The Chaser Report - Don't Go Breaking My Mart: ColesWorth Duopoly To Stay

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

Charles briefs Dom on what the investigation into Coles and Woolworths is going to do about breaking up the duopoly. Hint: f*ck all. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello, and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Hello, Charles. Massive news in probably the industry that affects most of us the most. The thing that really determines a lot of things. Not sexy, but important. It's supermarkets. Charles, everyone's talking about supermarkets. Because the government is going to have an inquiry. Why haven't they had an inquiry?

Well, they had an inquiry. Didn't they send Craig Emerson out to... Well, yeah, they've done the Craig Emerson part. There is a possibility that following Craig Emerson's inquiry, there might be a mandatory code of conduct, Dom. Whoa! I know! I mean, imagine how, you know, like shaking in their boots,

Coles and Woolworths must be this morning. Because they had a voluntary code of conduct. Do you know the great thing about a voluntary code of conduct, Charles? Well, it's very strict. It's voluntary. It's voluntary. is by the keys in the word voluntary yeah but the best thing about the code of contact was the supermarkets this is according to craig emerson the supermarket said this code of conduct is working

really well we've only had six complaints against us since 2015 yeah and i presume most of those complaints offering the board going why do we have this thing doesn't do anything but it's it was sort of there was some you know things set up so that supplies could complain to the super markets if they were worried about, you know, being bullied or, you know, being influenced or, you know, like being screwed over or whatever. Charles, having been bullied quite a bit in primary school days, you know what you don't do about a bully? What?

Complain. Just in case you're worried that anything's going to happen as a result of this inquiry, the one thing that Craig Emerson has done is he is ruled out forced to vestiture, you know, ruled out splitting up Coles and Woolworth, right? Here's the quote. it's one of these frankly populist ideas but oh yeah yeah yeah that's a good idea break them up who do you sell the stores to let's say it's coals who gets hit by forced divestiture they're going to sell to woolworths what does that do for market concentration and if they say well no you can't

sell to warwurst because that will increase market concentration so basically the thing is everyone who sort of doesn't like having a duopoly control our entire retail distribution in this country basically says well part of the problem is they've got way too much market power there's actually like two over two thirds of our retail business goes through two companies right you actually need more companies in the market if supplies are ever going to have any sort of fair playing ground or you know even sort of thing doesn't matter how many mandatory code of conduct is that is the fundamental problem but craig emerson he's come out of the gate and just said nah and the reason is Because in his mind, the only person that Coles could be sold to is Woolworths.

And the only company that Woolworths could be sold to is Coles. This is deeply stupid. What we need, Charles, it's very clear, right? We need a new company called Colesworth that just buys all of the assets up. Coles and Woolies and puts them into one company. Yes, you're right. And just think how convenient that would be. You only need one login.

Yes. There'd only be one company that could do delivery. Instead of – what's the – there's flybys and what's the other one called us? Oh, Woolworth's Rewards, yes, stupid. Give us one. Flybys rewards or something. They could. You could just earn points on everything you do.

And you'd know it'd be meaningless. Yes. Well, you wouldn't even get your hopes up, which would be fantastic. Because no one's ever got to flight through flybys, have they? I accrued 2,000 points the other day. Oh, wow. Which meant that I spent $2,000 cumulatively. Yeah, and what did you get?

To $10 voucher. $10 a voucher. Yeah. Oh, that's actually – That's much better than. cheaper prices. I'll tell you what. I felt special. Because I spent all the lead-up to Christmas buying from Coles to get the, what was his, what's the name? Curtis Stone. Oh, the Curtis Stone. Kitchenie. And so I got those cutting boards. I thought those bamboo cutting boards look pretty good.

They're not actually made a bamboo. They're made of a thing called rubber wood. Rubber wood? Yeah, it's like the wood that rubber trees are made of. Okay. And I'll tell you what you shouldn't make out of rubber. rubber wood. What's that? Cutting boards. You're making my $10 about you look like a great deal. Because, well, so first of all, the actual sides of it have all fallen off already.

It actually, it's split in half. And then every time you cut on the rubber wood, it leaves a mark, right? Like, it's sort of like cutting on blue tack or something. That's stupid, Charles. You should throw that out. Go to Coles or Woolworths and buy an identically priced expensive shopping book. But Charles, there is competition. You can't say that there's not, right?

I know Colvin Woolies are parallel, even if we had Colesworth, but there's Aldi, which is cheaper and much worse. But Craig Emerson said Aldi doesn't exist. Listen to this. Who do they sell to? Oh, well, maybe a foreign multinational, but they don't want to come here. See, no foreigners want to come in and buy and be part of our retail thing. I can't because Aldi's already done. But Lydall was going to come in and compete. Alty doesn't exist, Dom. Craig, he's done an inquiry. Very thorough inquiry.

His very further inquiry, he just forgot to realize that, and Costco also exists. But Craig Emerson doesn't believe that because he says there's no foreign foreigners in our... Metcash is don't... Anyway. So, but there's also, there is competition also in the form of Metcash slash IGA, right? Yeah. Which is too expensive. So you've got coals and woollies, and then the one that's too cheap and a bit shit,

and the one that's too expensive. That's genuine competition. It's just that the others suck. But also, isn't the point that, like, surely if you're having a price gouging duopoly, And the problem is that in regional areas, what Coles and Woolworths and Colesworth are doing is they're actually just wiping out local retailers. Yeah. Like, you know, because the whole point is they're a full stack system.

Like, it's not just your IGA. It's your butchers and your bakers and your candle shopmakers and your boot makers. And they go if they get all the stuff from the supply chain, they've got a much better supply chain. Yeah, exactly. They buy up all the stuff from the farmers at source. So the independent retailers can't. get them. It's a very efficient system. This is why late capitalism is so good. It's very efficient. So what you're saying is we should be just getting on board with this whole

whole Colesworth thing. Yes, as a shareholder. As a shareholder. That's the only way. The only way to participate in the grocery industry is as a shareholder. Can you buy shares on flybos? That would actually be genuinely valuable. Yeah, but Charles, there's another alternative that no one's talking about here. Like, come on, Craig Emerson has not done his homework. The other option, and frankly, which one that I need to do, and that most Australians need to do, is fucking eat less. Don't eat. Don't go to Coles. Don't go to Woolies.

I should be eating my way through all the rice in my cupboard before I buy another grocery this is the lateral thinking. I don't need the calories that you get on the Chase report. You don't get anywhere else. There's been all these economists coming out and saying, oh, Craig Emerson's right. You can't possibly do anything that will actually have any impact. And you're just going, yes, you can. You can stop eating for a star.

Yeah, hurt them where they live. Why don't we all, every street, in the whole of Australia, want us to just go on to the street, bring all of our groceries out of the cupboard, sort of just collectively, like, cook some stuff and have your big communal meals. Rationing, wartime rationing, like all the rice, get it out there, and we fucking eat all the things.

How often do you throw out food that's gone off? It happens all the time at our house. We're hopeless. Yes, I think that's very good. I think also stealing is another way that we could sort of create more competition. That would be good. It certainly makes them compete to have more cameras. So what I'm thinking is maybe in schools, because schools don't really teach you stealing.

No, I don't. I mean, they have religious and ethics courses. Scripture tells you how to do a whole lot of other unethical things, but not really stealing. But why don't we teach magic? Magic. Yeah, because the whole point about stealing is most people are very bad at stealing because anyone watching can see. Yeah. Like if you're watching is.

somebody still. That's true. Most people are very incompetent. What you need is a bit of slight a hand. Slider hand, of course. And if we just armed all our year 11 and 12 students with proper slide of hand. Whoops, the chocolate bar has gone into my sleeve. I feel like that's more that we would do for that generation than we're doing at the moment.

The camera. That's true. It's much better than what's available housing one. So the chocolate bar goes up the sleeve through slide of hand. Yeah. No, I'm talking, not just chocolate, but I'm talking nappies, bread. milk, eggs. Ready to eat meals.

Yeah, yeah. What a good idea. The only problem, Charles, is that, yes, it would help them in the short term be able to eat and make ends meat. Yeah. But wouldn't it teach millions of young Australians that magic was a viable and worthwhile career? And like, we would have no one train in any. No doctors, just a whole bunch of magicians going, oh, magic will wear your tumour. But I reckon's the only way we're going to get orkers.

If someone could pull a submarine out of their ass. Yeah, we could disappear. one of the America gets up. Where's it gone? We've sorted it in half. I feel like this could actually have a huge impact on a lot of, like Australian foreign policy, defence. Where's Kevin Rutton? We can probably use it for climate change as well.

Oh, yes. Because the whole problem is we need to get rid of emissions. Yeah, just hide them. Get rid of CFCs. Put them in a box. Saw them in half. But also, you know, like say we need to cut emissions, you just do some sort of magic trick where all the lights go out. Yeah, I mean, that's, they don't they do that with cooking the books, basically, as well.

No, so look, this is good stuff. So we don't need Coles and Woolworths. That's the bottom line. Well, I just think, it doesn't it lack imagination the idea that because Coles and Woolworths and were a geopolitics, there can be no other market structure because the only viable companies, like, do you think that the one person you should set to do your inquiry should at least have to some modicum of intelligence to know, that if you're talking about a market structure,

it doesn't have to be the market structure that you're already investigating. Well, that's why they got Craig Emerson. Can we just remember what Craig Emerson's version of effective political communication was? And this is the greatest thing M.O. achieved in his career. No, why I'll a wipe out there on my TV? No, why I'll I wipe out there on my TV.

This is the most famous thing M.O. is ever done. That's the guy that trusted to fix the supermarkets. Chocking me right out of my brain. So you've got to ask if they wanted them fixed, but charge... No, they didn't want them fixed. There's another very simple solution, which I'll reveal after this. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. Look, life is expensive.

Yes. Housing is ridiculously expensive. You've got the duopoly. I mean, every industry has a duopoly charge. Yeah, that's right. Okay, yeah. Cornice and... It should stop getting worked up, shouldn't they?

At one time, it's just Australia. At one time, there were four airlines that didn't work. We went back down at two. There's basically two telcos because Vodafanes. I mean, I know you're on Vodafone, but no one's on Vodafone, except for you. Well, no one can contact me on Vodafone. No, that's right.

So it's basically as though you're not on it. The way to resist all this stuff, it's so easy. We move to the land. We abandon the cities. We go and live on farms. We grow our own food. Yes. We eat like a Kibbutz.

Yes. And the thing is... With a less Jewish name because, frankly, Israel's, you know, got some brand damage. And the thing is, we wouldn't even have to do that. Merely the threat of doing that. Of kibbutz becoming kibbutz-nics. Would make all...

All the farmers in Australia shut up about complaining about coals and woolwoods. Yeah. Because the threat of us moving to the regions. To regional Australia. Yeah, it would make them go, fuck, we don't want that. You don't want that. But also, we wouldn't want that. No one's going to want to do that.

So we'll make us shut up. We'll make us shut up and go to the supermarket and just cop it. And just understand that even though we're living in an absurdly expensive place and can't afford it, the alternative is unthinkable. I don't want to go and live on the land, Charles, but I know I always. could if I wanted to hate my life. Okay, yes. So what you're saying is,

Thank you, Colesworth. In some ways, Craig Emerson's right in that not only can nothing ever be done or improved, but nothing should ever be done or improved. No. That actually reality is reality and acceptance is the only true path to happiness. I mean, they're saying that there might be some sort of token fines in this new reform. But Charles, the Labor Party has been taken over by Bush. Buddhists.

Like, that's a very Buddhist. It is. Just accept the things you can't change. Except your misery. Such as the structural nature of Geopolis. I mean, look at the way the Americans do it, Charles. We'll have to talk about this at some point. Apple is being sued for being a monopolist by the Department of Justice in the US.

Yes. Because that whole thing where they've completely constructed a monopoly and forced their users to stay in it by the World Guard. I mean, it's going to be a pretty simple case to prove. They've actually gone in and tried to break up a monopoly. Whereas in Australia, we would just say, look, as long as there's two of you, you can extract all the money. what we'll give you is a mandatory code of conduct. Yep, mandatory. With fines up to $10 million or five seconds profits for losing calls.

But how long would it take them to earn $10 million? I think during the period that I've said, $10 million, they've earned $10 million. Well, but given that we've just made stealing, you know, a legitimate option, don't you think that they're going to now be in real trouble, Coles and Woolworths? Oh, yeah. I think that the listeners of the Chaser Report will now... Our listeners are going to go and ferment revolution. Is that what you're saying?

So I'm doing about a sort of anarchist-led revolution, like completely disorganised. Oh, my God. Charles, that would be so much worse. Oh, my God. Yes, actually, yes. Okay, that's terrible. Can you get points on your anarchism? I wanted to buy...

Can you get a sort of flyby's equivalent of points? I just wanted to buy. Are there frequent fly points in a communist system? The communist system? Well, to be fair, in China, there's social credit points. Yeah, that's true. That's a chilling. Mind you, social credit points sound exactly like, you know, credit checks in the US.

Yeah, yeah, basically. Yeah. Look, yesterday, Charles, yesterday I needed to buy a cheap cake for my daughter's birthday. We're having a proper thing down the track and we're getting something a little bit more expensive. But we just want something for the day. We didn't want to bother about some local baker or some artisan with skills that had been passed over, He did a really good job, where this was something cheap that was ready to go. So I went to Coles and bought it.

And it's going to be extremely calerific and probably not all that nice. But it was easy, Charles. And that's all we want. Because that's what we're best at growing here in Australia, homegrown geopolis. That's right. Yes. Our gear is from Road. We're part of the Aconiclass Network.