What was the Inquiry?
On 25 January 2024, the Australian Government announced that it will direct the ACCC to conduct an inquiry into Australia’s supermarket sector. The inquiry will examine the pricing practices of the supermarkets and the relationship between wholesale, including farmgate, and retail prices.
Kathryn Backholer, Christina Zorbas, Khalid Muse and Troy Walker were invited to speak to the Australian Senate Select Committee on supermarket food prices on 13 March 2024.
Khalid Muse on his experience: “There’s not many times you see a 20 year old have an opportunity to directly speak to a range of Senators to advocate for issues that affect every day Australians. I am immensely grateful to have fantastic guidance from my team and super appreciative of their continual commitment to create space and move equity from the margins to the centre.”
Quote from Khalid’s speech:
“It is a silent battle waged daily for migrant families. Where parents find themselves forced to weigh the scale to provide their kids, nourishing and culturally appropriate meals or succumb to the financial pressures that stress them everyday.”
Summary of recommendations
- Fully fund and implement the National Preventive Health Strategy 2021-2023, which includes ongoing access to adequate and affordable healthy food options and restricted promotion of unhealthy foods and drinks at point of sale and at the end-of-aisle in prominent food retail environments.
- Fully fund and implement the National Obesity Strategy 2022-2023.
- Create enhanced regulatory frameworks that hold food retailers accountable to provide healthy and affordable foods, for all Australian’s, now and into the future. These must be:
– Government-led
– Mandatory
– Include clear monitoring and enforcement processes for compliance - Retain the Goods and Services Tax exemption on basic healthy foods
- Ensure regular monitoring and reporting of the the CPI (healthy foods) as well as CPI (foods),(14) by the Australian Bureau of Statistics
- Ensure regular monitoring of food insecurity and the costs of healthy basic foods
What did the Inquiry find?
The following paragraphs are excerpts from the full report. To read the complete recommendations, please download the full report.
9.24 The committee recommends the Australian Government amend the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 to create divestiture powers specific to the supermarket sector, where a supermarket has been found to have misused their market power under section 46 of the Act, or engaged in unconscionable conduct.
9.49 The committee recommends the Australian Government progress legislative amendments to allow the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) the authority to investigate and prosecute unfair trading practices.
9.59 The committee recommends that The Treasury amend the mandatory Food and Grocery Code of Conduct to explicitly provide that:
- greenlife industries are captured by the code; and
- the code includes any large retailer that stocks food and/or grocery products.
9.90 The committee calls on supermarkets to do more to improve the health and safety standards for supermarket employees, to ensure supermarket workers are appropriately protected from customer abuse.
