ACCC receives extra $30 million to crack down on supermarket price gouging

The federal government will commit $30 million to the national consumer watchdog to help it crack down on misleading and deceptive pricing at Australian supermarkets.

Today the government will announce plans for the ACCC to investigate the pricing policies of major supermarket chains, such as Woolworths and Coles, including items on special.

Other practices by supermarkets, such as land banking, and the need for more competition in regional areas will also come under scrutiny by the regulator.

The ACCC says the alleged hoarding of land by major supermarket companies is slowing the ability for competitors to open new stores.

Those sites could be targeted in this crackdown for release to help inject more competition into the market.

The Albanese government’s new cash boost for the ACCC comes just a week after the consumer watchdog took court action against Coles and Woolworths, accusing them of price gouging.

It alleges both companies sold tens of millions of hundreds of affected products and derived significant revenue from those “illusory” sales.

Then last Friday, the ACCC’s supermarket inquiry interim was published, and labelled supermarket retailing in Australia an “oligopoly”, with Woolworths and Coles accounting for 67 per cent of sales nationally.

The price of a typical basket of groceries has increased by more than 20 per cent in the past five years, the watchdog found.

The ACCC inquiry’s remaining five months wIll examine whether supermarkets were using market power, and how it might affect customers and supplies.