Woolworths chief Brad Banducci’s ominous temper flare

Sims has no doubt been called far, far worse (he is retired from the ACCC, though fairly recently). But what can we deduce from this encounter, if not that Banducci is a man still not entirely acclimatised to direct challenge? At best, one would hope the experience is good practice. God knows he’ll need it.

A committee of the Senate is shortly to interrogate the supermarket chiefs, chaired by the aforementioned McKim, who’s sure to ask about Banducci’s salary, which he’ll contrast to Woolworth’s criminal worker underpayment charges, before pivoting to competition policy and anything else he can think of likely to push the CEO’s buttons.

And that’s not all Banducci has to look forward to.

Sims’ successor, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, is conducting a review into prices and competition in the sector, while the government has tapped Craig Emerson to review the effectiveness of the grocery code of conduct, which governs the supermarkets’ treatment of their suppliers.

Three separate state parliaments – in Queensland, South Australia and Victoria – have announced their own inquiries into the supermarkets. The ACTU has its own material courtesy of an inquiry chaired by ex-ACCC chief Allan Fels. And that’s before we consider the heightened odds of totally confected political storms, like that that surrounded Woolworths’ commercial decision to stop stocking Australia Day merchandise, which Banducci apologised for (hey, what else could he do …).

The thing about all this fire and brimstone though is that Coles and Woolworths make for rather constrained duopolists, obsessed as both are with their public image. Which they’d do better at keeping glossy if customers could decide between shedding tears for hard-done-by suppliers or lamenting their grocery bills.

Speaking of: grocery prices are up 4.6 per cent a year since the pandemic, which is less than grocery inflation in most other major economies, while costs to the supermarkets like wages, rents, electricity and insurance have grown at least twice as fast. Yes, profits are up, but not markedly so (though we’ll have newer figures when both report half-year results).

And Four Corners’ other scoop, judging by its reporting ahead of the program, is about Coles demanding a supplier compensate it for raising its prices. This is a sign both of Coles’ sheer market power but also an example of it using this power to discourage price rises instead of promoting them.

None of this will save Banducci or Coles’ Leah Weckert from an absolute pasting their PR advisers are working overtime to avoid. And imagine their material. “Lesson No. 1: you can’t storm out of the Senate, no matter what they say to you. Seriously, I must stress how important that is … Did you get that one Brad?”