCC had is that the typical loyalty program is worth half a per cent. Not about half a per cent. Exactly half a per cent. And that's true for both Coles and Woolworths. And its concern is that customers are perhaps overstating the value of loyalty programs, of the $10 off for every $2,000 spent. And that's driving down the amount of shopping across supermarkets, which of course gets people a better deal and puts more competitive pressure on the supermarkets.
DAMIAN SMITH: And one of the proposals as well, I know, specifically mentions displaying minimum information about promotions. So, what sort of minimum information?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, that'd be information about how long it's going for and what the prices are. We do need to have more transparency around this, particularly with the competition watchdog’s legal action on foot. It's clear that there's some unusual practices going on. One of the other things that was flagged out in the supermarket inquiry’s report was the practice of things going on special in alternate weeks. So, certain products like a box of Pepsi Max might be on special at Coles one week, Woolworths the next week, then Coles, then Woolworths. And it looked a little surprising, I think, to many observers who don't expect to see comparable patterns across certain markets.
DAMIAN SMITH: And the devil's advocate might say, “Well, what's wrong with that? Businesses are allowed to price things the way they want to?”
ANDREW LEIGH: They are, but they're not allowed to act in concert; they're not allowed to collude. And in this case, you were seeing a pattern of behaviour that looks quite common across the two certain markets. Now, maybe that's being purely driven by the supplier, but we just need to have a little bit more information as to what's going on with specials. These are very large firms. They of course employ a lot of people, but they also have the potential to squeeze consumers and squeeze suppliers. And we've been doing a lot on the supplier end as well, with Labor's mandatory supermarket code that gives farmers a fairer deal.
DAMIAN SMITH: Do you think that code's actually going to be very effective? I mean, just recently we've seen dairy farmers in Western Australia saying that they still are not getting a price that makes things viable for them.
ANDREW LEIGH: I think it'll have a much bigger effect than the previous voluntary code, which was toothless. No penalties applied. That was in place under the Coalition. What we've done is attached multi-million-dollar penalties to breaches of the supermarket code, and we're also funding education programs for suppliers. And so, they will be able to better step up and take advantage of the new powers they have under the mandatory code.
DAMIAN SMITH: And more broadly speaking, I suppose the big supermarkets would say, and they have said in the past that although they bring in a lot of revenue, their profit margins are actually pretty thin. The criticism they get – is it over the top, do you think?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, they do pretty well on the profit front, and we certainly saw grocery prices rise a little faster than inflation over recent years according to the ACCC supermarket inquiry. So, I think it's appropriate that they're subject to significant scrutiny. We're not looking at silly ideas like breaking up supermarkets, which haven't been recommended by the experts. Instead, we're looking at measures that ensure that consumers have better information, that there are tougher powers in place for the competition watchdog if the supermarkets do the wrong thing.
DAMIAN SMITH: So, submissions are open now on this consultation paper until the 17th of February. When will you actually make a decision about what to do?
ANDREW LEIGH: I will be moving pretty swiftly on this. As we have on the other supermarket reforms. Our focus is on getting a good deal for consumers at the checkout and a fair deal for farmers as they supply into the major supermarkets.
DAMIAN SMITH: We're talking months, weeks, years?
ANDREW LEIGH: We would be looking to move in a matter of months. This is a priority for us, alongside making supermarket price gouging illegal and cracking down on shrinkflation, which are the other two big things that are on our list of things to do to ensure that Australians get a fair deal at to check out.
DAMIAN SMITH: Andrew, thank you.
ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks so much Damian.
ENDS