Senate supermarket inquiry hearing from producers in NSW Central West

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A hearing is underway in the central west of NSW, aiming to get feedback on food pricing practices and the market power of major retailers including Coles and Woolworths.

Transcript

00:00 We've heard from a number of, in particular fruit growers, orchardists, who they gave

00:07 evidence where they had a real warning that the current market power held by Coles and

00:11 Woolworths will cause a lot of pressure on family farms. It already is causing a lot

00:16 of pressure and will cause a lot of them to close in the next decade due to the rising

00:21 expenses that a lot of orchardists are seeing, which hasn't resulted in an increase in the

00:26 prices that they're receiving from the major supermarkets. There was also a number of concerns

00:32 around the pressure that the farmers are feeling from the supermarkets when they're trying

00:37 to negotiate prices with a lot of intimidatory practices taking place from the major supermarkets.

00:45 We've also heard from the cattle and dairy industries, a number of representatives from

00:49 those industries who spoke about the pricing that they are seeing at the sale yards and

00:55 how that isn't correlating to what consumers are getting at the supermarket shelves. But

01:01 while all this was going on, there was quite extraordinary scenes when two federal MP,

01:06 independent MPs, Andrew Gee and Bob Catter, they were in the process of announcing plans

01:11 to introduce a bill to Parliament next week that they believe would help reduce the market

01:17 share of coals and Woolworths, when an altercation broke out between National Senator Ross Caddell,

01:23 who is one of the parliamentarians who is on this committee looking at the supermarket

01:28 prices, which resulted in an altercation between Bob Catter and Mr Caddell. And this is some

01:34 of the scenes that we saw earlier.

01:35 You let me speak. Don't speak over me again. I'm warning you, don't speak over me. You

01:45 listen to this? This bloke won't shut up. He won't let anyone else have a say. And I

01:49 can understand why he won't let anyone else have a say. Don't keep interrupting me. Don't

01:55 keep interrupting me.

01:58 Yes, so quite extraordinary scenes that we saw downstairs from where the hearing is taking

02:04 place. Now that has, it was quite extraordinary and a number of the growers were there and

02:09 quite perplexed by what was going on, which was quite understandable given the shouting

02:13 match that eventuated. But that bill, which will be tabled to parliament next year, has

02:17 the support of 17 other independents who are on the crossbench, who are planning to see

02:23 these rules, these new laws introduced that they hope will reduce the market power that

02:27 coals and Woolworths has.

02:29 And Hamish, who else are we expected to hear from today and throughout the rest of the

02:32 week?

02:33 Yes, so this afternoon, we're expected to hear from irrigators and a number of other

02:40 peak bodies. This hearing, it will be concluding this afternoon before it heads to Melbourne

02:45 tomorrow, where a number of other peak bodies like the National Farmers Federation and AusVeg

02:52 will be speaking, along with some of the consumer groups like Choice will be explaining their

02:57 experiences with what they've seen with the power that these two major supermarkets have

03:01 and what that has meant for the prices for consumers. That is the only other hearing,

03:07 public hearing that has been announced so far, but there is expected to be additional

03:11 ones announced in the near future, Ros. But this committee will be hearing from further

03:16 experiences this afternoon and into tomorrow.

03:19 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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