Media Release

KAP Leader and Federal MP for Kennedy, Bob Katter will be moving laws in Parliament in response to the recent Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) legal proceedings against Coles Supermarkets Australia.

“The laws will enable the suppliers to get a fair deal for their produce,” Mr Katter said.

The laws will be based on the American Robinson–Patman Act 1936, that prohibits anti-competitive practices by producers, specifically price discrimination. This is in recent light of the ACCC legal proceedings launched against Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd and Grocery Holdings Pty Ltd (together, Coles), over its alleged treatment of suppliers.

“Laws like this will greatly relieve pressure on food, grocery and other supermarket suppliers,” Mr Katter said.

Mr Katter today welcomed the ACCC enquiry on the back of his own long line of initiatives to support supermarket suppliers, independent grocers and primary producers to get a fair go.

Mr Katter has been a staunch and vocal campaigner against the supermarket oligopoly and called for a code of conduct in his ‘20 point policy document’ put to the major parties during negotiations for the 2010 ‘hung parliament’.

Mr Katter has previously introduced the ‘Reducing Supermarket Dominance Bill 2013’ into the Parliament to ‘smash the supermarket giants’ stranglehold’.

Mr Katter said “Government needed to empower people against the corporate might of the supermarket oligopoly by legislating proposed laws to Parliament that make it illegal to hold more than 20 per cent market share”.

Mr Katter is confident that Liberal backbenchers will support the legislation as will a majority of the independent cross benchers.