The Supermarket Duopoly.

Wesfarmer's honcho Richard Goyder has made a pre-emptive strike at the possibilty that an ACCC interest in breaking the supermarket duopoly in Australia (Coles and Woolies now reckoned to own a whopping +/-70% of the market) might be taken up by the new Abbott government. He claims any move to interfere with the present 'competition' set-up would rebound on consumers in the shape of higher prices.

As a shopper myself, I don't feel prices have dropped that much (if at all) since the resurrection of Coles. I reckon if you strip out the ridiculously false low prices they charge for market leading items like milk and bread etc ... then cost some of the blatant sucker deals like 15 cents a litre off petrol (which the big-hitters also largely control retail-wise)... I'm far from convinced we're not actually worse off than when Coles was on it's knees.

Whatever, they must be mightily concerned about the possibilty of a government investigation into alleged stifling of competition by the duopoly. One thing is certain.  Their main concern will not be centred on the welfare of customers!