(Above: aux armes, citoynes, as we fight grocery price rises. Remember to arm yourselves - we recommend the cork pop gun. Ah, the good old days of the cork pop gun).
The ongoing stupidity of the Murdoch press continues to dazzle and astonish.
At a hearing of the Senate economics committee inquiry into the website in Melbourne yesterday, Australian Retailers Association executive director Russell Zimmerman said the website also did nothing to achieve the government's aim of putting downward pressure on grocery prices.
The $13 million website aimed to fulfil a government election promise to improve competition in the grocery sector and ease pressure on household budgets...
...Margy Osmond, chief executive of the Australian National Retailers Association which represents the Coles, Woolworths and Franklins supermarket chains, said the main retailers supported moves to give more information to shoppers but the site had not lived up to the government's promises.
Australians are paying the fastest-rising food prices of any major developed nation.
The cost of feeding a family has shot up more than 40 per cent this decade, new OECD figures reveal.
That is a quarter quicker than prices have risen in Britain, twice as fast as in France and nearly three times the speed at which German groceries have increased, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Experts say the explanation for our pricey produce and soaring staples is not drought, currency movements or transport costs.
University of NSW associate professor Frank Zumbo said comparing costs over 10 years eliminated such variables and exposed our "cosy" supermarket duopoly as the main reason.
"When you look internationally, it is our market concentration which explains why our grocery prices are rising faster," he said.
But Woolworths says there's plenty of competition in the market.
"We don't believe we have too much power," Woolworths' James Aylen told the Seven Network. "We actually think the Australian market is very competitive.
There is growing criticism of the Rudd Government's failure to deliver on its promise to put more pressure on supermarket chains through price monitoring.
In June the Government canned an expanded and more detailed version of tracking website Grocery Choice - five days before it was due to launch. Now there is no way for consumers to compare prices.
"You can find out the cost of flights from Timbuktu to Bogota on a Tuesday but you can't find out the price of Vegemite in your local Woolies, unless it's on special," said Christopher Zinn of Choice, which was to run the new Grocery Choice.
The old version was operated by the ACCC.
At the time of killing off Grocery Choice, Consumer Affairs Minister Craig Emerson raised the possibility of the supermarket industry developing its own site. "We've heard nothing about that since," Mr Zinn said.
The Australian National Retailers Association - of which Woolworths and Coles are members - said discussions were taking place but there was no plan for an industry-run price-tracking site.
Lone Ranger: I want to ask a small favor.
Friend: What is it?
Lone Ranger: Do you think you could mold silver for me?
Friend: I reckon I could do so on this stove. What do you want me to mold?
Lone Ranger: Bullets.
Friend: Silver bullets?! Doesn't lead kill good enough?
Lone Ranger: I told you, I don't shoot to kill. I want a silver bullet to be a symbol of justice.
About the only thing that could match or exceed the visible level of stupidity is those who take the Murdoch press seriously.
You might recall that not so long ago, the federal government abandoned its website Grocery Choice.
Way back when the hacks quickly fell into line. Here's Michael Costas with Not so super markets. Remember Michael Costa? One time Labor personality who became a neo neo con in The Australian?
Sigh, loon pond feels so empty without his squawking:
The decision by Kevin Rudd and Consumer Affairs Minister Craig Emerson to scrap the federal government's ill-conceived Grocery Choice website has to be applauded.
Grocery Choice was a political stunt that was inevitably bound to backfire on the government ...
Emerson, having worked as an adviser to Bob Hawke, saw first-hand the importance of sensible market reform. Having inherited the portfolio from Chris Bowen, who with no doubt an eye to promotion, appears to have become enamoured with Rudd's anti-market rhetoric, Emerson would have realised the potential political disaster Grocery Choice was.
The failure of Grocery Choice will, for political purposes, no doubt be blamed on the major supermarket chains. The reality is that with or without the co-operation of these supermarket chains, this was a ham-fisted way to address retail competition.
Thereafter the Murdoch press was happy to fall into line with the "We will bury you" philosophies of Woolworths and the like, reporting the twaddle presented by the retailers without a quibble, as Grocery Choice site a money-waster:
Grocery Choice was a political stunt that was inevitably bound to backfire on the government ...
Emerson, having worked as an adviser to Bob Hawke, saw first-hand the importance of sensible market reform. Having inherited the portfolio from Chris Bowen, who with no doubt an eye to promotion, appears to have become enamoured with Rudd's anti-market rhetoric, Emerson would have realised the potential political disaster Grocery Choice was.
The failure of Grocery Choice will, for political purposes, no doubt be blamed on the major supermarket chains. The reality is that with or without the co-operation of these supermarket chains, this was a ham-fisted way to address retail competition.
Thereafter the Murdoch press was happy to fall into line with the "We will bury you" philosophies of Woolworths and the like, reporting the twaddle presented by the retailers without a quibble, as Grocery Choice site a money-waster:
The federal government's Grocery Choice website was flawed from the outset and unable to provide shoppers with meaningful price comparisons, a Senate committee has heard.
At a hearing of the Senate economics committee inquiry into the website in Melbourne yesterday, Australian Retailers Association executive director Russell Zimmerman said the website also did nothing to achieve the government's aim of putting downward pressure on grocery prices.
The $13 million website aimed to fulfil a government election promise to improve competition in the grocery sector and ease pressure on household budgets...
Not lived up to the government's promises? No one ever saw the site in its revised form. It was killed quicker than you'd slaughter the chooks in an abattoir days before launch.
The main retailers are supporting moves to give more information to shoppers about a cosy duopoly? Oh go jerk my chain.
Then suddenly only this week, the Murdoch press discovered a front page catastrophe. Australia has the fastest-rising food prices of any major developed nation.
Suddenly the Murdoch press discovered Choice, and were quoting them, and golly, even mourning the loss of the site.
But first the shock horror news for a traumatized nation:
Australians are paying the fastest-rising food prices of any major developed nation.
The cost of feeding a family has shot up more than 40 per cent this decade, new OECD figures reveal.
That is a quarter quicker than prices have risen in Britain, twice as fast as in France and nearly three times the speed at which German groceries have increased, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Experts say the explanation for our pricey produce and soaring staples is not drought, currency movements or transport costs.
University of NSW associate professor Frank Zumbo said comparing costs over 10 years eliminated such variables and exposed our "cosy" supermarket duopoly as the main reason.
"When you look internationally, it is our market concentration which explains why our grocery prices are rising faster," he said.
But Woolworths says there's plenty of competition in the market.
"We don't believe we have too much power," Woolworths' James Aylen told the Seven Network. "We actually think the Australian market is very competitive.
Sure, and I believe in Santa Claus.
Mr Aylen said Woolworths' internal figures showed grocery prices were beginning to fall.
"So we'll continue to work with our suppliers to try and make sure we can offer the most competitive prices within the Australian market."
Mr Aylen said Woolworths' internal figures showed grocery prices were beginning to fall.
"So we'll continue to work with our suppliers to try and make sure we can offer the most competitive prices within the Australian market."
Is that why Woolworths were so active, and successful, in burying the proposed Choice operated website? Competitive prices? Oh go jerk my chain.
Oh and as for that lost website, bring out the sighs and the tears:
There is growing criticism of the Rudd Government's failure to deliver on its promise to put more pressure on supermarket chains through price monitoring.
In June the Government canned an expanded and more detailed version of tracking website Grocery Choice - five days before it was due to launch. Now there is no way for consumers to compare prices.
"You can find out the cost of flights from Timbuktu to Bogota on a Tuesday but you can't find out the price of Vegemite in your local Woolies, unless it's on special," said Christopher Zinn of Choice, which was to run the new Grocery Choice.
The old version was operated by the ACCC.
At the time of killing off Grocery Choice, Consumer Affairs Minister Craig Emerson raised the possibility of the supermarket industry developing its own site. "We've heard nothing about that since," Mr Zinn said.
The Australian National Retailers Association - of which Woolworths and Coles are members - said discussions were taking place but there was no plan for an industry-run price-tracking site.
As usual, the consumer sold a pup with fleas and worms, and at the time a compliant media rolled over and scratched the back of the duopolists.
Funny that. Chairman Rupert isn't above being a duopolist himself, and wanting to remove evil competition from the intertubes wherever he can find it and smite it. (But where would he and we be without Google?)
Now it seems that scores - scores I tells ya - of indignant consumers are joining in a feral campaign to track retail grocery prices. Cue John Rolfe showing how its done by the private sector, showing those cardigan wearers at Choice the way forward, as he launches Tele Grocery Choice - will you help track food prices?
Tele grocery! Yep, that's the name of the game, and the modus operandi of this 'tele choice' is fragmented populism, destined to be ineffective, and designed only to make people feel good about doing 'something', by way of the Murdoch press, as opposed to a properly funded website with real grunt and real capacity to track prices and inform consumers.
'Grocery vigilantes' is the delusional term these clowns have selected as evocative of their mission, without seeming to realize that playing with toy six shooters and cork pop guns doesn't cut the mustard up against the big boys. Who've already neutered any potential trouble makers, and no doubt will be quite happy for this mindless piece of idle consumerism to play out amongst the disgruntled and disempowered.
Well I guess John Rolfe is only making a living, but why is it that a real consumer association - Choice - is degutted by the government, and then an ersatz piece of posturing in the tabloids is celebrated as taking it up to big business? When they're part of a duopolistic system, finding it hard to make a living in these troubled newspaper times (unless you happen to live in states with mainstreeam monopolies, such as SA). Unhappily no longer cozy, unlike the food retailing game ...
Time to revise an old saw. Instead of you can only fool some of the people some of the time, grocery retailers, and the tabloid Murdoch press cheerfully operate on the principle that you can fool a lot of the people a lot of the time.
Put it another way. Here's how to help out in your battle against the local Woolworths or Coles. Take one snowball, and throw it into the fires of hell. Take another and do the same until your supply of snowballs is exhausted. Then go piss in the wind.
Or perhaps shop elsewhere, even if it costs a little more. Or join Choice, if you want to repair some of the collateral damage inflicted by Chairman Rudd and his gang. Or remonstrate with your local member about the ongoing failure of nerve of the Labor government, and a Liberal opposition who see their mission as to keep you supplied with snowballs.
But whatever you do, don't take the Murdoch press seriously. Because then you'll be a mug compounded by being a fool.
Grocery vigilantes! Hi ho, Silver, away. A fiery computer with the speed of light, a cloud of digital dust, and a hearty hi ho Silver away. The Lone Ranger. Who was that masked man? I don't know, some call him John Rolfe, but I've heard him called the Lone Ranger.
And now listeners, we pause for a word from our sponsor, coming to you from a secret silver mine:
Lone Ranger: I want to ask a small favor.
Friend: What is it?
Lone Ranger: Do you think you could mold silver for me?
Friend: I reckon I could do so on this stove. What do you want me to mold?
Lone Ranger: Bullets.
Friend: Silver bullets?! Doesn't lead kill good enough?
Lone Ranger: I told you, I don't shoot to kill. I want a silver bullet to be a symbol of justice.
Golly, better duck off to Woollies and see if they've got any silver.
(And remember vigilante grocery dudes, a water pistol will also help teach the miscreants a lesson. Perhaps you should also don a mask, and a couple of toy six shooters, held by a handsome black leather belt bestudded with plastic bullets).
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