Page 4407 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 14 October 2009
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On the north side, we know that Dickson has been identified. Dickson clearly is a group centre with one of the highest-turnover Woolies, I believe, in the country. There is clearly a lot of demand there, and no doubt the good people of the inner north, and indeed Gungahlin, who access Dickson shops would like to see competition there and prices pushed down.
So there are a number of things worth supporting. There are also a number of things that need to be clarified and issues that need to be examined further, and I think that is the process we will now undertake. It is worth looking at some of the comments around, for instance, Kingston. We know that there is a push to have a large supermarket in Kingston. The question will be: what kind of process is put in place to ensure that the people of the inner south get a good deal when that occurs? I understand Woolworths have sought informal clearance from the ACCC to enable them to participate in any future sale process for the Kingston car park site.
After a 40-day assessment the ACCC noted that Woolworths does not own another site within five kilometres of the Kingston site and said:
The ACCC considered the possibility that if Woolworths does not acquire the site another supermarket operator may open a store at this site. Such an entrant may compete effectively and increase competition within the local market. However, the ACCC did not consider that the difference between the state of competition if Woolworths acquires the site and the likely level of competition without the transaction was sufficient to constitute a substantial lessening of competition.
On the issue of Woolworths opening a Giralang store, the ACCC stated:
The ACCC considered that the proposed acquisition was unlikely to substantially lessen competition in any relevant market. In forming this view, the ACCC noted that by establishing a new supermarket in Giralang Woolworths would be adding to the number of supermarkets competing in the local area and would be likely to continue to face competition in that area.
It is worth reflecting on Giralang and the experience there in relation to the proposed Woolworths which was rejected. We are getting really mixed messages across the government on competition policy even as they relate to supermarkets. On the one hand, they say they want competition, but they are knocking over supermarkets. No doubt the people of Giralang would have been very pleased to have a Woolworths at their local shops, but that opportunity was denied them. The ACCC has stated that it actually would have increased competition in the area rather than lessened it. So we are getting some mixed messages from the government. The government’s record on competition policy is poor across the board, and indeed we have seen that with the decision in Giralang. We saw a decision to knock back a Woolworths. The people of Giralang lost out, and there is indeed less competition in the area.
We have seen a number of stakeholder views. An excerpt from ABC online states:
But NARGA CEO Ken Henrick says he is worried about the restrictions on new entrants to the ACT market.
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