Andrew Leigh says new evidence shows market concentration has gone up
Competition minister Andrew Leigh just spoke with ABC RN about, you guessed it, competition.
Speaking about supermarket prices and concentration in particular, Leigh said he is worried that Australia’s market concentration has “increased over recent decades”.
We’ve got evidence now from very good micro data, which wasn’t available a few years back, that market concentration has gone up, that markups have increased – that is the gap between costs and prices – and that there’s less job switching than there was in the past which is a problem, because switching jobs is one of the best ways people boost their wages. All of that points to a less dynamic economy, and maybe one of the reasons why we just had the lousiest decade of productivity growth in the post-war era.
Asked about a potential mandatory code for supermarkets – which has been floated by head of the government’s inquiry into price gouging, Craig Emerson – Leigh said he would wait for the recommendations of the review.
And asked about the potential for a forced breakup of the major supermarket chains, Leigh seemed to shoot down this idea.
It’s not a priority that we’re focusing on at the moment.
Earlier in the week, Nationals leader David Littleproud suggested some big supermarkets should be stripped of their chains or “sold off to competitors to increase competition”.
Key events
Total fire bans across Southern Australia; Melbourne to reach top of 38C
Much of southern Australia is under a total fire ban today, with extreme fire danger ratings across some regions.
In Victoria there are total fire bans in place in the Central region – which includes Melbourne – as well as the North Central, South West, Northern Country, Wimmera and Mallee districts.
Each of these regions have an extreme fire danger rating. Melbourne is forecast to reach a top of 38C today, with winds up to 50km/h.
Today a Total Fire Ban has been declared for Mallee, Wimmera, South West, Northern Country, North Central and Central.
No fires can be lit, or be allowed to remain alight, in the open air from 12:01 AM until 11:59 PM. Know what you can and can’t do – https://t.co/qTT4P4ne58 pic.twitter.com/FSdSBqB3qt
— cfa_updates (@CFA_Updates) February 21, 2024
Meanwhile the South Australian CFA has declared total fire bans across the Mid North, Riverland, Murraylands, Upper South East and Lower South East districts – which all have an extreme fire danger rating.
Adelaide is forecast to reach a max of 33C today, with winds up to 30km/h in the afternoon.
The Tasmanian Fire Service has imposed a total fire ban across the southern half of the state from 2am Thursday to 2am Saturday, with Hobart forecast to reach a max of 36C today.
And in Western Australia a total fire ban is in place east of Perth, from Chittering down to Donnybrook-Balingup. Perth is forecast to reach a top of 34C today.
Woolworths CEO’s resignation ‘admission of guilt’ on price-gouging by supermarket: Littleproud
Nationals leader David Littleproud is continuing his push for the government to consider divesting supermarket giants to boost competition.
Speaking to Sunrise this morning, he argued that the resignation of Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci yesterday was effectively an “admission of guilt” by Woolworths that “they have been price gouging”.
This is straight out of the corporate playbook. Have a fall guy, nothing to see here, give him a golden handshake at $20m-plus, install somebody that was part of the former regime so it is business as usual. Business should not be as usual.
Littleproud wants the government to implement divesting powers if supermarkets do the wrong thing:
[Competition minister Andrew Leigh] said you only need them in rare occasions. That’s what penalties and punitive penalties are all about, to be a deterrent. If you’re not going to put a deterrent- in fact he even turned his back on his own review, the Craig Emerson review, not even going to allow that to be recommended in the Emerson review. So the government has been asleep at the wheel.
Government isn’t valuing ‘what we get back’ after seeing a doctor, Royal Australasian College of GPs president says
President of the Royal Australasian College of GPs, Dr Nicole Higgins, is speaking to ABC RN about the loss of hundreds of fully subsidised GP clinics over the past year.
Australia has lost more than 400 dedicated bulk-billing GP clinics in the past year, with some electorates experiencing an almost 30% decline, according to an analysis of a government health services register.
This was revealed by The Guardian, and you can read more from Natasha May and Nick Evershed on this below:
Speaking to RN, Higgins said the government is spending “less than ever” on general practice and the Medicare rebate has “dropped significantly” – meaning “GPs can’t afford to continue to subsidise patient care”.
We’re hearing more and more practice closures … all of this is combining to put huge pressures on general practice at a time when Medicare has been devalued and defunded by successive governments … I think we now need to say why doesn’t the government value what we get back when we go and see the doctor?
… We’re now at a state where the government spends more money on medicines than it does on general practice for the first time, so we really need to think about how we fund things.
Andrew Leigh says new evidence shows market concentration has gone up
Competition minister Andrew Leigh just spoke with ABC RN about, you guessed it, competition.
Speaking about supermarket prices and concentration in particular, Leigh said he is worried that Australia’s market concentration has “increased over recent decades”.
We’ve got evidence now from very good micro data, which wasn’t available a few years back, that market concentration has gone up, that markups have increased – that is the gap between costs and prices – and that there’s less job switching than there was in the past which is a problem, because switching jobs is one of the best ways people boost their wages. All of that points to a less dynamic economy, and maybe one of the reasons why we just had the lousiest decade of productivity growth in the post-war era.
Asked about a potential mandatory code for supermarkets – which has been floated by head of the government’s inquiry into price gouging, Craig Emerson – Leigh said he would wait for the recommendations of the review.
And asked about the potential for a forced breakup of the major supermarket chains, Leigh seemed to shoot down this idea.
It’s not a priority that we’re focusing on at the moment.
Earlier in the week, Nationals leader David Littleproud suggested some big supermarkets should be stripped of their chains or “sold off to competitors to increase competition”.
Andrew Wilkie supports Julian Assange at London hearing
Last night, Independent MP Andrew Wilkie shared a photo from London, where he has travelled to support Julian Assange during his hearing, attempting to appeal his extradition to the US.
He wrote on X:
In London to support Julian Assange’s hearing on whether he can appeal his extradition to the US. Julian’s extradition would strike at the very heart of free speech [and] democracy. Enough is enough. The US must drop the extradition of Julian Assange.
In London to support Julian Assange’s hearing on whether he can appeal his extradition to the US. Julian’s extradition would strike at the very heart of free speech & democracy. Enough is enough. The US must drop the extradition of Julian Assange. #FreeAssageNow #auspol #politas pic.twitter.com/j3zpbpORI3
— Andrew Wilkie MP (@WilkieMP) February 21, 2024
But what is at stake in the two-day hearing in the high court in London this week? And what is the Australian government doing behind the scenes to try to reach a political breakthrough? Daniel Hurst and Haroon Siddique have answered these questions below:
Is Taylor Swift’s boyfriend about to land down under?
Reports are abounding this morning that Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce, is on his way to Australia – and due to land in just over an hour.
This comes as Swift has been making the rounds in Sydney ahead of her sold-out shows this weekend, hitting up Sydney Zoo and Nobu, a restaurant inside Crown Towers.
TMZ reported that Kelce grabbed dinner in LA (also at Nobu!) before flying to Hawaii for a pit stop, and then continuing the journey to Australia.
Avid Swifties have been tracking the flight path of a private jet, which says Kelce is due to arrive in Sydney at 8.31am AEDT – unless of course, we are tracking the jet of some random businessman!
The entire scenario has been the cause of much speculation, as Swift’s own private jet – the topic of much debate – flew to Honolulu on Tuesday, making people believe it was picking Kelce up.
Kelce would be arriving into Sydney just off the back of his big Super Bowl win on 11 February. Swift departed Vegas for her Melbourne leg of the Eras tour shortly after the Super Bowl wrapped up.
Fire breaks out at Melbourne reception centre
Settlement Road in Thomastown, Melbourne, is closed as a structure fire continues to burn.
3AW is reporting that the Emerald Reception Centre has caught fire.
VicEmergency issued a message for residents in Bundoora, Reservoir and Thomastown about 6.30am AEDT, and said emergency services will remain in the area.
There is no immediate threat to the community and no action is required.
Tamsin Rose
First NSW road safety forum begins today
Road safety experts from around the world will meet with advocates and victims of road trauma at the first New South Wales road safety forum being held today.
Almost 100 people will come together in person and online to discuss ways to improve road safety in NSW.
The forum was set up to address the state’s road toll that has increased since Covid.
Roads minister, John Graham, said:
Road fatalities have increased across Australia and many parts of the world after Covid. This forum is an opportunity to tap into the best ideas to counter that trend and make sure everyone gets home to their loved ones every time.
The enhanced sharing and use of data around road crashes is an important element in improving safety in NSW and other states.
Emily Wind
Good morning, and happy Thursday. I’m Emily Wind and I’ll be with you on the blog today – thanks to Martin for kicking things off!
If you see something that needs our attention, you can get in touch via X, @emilywindwrites or send me an email: emily.wind@theguardian.com.
Let’s get started.
Qantas to deliver first earnings report under new CEO
Qantas will deliver its first earnings report under chief executive Vanessa Hudson today, a day after the airline announced a new chairperson, AAP reports.
Hudson took over from Alan Joyce in September when the high-profile chief executive moved forward his retirement after becoming a figure of controversy.
The airline had weathered a high court loss over illegal job outsourcing, allegations it sold tickets for cancelled flights and news of executive pay increases amid mass Covid-19 redundancies.
Qantas Group is today due to release its financial results for the first half of the 2023/24 financial year.
Hudson has called a press conference at Sydney airport in a hanger beside one of the airline’s new A220 aircraft.
Her appearance will follow Wednesday’s naming of business executive John Mullen as the next Qantas chairman, effective before the Qantas annual general meeting in October.
First-time buyers face mortgage stress – Domain
First home buyers are more likely to face mortgage stress thanks to higher interest rates but it’s also a better time to be saving for a deposit.
Two months have been shaved off the time it takes a couple to buy an entry-priced house and one month for units compared with this time in 2023.
The average couple is now putting 42.2% of their total income towards mortgage repayments on an entry-priced home and 28.8% on a unit.
The mortgage stress threshold is crossed in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart and Perth, with Darwin falling just shy of the cut-off.
The Domain chief of research and economics, Nicola Powell, said there were still major challenges facing first home buyers.
“The stretched mortgage serviceability highlights the dual effect of high cash rates on first-home buyers,” Powell said.
South-east Australia faces extreme fire warnings
Temperatures are expected to top 40C in parts of Victoria today, with storms bringing 80km/h winds and dry lightning into the afternoon.
Extreme fire warnings have been also issued in South Australia and Tasmania.
Total fire bans have been declared for six Victorian regions, with the Mallee, Wimmera, Northern Country, North Central, South West and Central districts all facing an extreme fire danger rating.
“Last Tuesday’s conditions represented the worst fire risk day Victoria had experienced since the 2019/20 fire season,” CFA chief officer Jason Heffernan said. “The fire threat is far from over.”
Tasmania Fire Service has initiated a Hot Day Response across the state and a total fire ban in southern Tasmania.
South Australia’s Country Fire Service has declared an extreme fire risk in the Eastern Eyre Peninsula, the Mid North and the Murraylands.
Last week’s bushfires in the Grampians national park in western Victoria destroyed 46 properties and razed more than 6,000ha of bush and farmland.
Western Australia has total fire bans in place for multiple regions as well as in the area around the Eyre Highway between Norseman and Caiguna.
In Perth, the arson squad is investigating if a flare sparked a bushfire that threatened homes and patrons at an ice skating rink and a theme park in the city’s south.
People in Adventure World and Cockburn Ice Arena in Bibra Lake were told to shelter in place late on Tuesday as the blaze ripped through seven hectares of bushland.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our rolling news coverage. I’m Martin Farrer and I’ll be bringing you the best of the overnight stories before my colleague is ready to pick up.
Australia has lost hundreds of dedicated bulk-billing GP clinics in the past year, according to our analysis of official data, in a trend one medical expert says is undermining the “universality of Medicare”. The steepest falls have been in Brisbane and Perth, and you can use our interactive maps embedded in the story to find out what’s happening in your area.
The highway link across the Nullabor in Western Australia has been closed as a fire burns out of control, with travellers urged to reconsider their plans in coming days. In the east, Victoria’s emergency services are preparing for more perilous weather conditions a week after bushfires and storms razed properties and left 500,000 homes and businesses in the dark. There are extreme fire danger warnings for six of the state’s eight regions and the mercury is forecast to tip over 40C in 12 towns across the state, with Melbourne expecting 38C before a late cool change.
New South Wales police last night charged a 49-year-old taekwondo instructor with three counts of murder after a family of three were found dead in western Sydney on Monday. Police allege he assaulted the woman, 41, and the child with “murderous intent” at Lion’s Taekwondo Martial Arts Academy in North Parramatta on Monday night and then drove her white BMW to Baulkham Hills and fatally stabbed her husband and father of the child, before taking the car to hospital where he presented with stabbing injuries. We’ll have the latest developments.