I mentioned yesterday the inquiries and committees and commissions created by the Federal Government that are due to report before the end of the year. There's any number of them, and surely some decisions will have to be made.
The Federal Government talks about taking tough decisions, but it's hard to recall any that have been taken. One can only assume they're about to come.
Obviously there's been a problem with the international price of oil, but even that doesn't justify talking down the economy to the point where people have completely lost confidence. And the other area is that the promises of the election campaign have not translated into anything of benefit to the voter.
Now the ACCC are supposed to be reporting on grocery prices this month. I say supposed to be, because I've no idea why you'd want an inquiry in the first place.
The facts are there for all to see.
The latest OECD figures have a table of food inflation. If you can imagine the table, it runs from Australia on the left to Finland on the right. From 1992 to 2007 food inflation in Australia was 65 per cent. In Finland, 6 per cent. In Germany, 15. France, 25. The United Kingdom, 28. New Zealand, 32. Canada, 33. Even the United States, 46 per cent.
Australia, 65 per cent.
This should be a national scandal of the highest order.
If restraining price increases is the measure of a competitive market, then it's clear that in the developed world we have no competition in terms of food retailing. Woolworths and Coles just dominate, belt up the supplier and then bash up the consumer.
Put another way, over the last 15 years food prices in Australia have risen more than twice as fast as they have in New Zealand, Canada, the UK and France.
Put another way, according to the OECD data, Woolworths and Coles are increasing their shelf prices faster than supermarkets anywhere else in the developed world.
Surely having the developed world's highest food inflation should be a national emergency. It should be front page news.
It should require immediate changes to the Trade Practices Act to bring it into line with the rest of the world. It should require divestiture powers be introduced to break up Woolworths and Coles if they continue their anti-competitive policies.
Now there's not a single word of this in the print media.
Food prices, like oil, are increasing. The truth is being suppressed. And the media can't print the truth.
Now to be fair to the print media, they run a business too. They have to make a quid. It's not their job to prosecute the case.
That's Government's job. Government surely is big enough. If it can't find these simple facts out, what can it find out?
Woolworths and Coles will fight tooth and nail to ensure that the Trade Practices Act remains useless. But take one issue last week of one metropolitan newspaper in this city.
There were no fewer, in the one paper, than 11 full page ads and three half page ads for companies controlled by either Woolworths or Coles. And Myer, which used to be part of the Coles Group, had another one and a half full pages.
So two full-pages on Woolworths supermarkets, two full pages and one half page on Dick Smith Electronics, half a page on Tandy Electronics, a full page on Dan Murphys, all owned by Woolworths.
Two full pages and a third of a page on Coles supermarkets, one full page on K-Mart, one full page on Target, one full page on First Choice Liquor, one full page on Bi-Lo. All controlled by Coles.
Now this dominance of advertising in a metropolitan newspaper is unprecedented anywhere in the world. But with this dominance, what chance of that paper reporting any stories that might show Woolworths and Coles in a negative light?
So far from just the supermarket shelves, they control the print media as well. With the price pressures that families face, this should be a national scandal of the highest order.
Strong and effective competition laws don't just protect the consumer. They protect our democracy as well.
Both are under siege.
The previous Government did nothing, the current Government is doing twice as much.
The trouble is two noughts are nought.
