ABA Concern Over Beef Section Dishonesty

AUSTRALIA - ABA Chairman, Brad Bellinger has written to Hon, Chris Bowen Minister for Consumer Affairs registering ABA's grave concern at the Beef Section of the ACCC Grocery.
calendar icon 20 August 2008
clock icon 2 minute read

He wrote that the section reflects either incompetence, collusion with the two major supermarkets, or both. He has asked for the Minister - the man who commissioned ACCC to do the work- to order an investigation into how it was compiled.

Mr Bellinger continued, 'The Beef Section is riddled with errors of fact, dodgy statistical data and ill informed assertions about the beef industry. Worse, is the ACCC's refusal to address facts presented by ABA that are backed by statistics compiled by Government agencies in Australia and the USA.

These figures clearly illustrate huge mark ups by the Australian supermarkets and a sharp decline in producer share since 2001, when Franklin's supermarkets were taken over. Their blind acceptance of some outrageous claims by the supermarkets has made a mockery of ACCC integrity. We would hope for similar treatment for the authors of such distortions of truth to that currently being applied by ACCC to one of Australia's biggest businessmen'.

Mr Bellinger said, 'The ABA is not going to 'let up' on bringing out the truth. We have succeeded in getting our unique supermarket duopoly 'mark up' rort into the World's media - more is to come'.

He concluded, 'Under Professor Alan Fells the ACCC built up a reputation, as a competent and impartial watchdog; - that reputation is now in tatters. Minister Bowen did a good thing when he commissioned the Inquiry; he now has a duty to pull the ACCC into line.

TheCattleSite News Desk

© 2000 - 2024 - Global Ag Media. All Rights Reserved | No part of this site may be reproduced without permission.