For the consumer, fuelling up and getting the groceries
are the bare necessities and fuel shopper dockets have been
softening the blow of fuel prices or "a huge help to families
balancing household budgets" as Woolies CEO Grant O'Brien
retorted to the ACCC's latest attack on
ColeWorths.
Anti-competitive conduct
What is all the fuss about? Well, its slightly confusing as the
ACCC is canvassing a number of potential competition law breaches
so that whichever way you look at it, the supermarket giants are
ripping everyone off. On the one hand it's alleged they are
engaging in predatory pricing to drive out other petrol pump
competitors by selling petrol below cost. On the other hand the
ACCC is looking into whether the pair have been colluding over
petrol prices. In tandem with this conduct is the jacking up of
grocery prices to make up for the crosssubsidising losses on
petrol. The formula is basically, the more I fill up my trolley,
the more likely I will go fill
