The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, and Treasury
Assistant Minister for Employment
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO CANBERRA, BREAKFAST WITH ROSS SOLLY
FRIDAY, 21 MARCH 2025
SUBJECTS: Cracking down on the supermarkets to get a better deal for Australians
ROSS SOLLY: So, as I mentioned earlier, and you've heard in the news - confirmation in this ACCC report that our supermarkets are among the most, if not the most profitable in the world. Which I guess we should celebrate. But we also learn from this report that those same supermarkets failed to pass on the full benefits of cost savings during the cost of living crisis. The report also paints a pretty grim picture of the chances of anything changing any time soon. Unless more competition is introduced, it is likely to remain as is. Because I tell you what, there's been plenty of big sticks waved at those supermarkets, but they still continue to do very, very well profit wise and it doesn't seem to be a lot of changes happening to help out shoppers. Dr Andrew Leigh of course, Member for Fenner, also Assistant Minister for Competition joins us this morning. Andrew Leigh, good to chat with you again.
ANDREW LEIGH: Great to be with you.
ROSS SOLLY: So I guess we should. Should we celebrate that our supermarkets are so profitable?
ANDREW LEIGH: No, I think it’s a real concern. Certainly we've seen supermarket margins rising over the last five years, especially on packaged goods. One of the troubling things about this report is that it finds that the big two have increased their market share over the last 17 years since the ACCC last did a deep dive into grocery competition. We’ve seen Metcash shrinking, and the ACCC doesn't see a significant threat from Amazon. So it does appear that the duopoly have strengthened their power, and some evidence that both have been playing tag team instead of tug of war.
ROSS SOLLY: But which - surely that's illegal?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, some of the specials are particularly questionable. There's analysis in ACCC report which shows oscillating specials for certain products. Coles has it on special one week, then Woollies. It seems a curious pattern to be going on.
ROSS SOLLY: Is that collusion then? You can’t do - can you do that Andrew Leigh? Is that what you're alleging this morning?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, I'm just relaying what's in the ACCC report Ross, and I need to be careful over things which could ultimately lead to legal action. But this is a very careful analysis of pricing data. They've analysed over 1 billion prices. This is a data deep dive that we haven't seen beforehand. And what the report reflects is a lot of the concerns that our policies have reflected. We’ve got the mandatory Food and Grocery code, which will come into place next month – which the Coalition voted against. We've been funding CHOICE to give shoppers more information, clamping down on shrinkflation with the Unit Pricing Code and working with the states and territories with planning and zoning, which is a big thing the ACCC flagged.
ROSS SOLLY: Do you know a lot of public backlash Andrew Leigh and a lot of government backlash towards the supermarkets and the way that they've been treating their customers, yet it seems to not make any impact at all on them. They seem to think, well yep, fire everything you can at us, but we're not going to change the way we're operating?
ANDREW LEIGH: We've been working on a range of reforms to make sure that families get fairer prices and farmers get fairer deals. That's what our policies are all about. And the reforms that I've talked about around the Food and Grocery code and around shrinkflation are important. We've also been funding CHOICE in order to provide quarterly grocery price monitoring. These additional recommendations in the ACCC are warmly welcomed. We asked for this report because there haven't been another report done in the past 17 years. The last price report was done when Michael Jackson was still alive. Things have changed quite a lot over that period and worryingly, we have seen an increase in the share of the big two.
ROSS SOLLY: You mentioned there - the recommendations, there are a handful and I think a lot of listeners will be very happy to see that there's a suggestion that they need to notify customers on their websites and their price tickets on shelves of any changes in package sizes, because that really annoys the heck out of people Andrew Leigh when they notice that things are shrinking, but the price isn't. But other than that, are you disappointed there aren’t more suggestions, more recommendations on how you could actually force these supermarkets to make significant change?
ANDREW LEIGH: I think there's a range of important recommendations here Ross, and they sit alongside the important work that we've been doing. And frankly, the big supermarkets won't like it, but Australians will. We have been putting in place reforms which ensure that our merger overhaul will require every supermarket merger to be notified to the Treasurer. The report talks about problems of food security in remote areas, and investing in low-cost potential subsidy schemes for people living in remote communities. Canberrans I think, will welcome the work that we're doing with states and territories to cut red tape that might deter the entry of new supermarkets.
ROSS SOLLY: Sorry Andrew your phone looks, we might be losing you there. Can I ask you we have an election coming up, and I know you've got some thoughts, and you've got some policies which you'll take but can you give the listener this morning some sort of a guarantee that there will be something in your election manifesto, your election plan, that might actually see a reduction in prices at some of these supermarkets that are raking in huge profits?
ANDREW LEIGH: Ross, we haven't waited for an election campaign, we've been getting on with it. We've been putting in place reforms as soon as they've come out of the Competition Taskforce.
ROSS SOLLY: Yeah, but they're not, they don’t seem to be making much difference do they Dr Andrew Leigh? Would it be fair to say you haven't made a lot of impact in terms of making it easier on the hip pocket?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well it’s a backwards looking report Ross, and so it doesn't take into account the mandatory Food and Grocery Code, which will kick in next month. That really is a reset of the relationship between suppliers and the supermarkets. It responds to concerns from suppliers that they face the risk of reprisal. Now they'll have an anonymous complaint mechanism through the ACCC, which is something that has been warmly welcomed by suppliers. As I've said, we've taken on the supermarkets, keeping them in check so Australians get a fair deal at the checkout.
ROSS SOLLY: Is there any way you can hit the supermarkets in the hip pocket the way that they hit their customers in the hip pocket? I don't - I mean we talk about Super Profits Tax and all that. I don't know whether that's a road we want to go back down Dr Andrew Leigh, but is there any way given the enormous profits they're making, that would be a way to get the money back into the pockets of taxpayers, I guess?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, the Liberals are jumping up and down about divestiture powers. This report very clearly doesn't recommend that. It recommends a series of practical solutions, many of which are in line with what we're doing already. We warmly welcome this report which was commissioned by the government. We're going to continue to work to make sure that farmers and families get a fair deal.
ROSS SOLLY: All right. Well we will watch with interest, but interesting that this report has confirmed what we all knew - that supermarkets are doing very nicely and unfortunately, in the end it's us, the customers who are finding it a bit harder to make ends meet. Appreciate your time this morning Andrew Leigh, thank you.
ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks Ross.
ROSS SOLLY: That’s Dr Andrew Leigh, who is the Assistant Minister for Competition.
ENDS