Create powers to break up supermarkets: inquiry

WHAT THE COMMITTEE WANTS THE GOVERNMENT TO DO:

* Create divestiture powers for supermarkets if they have been found guilty of misusing their market power or engaging in unconscionable conduct

* Ban price gouging

* Establish a separate Commission on Prices and Competition which would examine price setting practices of supermarkets and other industries and review restrictions on effective competition which are leading to high prices

* Enable the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to investigate and prosecute unfair trading practices

* Make the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct mandatory, with penalties for breaches and protections against supplier retribution, by the end of September

* Include in the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct greenlife industries and any large retailers that stock food and/or grocery products

* Toughen merger restrictions, including mandatory notifications to the ACCC and reverse the onus so that companies have to prove that a merger would not lessen competition

* Give the ACCC powers to investigate and make recommendations to government on land banking in the supermarket sector

* Force supermarkets to standardise unit price information, stop promoting fake discounts and disclose changes in the price or size of a product

* Boost funding to the ACCC so it can properly regulate, investigate, enforce and prosecute competition policy matters and give it powers to compel whatever information it requires as part of its investigations

* Update the National Food Wastage Strategy to improve use-by and best-before labels and require regular data to be published on food waste volumes

* Call on supermarkets to protect employees from customer abuse

* Refer another committee to examine the role of multinational food manufacturers and Australia's 'big box' retailers - in particular Bunnings - in price setting

Australian Associated Press