Australian Politics
Tuesday, April 02, 2024
Attacks on Coles and Woolworths are poorly conceived
It is an unusual duopoly but they keep one-another on their toes. And any idea that competition is lacking is nonsense. Aldi, IGA and Harris Farms give them plenty of competition -- as do various small players
And their dividends in relation to capital employed are modest. There is little "fat" that regulation could remove. But moves to regulation would probly be politically popular with the Green/Left and embattled farmers, even if it achieves nothing
Big business is up to its ears in pricing inquiries, some of which are populist political plays, while others are deep dives to find out why key product markets seem to be failing – delivering poor outcomes for consumers, workers and the country itself. Coles and Woolworths, with their two-thirds market share in groceries and immense buying power at the farm gate, are under scrutiny.
The Greens, with support from the Nationals, want new divestiture powers allowing the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission to seek court orders to force companies in energy, banking and retail to sell assets if they abuse their market power to inflate prices, exploit supply chains or keep out competition.
“Consumers, farmers and workers are at breaking point, Greens senator Nick McKim said while introducing a divestiture bill this week. The Greens want to “smash the supermarket duopoly”.
Labor opposes divestiture, which Anthony Albanese labelled an approach you might see in the old Soviet Union. Writing in our pages this week, Business Council chief executive Bran Black described the approach as “extremist” and argued it would cause a plunge in jobs and investment.
Former Labor minister Craig Emerson is reviewing the voluntary Food and Grocery Code of Conduct, which is meant to keep the big two, Aldi, and Metcash on the straight and narrow in dealings with suppliers; an interim report is expected in April. But it’s the year-long supermarkets inquiry by the ACCC that will, with the watchdog’s compulsory information gathering powers, break open the black box on pricing and profits.
Coles and Woolworths can defend themselves; their chiefs, prepped and pepped, will soon be fronting McKim’s supermarket inquiry. Profits here are chunky, but the giants’ after-tax margins are not way out of kilter with the retail industry, here or overseas.
Australians enjoy an amenity from these merchants. For 98 per cent of a population with a continent to itself, there’s vast choice, year-round supply and near ubiquity of product wherever you roam. It’s akin to horizontal retail equalisation. But, as the former Member for Cook (Scott Morrison) once said of the big banks when he slugged them with a new tax, “no one likes you”.
If you’re looking for dominance this Easter long weekend, go to the pub, fridge or Esky. Carlton & United Breweries and Lion, both Japanese owned, hold 85 per cent of the beer market. A parliamentary committee found margins of 40 per cent “may indicate excessive market power” and, no kidding, “would contribute to the high cost of beer for consumers”.
McKim’s assaults on capitalism sound like a tutor in first-year politics; he’s getting traction among young voters confronted with their first episode of “cozzie livs”, due to hikes in the cost of food, energy and housing. The failings of corporates such as Qantas and Optus also bring home the very limited choices in some markets.
The Tasmanian Green should broaden his attention. Gen Z and millennials probably have the most exposure to digital platforms; they are, of course, the product for these oligopolies that, pretty much, wield far more cultural and economic power and do as they please to businesses such as the one that produces this newspaper.
Amid a cost-of-living squeeze, the politics of blame are easy. But it’s a prime opportunity for the Albanese government to make bold policy moves where theory and timing are in accord: competition policy is the killer app to lower household costs, revive the nation’s dire productivity growth and raise material living standards.
Jim Chalmers caught the vibe early in his tenure; the Treasurer and his department are alive in this space, with a rolling review run by its Competition Taskforce and a modern approach to data to get a clearer picture of the play. It’s looking at mergers and developing a whole-of-economy approach to tracking deals, allowing officials and researchers to examine the impact of takeovers on wages, productivity and market share.
ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb is calling for a new merger regime, in line with other major economies, including mandatory notification of mergers above certain thresholds and a requirement to not complete the transaction until approval is granted. Of the 1000 to 1500 mergers each year (with half of those made by the largest 1 per cent of businesses), the watchdog says about 330 are notified to the ACCC under the existing voluntary merger regime.
Cass-Gottlieb says the big plays are in manufacturing, retail, professional services, and health and social services, which are markets that directly impact consumers as they go about their lives.
“Without effective merger control, we are all likely to face higher prices, lower quality, less innovation, less choice and lower productivity across the economy,” the ACCC chair said in February.
As well, Treasury’s taskforce is investigating non-compete clauses and looking at ways to increase competition in domestic aviation. In December, Labor signed up the states and territories to revitalise National Competition Policy and commit to developing an agenda for pro-competitive reforms.
Labor’s point man on all this toil is Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Andrew Leigh. He argues the research shows that in recent decades there are worrying signs the intensity of competition has weakened, with evidence of increased market concentration and mark-ups in several industries, as well as a lack of economic dynamism – a concept often difficult to grasp.
But Treasury official Jason McDonald put it well when he said dynamism is about the “elasticity of the economy”. “Whether it’s subject to shocks, how well it responds, how quickly it shifts resources to new opportunities, and how quickly wages rise because more productive workers move to more productive firms,” McDonald told parliament in September. “I think you don’t get that without competition, so the words are quite synonymous.”
Leigh tells Inquirer Australia is at a crossroads. “This really is the moment to pursue competition reform,” he says, given the improved data, tools and theory guiding the process. Leigh says competition is about fairness and squarely in Labor’s pro-productivity push; it is crucial if we are to make the most of the big shifts around digitalisation, growth in the care economy and the net-zero transformation.
In January last year, Chalmers asked the House of Representatives standing committee on economics to inquire into promoting economic dynamism, competition and business formation. On Wednesday, the committee, chaired by Victorian Labor MP Daniel Mulino, tabled its hefty report, Better Competition, Better Prices.
NSW One Nation Leader Tania Mihailuk has called for supermarket executives to be held accountable. Ms…
Among 44 proposals, the report supports the ACCC’s merger notification position for deals above a threshold, as well as the direction Labor is taking on non-compete clauses for workers. It says banks should offer customers mortgages that track the Reserve Bank’s cash rate, while also notifying depositors they are about to miss out on their “bonus” interest rate. As well, it calls for better use of government procurement to help small businesses win contracts.
“If we don’t improve the level of competition and dynamism within our economy, today’s consumers will get a raw deal, while future generations will be far poorer than they might have been,” Mulino declares in the foreword.
Nerdy as it invariably is and must be, this vital area of corporate and market regulation is Labor’s low-risk, consumer-friendly reform road – up to the point where it runs into the sharp elbows of the tech titans, supermarkets, banks, brewers and the Spirit of Australia.
Can Chalmers crash through?
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The Australian taxpayer is supporting neo-Marxism
The Australian reported last month that Elsa Tuet-Rosenberg, one of the activists involved in the doxxing of 600 Australian Jewish creatives, has a contract with the Australian Human Rights Commission with her company, Hue.
Given this company is in receipt of public funds, and produces materials to be used in Australian schools, it is worth examining its work and overarching philosophy, and whether it is compatible with the AHRC’s remit.
The first thing one notices about Hue’s website is that it does not limit itself to anti-racism. “Too often conversations about ‘Inclusion & Diversity’ are tokenistic and one dimensional,” the website reads. “The systemic nature of power & oppression is ignored, and there is no real investment in meaningful change.”
Clicking through to Hue’s online shop, one can find an Anti-Racism Policy template for $300, a NAIDOC Week participation leave policy for $300 and a Gender Affirmation Leave Policy template for $300.
If someone wants to go all out and purchase a Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Survey Licence and Support Package, they can expect to pay the handsome price of $4150.
These documents are to be used in the workplace as guides in dealing with employees who might be “gender diverse”, Indigenous or a person of colour. Like other forms of social justice activism, the primary concern is to influence social norms through the introduction of workplace policies, speech codes and other forms of bureaucratic oversight.
At first glance, one might wonder what gender affirmation has to do with racism. Why would a consulting agency dedicated to issues of race be in the business of transgenderism? It’s an important question because the answer sheds light on the all-encompassing nature of modern progressive activism.
Today’s activism is shaped by a philosophical worldview known as critical theory. Developed by post-WWII academics such as Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, critical theory is an analytical framework that aims to identify and dismantle systems of power. It takes Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism and extends it into other domains, including race, gender, sexuality, nationality and indigeneity. Systems of power that need to be dismantled include white supremacy, patriarchy, cis-heteronormativity, colonialism and capitalism.
This preoccupation with power is why social justice activism today comes in a package. The civil rights movements of the past focused on tangible results, such as making changes to legislation that would promote dignity and equality for all.
But since racial, gender and, later, marriage equality have become formally enshrined by law, the focus of activists has shifted from the concrete to the abstract, with the goal now being to “dismantle power”.
From the critical theory worldview, dismantling one system of power works towards dismantling other systems. This is why students carrying banners that read “Queers for Palestine” see no contradiction: it’s power that needs to be dismantled, not rights that need to be won.
This gets us back to the AHRC. The AHRC’s remit is not to dismantle power. It is a statutory body funded by the Australian government and is tasked with ensuring compliance with Australian law, namely the Racial Discrimination Act. As an instrument of power itself, any attempt to “dismantle power” would become self-contradictory. The clash of worldviews doesn’t stop there, however.
The Racial Discrimination Act of 1975 states: “It is unlawful for a person: (a) to refuse to allow another person access to or use of any place, by reason of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of that other person or of any relative or associate of that other person.”
But a visit to Hue’s website, (which is linked to by the AHRC) suggests this rule has been superseded. Hue offers events and workshops for “people of colour only”. One event, titled “Power & Resilience (People of Colour only)” purportedly “creates a safe space for people of colour at your organisation to share, reflect, connect and learn without the impact of the white gaze … the session also explores strategies for coping and wellbeing under oppressive and racist systems”.
Yet the Racial Discrimination Act does not include carve-outs allowing certain groups of people to be exclusionary or racist towards other groups of people because they feel they are living under “systems of oppression”. The legislation itself is blind to race – it simply prohibits discrimination. It’s worthwhile asking: does Hue – and the AHRC more broadly – see itself as above the law?
Unlike the Racial Discrimination Act, the critical theory definition of racism is not colourblind. Any condemnation of racism is determined by the identity of the actors engaged in it, rather than by the racism itself. And this selective condemnation also applies to rape, torture and murder.
On Hue’s LinkedIn page, an article in reference to October 7 states: “Whiteness culture is … hyper-individual, emphasising harm that takes place on an individual level, and disguising the violent systems that give rise to that harm in the first place. This culture erases ongoing ‘israeli’ (sic) violence from our conversations and highlights and demonises the violence of resistance efforts and land defence.”
In the critical theory worldview “land defence” now outranks prohibitions against mass rape and mass murder. The mistaken notion that today’s social justice activists are passionate advocates of equality and dignity for all, rather than the carriers of a radically sectarian moral framework, has allowed establishment institutions such as the AHRC to be duped into giving them access and influence.
Activists with Tuet-Rosenberg’s worldview have effectively taken over institutions across corporate, non-profit and government sectors. Centre-leftists have no match for their zeal, and quickly find themselves defenestrated whenever there is conflict.
With companies such as Hue in receipt of public subsidy, the Australian taxpayer is now funding a revolution.
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Australians living in caravans could be slapped with onerous restrictions following a push from the NSW government
They seem to want more people living on the street
Under the planned changes, people living in caravans on private property will need to gain council approval if their vehicle exceeds 20 sqm or if it is connected to electricity and water for more than six months.
Current legislation allows people to live in caravans on private property indefinitely if it is used by someone in the main household.
Eryn Norris lives in a caravan at the back of her parents’ property in Kariong on the NSW Central Coast.
The 23-year-old said the proposed reforms would discourage people from pursuing the affordable housing option.
“It would be drastic for so many people, even just people my age but also say like my grandparents’ sort of age, it would be detrimental to so many people’s ability to have a house that’s safe,” Ms Norris said.
“I looked into renting and renting was just way out of the picture while I was at university. It’s way too expensive so we looked into different sorts of living situations, something that would work for us and this – without council approval – just changed everything.
“We would all eventually like to own our own homes but to be able to even think about doing that you’d have to earn over $100,000 a year which … coming out of university is next to impossible,” she said.
She said she was afraid she would never own her own home and hoped she and her three sisters could live in the caravan together as they grew up.
VanHomes chief executive Vito Russo said the change was unnecessary, particularly during a housing crisis.
“We are not against updating legislation but definitely a lot more work needs to be done,” he told Sky News Australia.
“As the current proposal is, it will exacerbate the housing crisis.
“It is almost contradictive to be announcing all these initiatives to provide more housing, more affordable housing then on the other hand … change the legislation.”
A large proportion of VanHomes'’s customers include young people trying to save money, grandparents who want to be closer to grandchildren, people with mental health issues and domestic violence survivors.
“Some councils still want you to go through a development application process and once you go through that DA process, you could be looking at an up to 12-month delay and another $25,000, $30,000 to the cost,” Mr Russo said.
Minister for Planning Paul Scully said in a statement to Sky News the proposed reforms aimed to ensure greater safety with installations.
“It’s been 30 years since the current regulation for regulations around caravan parks, manufactured home estates and movable dwellings were reviewed,” the statement said.
“A lot of the industry has changed, some good and some bad. We’re wanting to focus on what’s working well and build on it.
“In a time where we are increasingly seeing tiny homes and movable dwellings becoming permanent secondary residencies, we also want to provide our councils with peace of mind when planning for local amenities and infrastructure.”
Those impacted by natural disasters would have special dispensation to live in an installed caravan in a backyard – without council approval – for up to two years.
A second package of proposed reforms will be considered later this year.
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String of failed sex assault cases sparks claims of #MeToo overkill
Drumgold's folly in the ACT has many similar examples in NSW
There was once a story of boy meets girl or, in this case, man meets woman. He had been out drinking with friends, and met the young woman at a bar near the border of NSW and Queensland. They went back to his apartment in Tweed Heads, and they had sex.
When she tried to re-enter Queensland without a border pass, the woman appeared distressed and told officers she had been raped.
The matter went to court, with the man, in his late 20s, maintaining the sex was consensual. After just 25 minutes of deliberation, the jury agreed.
At the time, Judge Penelope Wass criticised state prosecutors for shepherding “incredible and dishonest allegations of sexual assault” through the courtroom.
A second, similar story unfolded with a different couple in inner-west Sydney. The man and woman had been out for drinks at a neighbouring pub. They went back to his house and engaged in oral sex before she woke up angrily, stormed out of the apartment and later reported the matter to police.
At trial, the prosecution formed a circumstantial case, relying predominantly on a DNA match from the man found in the woman’s vagina and the evidence of a blood alcohol expert.
That case, too, was thrown out by a jury that deliberated for less than an hour. This time, Judge Peter Whitford blasted the prosecution for bringing a “meritless” matter before the court.
A third story unfolded in a regional town. The pair met at a gym in Wagga Wagga. The man, a trainer, offered to help the woman improve her form. She accepted. They had sex.
What followed, though, was a classic case of he said, she said after the woman claimed their numerous sexual encounters were non-consensual.
The matter was brought before a judge, with the man’s lawyers insisting that due to a lengthy paper trail of text messages between the pair, the sex must have been lawful. Judge Gordon Lerve agreed, and deemed the case “doomed to failure” from the outset.
Such is the tension some believe is gripping the criminal justice system, resulting in a bitter war between prosecutors and judges.
The judges say the office of NSW chief prosecutor Sally Dowling consistently puts accused rapists on trial for crimes that will never secure a conviction. Some in the legal fraternity put this down to a deep fear on the part of prosecutors that they won’t be seen to be taking rape cases seriously enough.
NSW District Court judge Robert Newlinds, who presided over another case featuring a woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted because she was so drunk she had a blackout and could not remember the events, summed up the judges’ gripes when he said cases were repeatedly being prosecuted “based on obviously flawed evidence”.
“I do wish to record that I am left with a deep level of concern that there is some sort of unwritten policy or expectation in place in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions of this state to the effect that if any person alleges that they have been the subject of some sort of sexual assault then that case is prosecuted without a sensible and rational interrogation of that complainant so as to at least be satisfied that they have a reasonable basis for making that allegation, which would include to at least being satisfied that the complainant has a correct understanding of the legal definition of sexual assault or sexual intercourse without consent,” Judge Newlinds said.
His comments are echoed by judges Wass, Lerve, Whitford and acting judge Paul Conlon, all of whom have criticised various prosecutors for bringing unviable cases before the court.
However, Dowling and senior staff in her office “unequivocally” refute the accusations, labelling some of the comments as “unfounded and inflammatory”.
This week, in a last-minute staff meeting, Dowling encouraged solicitors in her office for applying published guidelines “in a diligent fashion”, and told them that other judges had expressed faith in her office.
She has lodged a judicial complaint against Judge Newlinds for his comments, rejecting “any suggestion that (her office) makes prosecution decisions lazily or on the basis of political expedience, or that it operates according to ‘some sort of unwritten policy’ ”.
The feud has sent Australian legal corners into a spin.
Members of Dowling’s own staff have started speaking out, with some telling Inquirer the judges are completely correct in their criticism of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. They have said it is incredibly difficult to have a case discontinued, and they are often shut down by senior members of staff when they try to do so.
So, how did we get here?
We have come a long way from a horrifying time in the 1970s, when rapists could only be men, and victims could only be women. When rape within marriage was legal, and sexual assault was considered a crime only if penile vaginal intercourse occurred.
Age immunities were embedded in the law, and boys under the age of 14 were deemed “unable” to rape somebody. So-called “rape shields” had not yet been introduced, which meant complainants could be grilled in the witness box about the full extent of their past sexual experiences, and have this weaponised against them.
That all changed in 1981 with huge amendments to the NSW Crimes Act. Feminist advocacy argued the law addressed sexual assault in discriminatory ways, and perpetuated well-debunked myths, such as that rapes are most likely committed by strangers.
Nationally, we’ve had affirmative consent laws introduced in five jurisdictions, broadly requiring someone who wants to engage in a sexual act with another person to actively gain consent. Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory are the final jurisdictions to adopt new laws, with reviews under way and many believing the reforms are now imminent.
Snuggled in between the legal reforms have been social movements encouraging the uptake of accusations on face value, and the integration of a “believe the victim” mentality.
The Hollywood-born #MeToo movement spurred on thousands of women to come forward with allegations of harassment and assault. Rape advocacy came front and centre in Australia in 2021 when Grace Tame was appointed Australian of the Year and the interview with Brittany Higgins was aired on The Project.
The #March4Justice and Scott Morrison’s beyond-mediocre response to the pleas of Australian women forced a colossal shift in the dialogue around sexual assault, ultimately manifesting in the demise of his prime ministership. Or at least contributing to it.
The aborted rape trial of Bruce Lehrmann in 2022 sparked further discussion about trial by media, an individual’s right to a presumption of innocence, and the great responsibility held by a prosecutor when deciding whether or not to proceed to trial.
During the subsequent Sofronoff inquiry into former ACT chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold’s handling of Lehrmann’s rape case, counsel assisting the inquiry and senior police officers submitted the #MeToo movement and “intense public discussions” about low conviction rates affected the decisions made to prosecute Lehrmann.
And now, it seems, similar accusations are arising in the neighbouring jurisdiction of NSW.
University of Wollongong criminal law professor Julia Quilter says society has long progressed past the concept of the “ideal victim” and now many “different types of complainants are coming forward”.
“I think that’s a really good thing because in the past there was very much a perception that you had to have an ideal victim. The ideal victim who was attacked by a stranger in a dark place, she was quote unquote chaste,” she says. “We no longer ascribe simply to that concept of the ‘real rape’ but that has produced the capacity for matters to be charged and investigated and trials to be run that don’t have those central features of the complainant.
“For example, in the past it would be uncommon for a complainant to have been heavily intoxicated.”
Professor Quilter takes issue with a causation being drawn between an increase in women reporting complaints and the criticism being dished out by judges. She says it is a small number of judges criticising the ODPP and that there is a “gap in reasoning” between an uptick in reporting and baseless prosecutions being brought to court.
However, if you ask criminal defence lawyer David Barron, he would disagree. Barron was the solicitor acting for the Wagga Wagga gym trainer who was accused of sexually assaulting a client. The case was eventually thrown out – with costs awarded to Barron’s client – after Judge Lerve found the ODPP failed properly to consider dozens of messages sent between the pair after they had sex.
“It’s something that has become an issue ever since the #MeToo movement took effect,” Barron, who has been practising for about 30 years, tells Inquirer.
“It seems as if the authorities are more inclined to believe every complaint that comes across their desk.
“In relation to the gym instructor case, the authorities had the complaint and really looked no further. It was incumbent on us to properly investigate. We obtained a long chat history through messenger … and as the trial judge said, once you read that material, there was no prosecution case.”
Barron made two separate “no bill” applications to try to have the case thrown out, claiming there were unreasonable prospects of a conviction. Both were dismissed by Dowling’s chambers, and the matter proceeded through trial.
“We are not optimistic when filing no bill applications, but we still do so in the interest of our clients,” he says. “In fact, sometimes the no bill has been lodged at the suggestion of local prosecutors, but Sydney still knocks them back.”
Barron says the issue is indicative of a distrust between senior staff in Dowling’s office and prosecutors on the ground.
“Prosecutors used to be trusted to make judgment calls and decisions on whether to proceed with cases or how to proceed with cases to a much greater extent than they are now,” he says.
“These days it seems like the powers-that-be don’t trust the people in the courtrooms to make decisions on the evidence they have got in front of them.
“The solicitors who actually run the cases should have more say in whether or not they proceed,” he says. “They are the person who acknowledges the case. So, really, there should be more autonomy for prosecutors.”
Criminal barrister Megan Cusack, who acted for the accused in the Tweed Heads matter, agrees.
At the time, Judge Wass ripped into the prosecution, saying they must do more than “shepherd incredible and dishonest allegations of sexual assault through the criminal justice system, leaving it to the jury to carry the burden of decision making that ought to have been made by the prosecutor”.
Cusack says the attitude towards sexual assault “has been shifting for a while”, citing a case in which a wife accused her husband of rape because he did not explicitly ask her whether she wished to have sex or not.
“I said to the jury: ‘How many times, while you’ve been married, have you asked if they want to have sex?’” she said, adding that the jury took about five minutes to return a not guilty verdict.
Not only does it have a colossal impact on the accused, it can also devastate a complainant, Cusack says.
“This whole thing about having your day in court is ridiculous,” she tells Inquirer. “They should be told realistically what is going to happen. If you’ve got a weak case because there’s all this evidence against them, they should be told what they are in for; that their credit is going to be run through the mud.”
This saga is far from over.
The Australian Law Reform Commission has undertaken an inquiry into justice responses to sexual violence and is due to deliver a report early next year.
Meanwhile, The Australian this week revealed up to 400 rape cases in NSW will be reviewed by crown prosecutors in an audit announced by Dowling following judges’ criticism.
The results of the audit are expected to be made public once it is completed.
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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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