Bunnings will be grilled on how it treats suppliers with a spotlight on increasing corporate competition to lower prices as Australians struggle with the cost of living.<\/p>\n
Senior executives from the major hardware chain have been recalled to appear before a Senate inquiry that examined supermarkets to increase competition and put downward pressure on prices at the checkout.<\/p>\n
Bunnings will need to explain why it should not be covered by the industry\u2019s code of conduct, given it sells more and more grocery-type items.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking anti-competition, at pressure and influence on suppliers and treatment of smaller guys,\u201d Nationals senator Ross Cadell, who sits on the committee, told AAP.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey sent some PR spinners to the inquiry instead of people with answers, so we want to see where that leads.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was no date for the hearing but it was set to be held before Christmas, he said.<\/p>\n
The government announced a mandatory code of conduct for how supermarkets treat suppliers, with fines of up to $10 million for breaches but Bunnings argued it should not be covered due to the broad range of non-grocery items it sells.<\/p>\n
Nursery suppliers previously told the committee of pressures put on them by Bunnings to sell plants below cost price, with an underlying fear of retribution if they did not comply.<\/p>\n
Bunnings told the inquiry, while not perfect, it was committed to building strong relationships with them to help their businesses grow.<\/p>\n
The federal government is also working to tackle competition policy as prices soar, releasing a consultation paper to hear from consumers about how it should tackle the issue.<\/p>\n
Healthy competition improved small businesses by levelling the playing field, the paper said.<\/p>\n
This was crucial for the 2.5 million small operators that made up 97 per cent of Australian businesses, it said.<\/p>\n
The 1995 principles resulted in an agreement from governments not to restrict competition by introducing new laws and cut red tape, including removing restrictions on trading hours.<\/p>\n
Energy and gas markets were opened to competition in most states and territories to help small businesses shop around for better deals and lower prices.<\/p>\n
But the economy had changed over three decades and the principles needed to be fit for purpose, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.<\/p>\n
The government was developing a new framework to respond to \u201cnew players, new markets and new disruptions of the modern world\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
The paper will inform a 10 year competition reform agenda and look at the best way to remove unnecessary and rigid barriers.<\/p>\n
The consultation process is open until September 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bunnings will be grilled on how it treats suppliers with a spotlight on increasing corporate competition to lower prices as Australians struggle with the cost of living. Senior executives from the major hardware chain have been recalled to appear before a Senate inquiry that examined supermarkets to increase competition and put downward pressure on prices […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4361,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-breaking-news"],"views":66,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4362,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359\/revisions\/4362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}