Govt dumps Grocery Choice website

The federal government has quietly dumped its Grocery Choice price-monitoring website.
It announced the decision late on Friday, only days before the unpopular initiative
was due to be relaunched.
The website faced criticism from its inception and last December independent
consumer group Choice took over responsibility for the project and its remaining $13
million budget.
Choice was shocked by the government decision, saying it was a bad day for
consumers. It was only told of the decision by industry players and the media.
Consumer Affairs Minister Craig Emerson made the announcement in a statement after a
meeting with major grocery retailers, saying it had become clear the aims of the
website were not feasible.
Supermarkets changed their prices, sometimes on an hourly basis, which made
compiling timely information about grocery prices a difficult task, Dr Emerson said.
"It was a good concept, I liked the idea ... that people would be able to shop
around but it only works if information is real and detailed," he told Fairfax
Radio, adding consumers would wrongly think they were getting accurate price
information.
Grocery Choice was one of the Rudd government's pre-election commitments, designed
to appease consumers who felt they were being ripped off amid skyrocketing food
prices.
Choice was due to relaunch the website on July 1.
"I am shocked and disappointed at the decision by the consumer minister to side with
supermarkets rather than consumers," Choice chief Nick Stace said.
"Supermarket prices are higher in Australia than many other developed countries and
Choice agreed to deliver Grocery Choice because we believed we could make a
difference for consumers."
Mr Stace said the decision to pull the website suggested supermarkets were worried
about losing their market power.
"Consumers (were to be) given up-to-date information on 1,000 products, rising to
5,000 within weeks," he said.
"To pull the site five days before launch shows that we were on the money and the
supermarkets are worried about losing out to consumer demands."
The coalition, which has long derided the initiative as a waste of money, said
taxpayers would bear the cost of the failed experiment.
Opposition consumer affairs spokesman Luke Hartsuyker criticised Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd for telling voters Labor would be able to put downward pressure on
grocery and fuel prices - yet Grocery Choice had now gone the way of FuelWatch,
which was torpedoed in the parliament.
His Liberal colleague Steve Ciobo, the opposition's small business spokesman, told
AAP it was good news for small retailers.
"This was always (an initiative) ... that gave the big grocers a massive advantage
over the small independents," he said.
But independent senator Nick Xenophon accused the government of giving up on
reducing the massive market power of Coles and Woolworths.
"By giving up on the scheme, the government is effectively giving up on making
things fairer for consumers and smaller supermarkets," he said.
This week, Senator Xenophon and Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce introduced a
private member's bill to end geographic price discrimination - where major chains
cut prices at outlets around independents but charge higher prices at other sites.
Major retailers applauded the government decision saying commonsense had finally
prevailed.
Australian Food and Grocery Council chief Kate Carnell said it was never going to be
feasible to compare thousands of prices across thousands of supermarkets in a timely
manner and with any degree of accuracy.
"The practice of constantly surveying food and grocery prices could have also
undermined competition by impacting on local price flexibility."
National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia chief executive Ken Henrick said
providing price data would have been a significant cost to retailers, which would
have been passed on to consumers.
Competition expert Frank Zumbo, from the University of NSW, said the website had
never delivered any meaningful information to taxpayers.