With the big two supermarket chains, Coles and Woolworths controlling 67% of food sales in Australia, and given their track record of proven price manipulation, and excessive profiteering ($2.86 billion 2025/26) is it not time their strangle hold on the essential food market was broken.

The Greens have proposed that the government become involved in the supermarket business, through the public acquisition of 200 C & W stores (re-badged Fair Go Grocers) and 3 distribution centres, with a plan to build 400 plus new stores. The Green Institute’s proposal aims to cut household food bills by 22%, or about A$60 a week for an average four-person household. The institute claims Fair Go Grocers could become self-funding within six years. Like the essentials of health and education, food supply is too important to be left in the hands of a couple of unscrupulous private players.

Let's do that - just like the old Soviet Union, where their government owned shops specialised in empty shelves because governments are no good at business. What a bloody stupid idea!

Hi ttbn,

Other than your negativity, do you have anything positive to say, or are YOU willing to accept the status quo. We could cut the aged welfare payment by $60 week, and pay a food bonus to 2.7 million struggling Australian families.

AND, that old chestnut; "look at the Soviet Union" it has been done to death, a totally different set of circumstance existed there, which has no relevance to Australia.

Of course the idea of Soviet-style supermarkets is the brain fart of the Green Institute and the Australian Greens party itself, whose ambitious new leader intends to ‘replace Labor’ . They probably got the idea from the Communist lunatic New York mayor, who hasn't got the system operating yet.

"A$60 a week for an average four-person household."

$60/week. Woohoo. Households can put the savings in the same place they put the $275 they saved on electricity that Albo promised (pinky swear, cross my heart).

And the $60 will be just a fictitious as the $275.

How do we know its fictitious...
"The Green Institute’s proposal aims to cut household food bills by 22%"

22%!! According to the ACCC, the gross earnings by Coles/Woolworths on sales is at best 6%. That is, after paying for everything to the supplier, wages, power, maintenance, administration and so forth, they make 6% on each sale. After taxes and interest payments (which a government subsidised boondoggle wouldn't necessarily have to pay) they make around 1.5% on sales. So the 22% is a fiction.....that many of our innumerate friends will fall for.

Hi Paul

The Greens seem to have borrowed this idea from New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who proposes taxpayer-funded grocery stores there. I doubt it will work in New York. It is even less likely to work here.

Coles and Woolworths dominate our food retail sector mostly because they have efficient supply chains and economies of scale which mean they can sell a wider range of goods at lower prices than smaller rivals. Their profits may be huge in dollar terms but so are their sales – profit margins are quite low, and their business model is to take a fairly small percentage of a very large dollar turnover. They can and do face competition in big population centres – in my local suburban shopping centre there is an Aldi and large independent supermarket as well as Coles and Woolworths, and there are three IGAs nearby as well as numerous small grocers. There are almost no legal bars on competition. If private competitors struggle to match Colesworth on price, range and quality, it is extremely unlikely that a government supermarket could do so.

That’s not to say government can do nothing to improve outcomes for consumers. The Productivity Commission recently investigated the supermarket sector and made several recommendations that would improve competition (for example limiting the ability of Coles and Woolworths to buy and hold land for future development) and the transparency and accuracy of pricing information. These are more likely to benefit city-dwellers than government-run supermarkets.
http://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/supermarkets-inquiry_1.pdf

The situation in small country towns and remote communities is quite different. There is limited scope for competition so even a small local store has monopoly power; there is less scope to offer a wide range of products; and costs such as transport and overheads are relatively high. The PC recommended that government consider support for local co-operative and community-run stores. I’m not sure government ownership is the answer – community-run organisations seem to do quite a good job. But in these cases, some government support may be warranted.