Grocery chains face fines in Australia over pricing, PM warns

David Stringer, Bloomberg News on Mar 29, 2025

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Grocery retailers in Australia would face major fines for inflating prices or offering bogus discounts under proposed government reforms.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, facing an election in May focused on cost-of-living pressures, aims to introduce legislation to prohibit excessive pricing and strengthen consumer protections.

Australia’s competition regulator earlier this month criticized the “oligopolistic market structure” in the country’s grocery sector. The regulator said then that the two largest supermarket chains, Woolworths Group Ltd. and Coles Group Ltd. — which control about two-thirds of sales — have little incentive to compete.

“They are being watched, they know that the government is prepared to take strong action and crack down,” Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television Sunday. “If they are ripping people off, then they are in the gun to pay a heavy penalty for it.”

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission’s inquiry called for greater transparency from supermarkets on pricing, though stopped short of recommending any regulation or a forced breakup of the major chains.

Australia’s opposition Liberal Party would favor the introduction of “targeted divestment powers,” Sen. James Paterson told the ABC. “We can have that last-resort power, which will be a very tough incentive.”