Australian Politics
Cadbury boss defends supermarkets against price gouging allegations
What people overlook is that the cost of putting fruit and vegetables on shelves is influenced by many costs other than what the farmer is paid: Broadly, distribution costs, including transport costs. And the supermarket staff have to be paid
The local boss of one of the world’s largest supermarket suppliers, Cadbury owner Mondelez, has dismissed claims Woolworths and Coles are price gouging shoppers, arguing much of the negative commentary engulfing the chains was based on “emotion” with no evidence of an uncompetitive or dysfunctional supermarket sector in Australia.
Amid a growing political firestorm that has seen six separate inquiries launched to inspect the supermarket industry, including a Senate inquiry pushed by the Greens into pricing and market power, Mondelez Australia chief executive Darren O’Brien said competition was as intense as it has been for a decade, and shoppers were treated to a wealth of choice.
“I don’t see evidence of what I would consider (price) gouging. I don’t know how you measure gouging,” Mr O’Brien told The Weekend Australian.
“Comments around there not being competition, comments around things needing to be broken up, I think these are comments that are made without people putting forward evidence.
“What is the evidence of dysfunction? I’ve seen a lot of emotion. I haven’t seen a lot of evidence presented. I’m not seeing a lot of evidence that there is a dysfunction in the market.”
The comments from the Mondelez CEO are all the more powerful given he is also chair of the Australian Food and Grocery Council, the peak body for the nation’s $150bn food manufacturing sector.
Supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles have faced a political pile-on over the last few months as the cost-of-living crisis and the Albanese government’s unpopularity – driven by a sense the government was not focused enough on household financial stress – has seen the chains and perceptions of their misuse of market power put under the spotlight.
But Mr O’Brien, whose portfolio of brands includes Cadbury, Toblerone, Ritz crackers and Philadelphia cream cheese, warned against intervention, such as breaking up Woolworths and Coles, saying the competitive landscape was bolstered by their efficient operations.
He said the inquiries in train, ranging from a Senate probe into pricing, an inquiry called by the government to be run by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and another inquiry commissioned by the ACTU, needed to be accompanied by balance and the facts.
But they would also probably come up with the same conclusions other inquiries had found, that the Australian supermarket sector was highly competitive.
“There seems to be a lot of inquiries going on,” Mr O’Brien said. “We will have to see what those findings are. From what I’ve read, some of these inquiries have been held in the past and the outcomes of those found similar to what I’ve said, that we have a well functioning and competitive retail environment in this country.
“Having inquiries per se is not necessarily a bad thing, but I do think the commentary around them needs to be balanced. And I certainly have not agreed with a number of things that I’ve read because I think they’re factually incorrect. Perhaps an inquiry will help to put some factual information on the table that people can look at with a balanced view.”
Mr O’Brien conceded that the supermarket industry could be viewed as concentrated, and that at times Mondelez has had “robust” interactions with the major chains, but competition between Woolworths, Coles, the independents and new entrants like Aldi and Costco ensured a highly competitive market for shoppers.
“We have enjoyed a constructive and at times quite robust relationship or interactions with our retail partners, but they are a critical part of our ability to get products that people want to enjoy in locations that they want to be able to get them from,” he said.
“There’s some 2500 or more supermarkets out there spread right across Australia. They are critical partners to us. And at times, we may have robust commercial negotiations, but overall our ability to work with them … is strong.
“Even though it is a concentrated retail market in Australia, it’s a very competitive one. And consumers have choice. And if they don’t like particular prices or promotions at one supermarket, they have significant choices to go to others, whether they be discounters or direct competitors of one or the other supermarkets or an independent. That is proven to be a dynamic environment for consumers. And it’s one that I think works quite well.”
Some of the criticisms over the supermarkets first emerged late last year, when farmgate prices for key products such as lamb and beef began to fall sharply but there was no proportionate fall in meat prices on the shelves.
Mr O’Brien said those criticising the supermarkets needed to be mindful of the complexities of supply deals, contracts and the costs involved in getting products from the farmgate to the shelves.
“If you have a look over the last 10 years or so, consumers have certainly seen the benefit of that intense competition between the various retailers,” he said. “And I certainly haven’t had a sense that competition has changed in any way in the last 10 years.”
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Why some Australians still need convincing the future lies in renewable energy
Last year, the Energy Minister asked the Energy Infrastructure Commissioner to investigate regional pockets of stubborn resistance and recommend ways of getting the doubters onside.
Andrew Dyer’s Community Engagement Review Report makes the bold assumption that Chris Bowen’s renewable energy plan can be put back on track, that his target of installing a 7MW wind turbine every 18 hours and 22,000 solar panels a day until 2030 is not as fanciful as it sounds. Opposition in the regions can be overcome by “ongoing excellence in community engagement and, more broadly, excellence in the execution of the energy transition”.
Engagement is a weasel word much loved by technocrats. It implies a two-way conversation, an exercise in exchanging information on the assumption that those in charge don’t possess the perfect knowledge needed to make perfect decisions.
In the minds of those who write these kinds of reports, however, engagement means no such thing. Engagement is the dissemination of a top-down plan, designed by people in the know.
Dyer says the government should develop a narrative “articulating why there is an urgent need for new renewable energy and transmission infrastructure”. He says opposition is often driven by “misinformation” and recommends the government establish one-stop information shops to help opponents get their facts straight.
He cites previous campaigns for efficient water use, cancer awareness and drink-driving as models of what could be achieved by appointing “an eminent, respected and independent spokesperson to engage the nation and be the ongoing champion of the energy transition”. Wisely, he steers clear of putting names to his proposal. The authority of most of those once considered national living treasures has been eroded by their endorsement of the voice referendum.
Dyer reflects on the role played by Sir John Monash in championing Victoria’s energy transition in the 1920s. This begs the question: Would Monash, the engineer who developed Victoria’s brown coal as a source of cheap and abundant energy, be prepared to champion wind and solar power today? Will wind and solar be powering the nation in a century’s time, the lifespan Monash anticipated for lignite?
The transition to renewable energy will reverse the progress made by Australia between the wars. Cheap energy attracted productive capital from Britain and the US. The increase in domestic manufacturing was driven by the perceived need for power and industrial self-sufficiency after the experience of WWI. Expensive and unreliable energy is driving companies offshore. It is barely 10 months since the Albanese government announced a $15bn scheme to attract manufacturing jobs and avoid a repeat of the shortages of essential goods experienced during the Covid-19 panic. The fund has yet to accept a single application, and Australia has fallen to 93rd in the Harvard Growth Lab’s rankings for economic complexity, sandwiched between Uganda and Pakistan.
Nowhere is the cost of the renewable energy transition more keenly felt than in the regions. They know first-hand the pressures on small and medium businesses from rising energy prices. They have discovered the dirty secrets the inner city prefers to ignore. They have experienced the rapacious demand for land required to generate a moderately respectable amount of power from wind and solar. They have seen and heard the scale of the civil engineering works required to build endless access roads and level platforms for turbines and cranes, often in remote and rugged terrain. They have been disturbed by the aviation warning lights on top of the turbines that compete with the natural beauty of a night sky away from the city lights.
Their roads have been churned by hundreds of truck movements transporting blades, steel and concrete. They know what it is like to be patronised by know-nothing community relations agents with newly minted degrees in strategic communication from UTS.
A community survey conducted for the commissioner’s review shows the extent of their unease. Nine out of 10 (92 per cent) were dissatisfied with the standard of community engagement by developers. Explanations in response to questions were considered unsatisfactory by 85 per cent. Only 11 per cent considered explanations relevant to their questions, and 85 per cent thought their explanations were not addressed promptly.
The conclusion the commissioner painfully avoids presenting to the Energy Minister is that any chance of gaining the social licence he desires has long since been lost. The haughtiness, equivocation and condescension of some developers have trashed the industry’s reputation. Governments that are supposed to control the excesses of the free market have instead acted as their facilitators. MPs, supposed to stand up for their constituents, have been nervous about taking up their concerns, fearing being labelled as climate deniers.
The idea an official information campaign will put these people straight is fanciful. The arrival of broadband means rural Australians have abundant information about the limits of renewable energy. They can follow the news from the US and Europe, where appetite and investment for wind and solar are diminishing and governments are reaching for other ways to reduce emissions, such as nuclear.
The internet has brought together communities blighted by renewable development from Tasmania to the edge of Cape York. In the past year, individuals overwhelmed by fighting their own lonely battle against cashed-up corporations have coalesced into a fledging national movement, Reckless Renewables; remarkably, without professional support or funding.
On Tuesday, the protest goes to Canberra with a rally at Parliament House. The renewable energy lobby has already fired warning shots. GetUp, which received $80,000 in donations last year from Mike Cannon-Brookes, is promising to pepper Canberra with posters. Renew Economy, the renewable sector’s version of Pravda, has tried to belittle the participants, mocking the support they have received from MPs Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson.
Bowen is unlikely to break his habit of entering parliament through the basement ministerial carpark and instead turn up at the front door. Put that down as a lost opportunity. His reception would have told him more about the country’s mood than any number of engagement reviews.
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Antisemites fall out
Anti-Israel activists have fallen out bitterly over claims there are too many white people advocating for Gaza in a peak lobby group and that the use of a former Israeli soldier to back the Palestinian cause is wrong.
Block the Dock Melbourne, which targets Israeli shipping interests, has savaged Free Palestine Melbourne, claiming the umbrella campaigning group has been overrun by white people who do not speak for the people directly affected by the Middle East conflict.
The groups are two of the highest profile pro-Palestinian groups in Australia, often campaigning together to highlight their opposition to Israel’s response to the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel last October.
But the groups are at odds, with Block the Dock declaring publicly it was opposed to the lack of Palestinian people involved in FPM’s campaigning and against using a former Israeli soldier to promote their cause on behalf of those opposed to the Jewish state.
“What an embarrassment to the Palestinian community,’’ Block the Dock posted on social media. “We don’t need Palestinian killers in our community.
“90% of FPM is run by white people. White people do not speak for all Palestinians.’’
The weekend post by Block the Dock provoked a strong response across the anti-Israel lobbying sector, with some calling for it to be taken down and others stridently backing it.
The division came as Greens leader Adam Bandt declared at a Melbourne rally that the Albanese government should change course on its position on Israel, flagging his party would move a motion for such a change.
He said it was beyond doubt that the “far right-wing cabinet of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s is intent on slaughter and dispossession’’.
“And it is time for Labor to change course,’’ he said.
Block the Dock is a radical left-wing group that has been camped at the Melbourne port, an engine room of the national economy, to try to disrupt Israeli-owned boats.
Israel’s ZIM is a global shipping line that activists accuse of helping the pro-Israel military cause.
The group has had only scattered success, but has received favourable coverage in some foreign media backing Gazans.
The entry to the dock has been defaced with anti-Semitic stickers, one declaring a picture of a Jew saying: “If I don’t steal it someone else will.’’
It was printed by the anti-Israel group @freepalestineprinting, which also has played a key role in the campaign against Israel and Jewish interests in Australia.
The anti-Israel groups have relied heavily on social media to further their cause, with Sunday’s rally in Melbourne live-streamed.
The Block the Dock post provoked a mixed reaction, with one woman saying the campaigns should be run by Palestinians.
‘’I think it’s only a problem if whites are running the organisations, we can be involved as allies,’’ she wrote.
“Palestinians should be the main people running the cause, with other groups as allies – especially First Nations as they’ve suffered similar.’’
Another respondent defended FPM: “They do have Palestinians in their organisation. I know them. And like all good and decent organisations in Australia it is an inclusive and multicultural space for activist who support Palestine. It is not closed to anyone.’’
Melbourne’s pro-Palestinian rallies are heavily backing First Nations causes, with Aboriginal activist Robbie Thorpe a lead speaker at the Melbourne rally.
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New vehicle efficiency standard set to be introduced next year
Too bad if somebody would liketo spend their money on a large and powerful car. NO! say our authoritarian Leftists. You only have the choices that WE allow. You must want the RIGHT things
The federal government will introduce laws that will set fuel efficiency standards on new cars being sold in Australia.
Under new vehicle efficiency standards, car companies will be required to supply more fuel efficient vehicles to consumers by targets set on the average emissions per kilometre for new cars sold.
Australia has been dubbed a dumping ground for inefficient vehicles because it hasn't had fuel standards like China, the United States, New Zealand and the European Union.
The standard only applies to new passenger vehicles and light commercial vehicles.
The Albanese government said it would consult on its preferred model for a month, but was looking to introduce the legislation in the first half of 2024.
The new standard was expected to come into effect on January 1, 2025.
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said consumers were currently spending more on petrol than they should and the standard would lead to savings.
"It means Australians are paying more at the bowser than they should compared to people in other countries because they’re using more petrol and diesel," he told a press conference in Melbourne today.
Mr Bowen said the standard was a "win-win" for consumers as it offered more choice of vehicles to buy. Modelling predicted that by 2028, drivers would save up to $1000 per vehicle on fuel.
"It's a win for cost of living and a win for consumers," he said.
Mr Bowen said the standard wouldn't dictate which cars Australians could buy and he expected car manufacturers to comply with the legislation, which would include fines for those unable to meet the standard.
Transport Minister Catherine King said she anticipated consumers would hear “all sorts of nonsense” about the standard from the federal opposition and "a range of stakeholders".
“We’re going to hear that utes are banned – that is not true. We’re going to hear that somehow second-hand vehicles (are) affected – that is not true. It is about new vehicles,” Ms King said.
“We’re going to hear about price (of a new vehicle) – none of the evidence, there is just no evidence to say that it will affect price at all of SUVs, or utes or any other vehicle."
Vehicle efficiency standard 'should start this year'
Independent Senator David Pocock welcomed the announcement, but said it needs to be more ambitious.
"I want to see these new standards implemented as soon as possible and call on the government to bring forward the slated commencement date of 1 January 2025 to 1 July 2024, with a six month test period during which penalties do not apply," he said in a statement.
“Anything less ambitious than what is being proposed will increase the cost of transport and do further damage to our climate."
The Electric Vehicle Council of Australia has welcomed the move and said it would stop the country being a dumping ground for inefficient cars.
"Australia has always been at the back of the queue when it comes to the best and cheapest electric vehicles, because car makers have been incentivised to offer them elsewhere first," the council said in a statement.
"That should end now with this policy, and Australian car buyers should notice the change very quickly."
Climate Council chief executive officer Amanda McKenzie said the move would assist Australians struggling with cost of living pressures.
"Many Australians are doing it tough right now, with petrol one of the expenses causing the most financial stress for households," Ms McKenzie said in statement.
"At the same time, pollution from inefficient petrol-guzzling cars is fuelling harmful climate change.
"By giving Australians better choice of cleaner, cheaper-to-run cars, a strong fuel efficiency standard will cut household costs and clean up our air."
Targets are 'ambitious and will be a challenge'
Last year 1,216,780 new vehicles were sold in Australia, according to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.
FCAI chief executive officer Tony Weber said it would take time to study the impact on consumers and the industry, but the targets were ambitious.
“On the surface, the targets seeking a 60 per cent improvement in emissions are very ambitious, and it will be a challenge to see if they are achievable taking into account the total cost of ownership," Mr Weber said.
“The preferred option suggests that Australia considers adopting the type of targets that are currently in place in the United States. The targets in that country are supported by significant financial incentives yet the discussion paper makes no reference to any additional incentives to support the uptake of low emission vehicles."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-04/new-vehicle-efficiency-standard-for-new-cars/103425022
************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a 
Sahara Ray is undoubtedly a good-looking woman. Since she is Australian-born there is even a possibility that we may be distantly related
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