Oxfam Australia Media Release
As Coles Group and Woolworths announce their full-year profits for 2024, Oxfam Australia is calling for urgent action to address the growing inequality in Australia by better taxing the excessive profits of big corporations.
Oxfam Australia Chief Executive Officer Lyn Morgain highlighted the injustice of the supermarket duopoly’s profits as the cost-of-living crisis continues.
“It’s unacceptable that while everyday Australians are struggling to put food on the table, Woolworths and Coles continue to report staggering profits. It’s clear the Australian people are fed up with it. We need the government to step in and directly address the failures in the system that allow this toxic situation to continue,” said Ms Morgain.
Woolworths and Coles dominate the supermarket sector in Australia, holding a combined market share of 65.5%. The Allan Fels inquiry into price gouging revealed that market power and a lack of competition are driving up prices for consumers. Woolworths was also found to have misled customers with loyalty schemes and unclear discounting practices.
“While this year Coles and Woolworths did not generate the crisis profits spikes we saw in 2021 and 2022, they still raked in huge profits that many in the community are deeply concerned by with food prices so high.
“According to Oxfam analysis of profits made in 2021 and 2022, Woolworths alone raked in $5.6 billion in crisis profits, at the same time as inflation soared and the COVID19 pandemic and Ukraine war was at its peak. This high profit situation has moderated slightly, but not fundamentally changed, which is unacceptable,” she said.
Oxfam Australia is calling on the government to introduce a ‘crisis profits tax’ in preparation for the next cycle of crisis profits and a tax on excessive corporate profits, as recent Oxfam commissioned YouGov poll revealed that 80% of Australians believe it’s unfair to allow big corporations to exploit tax loopholes.
“A tax on the excessive profits of big supermarkets like Woolworths and Coles would not only discourage price gouging, but also help boost the budget during tough times and provide much-needed funds to address inequality and ease cost-of-living pressures,” said Ms Morgain.
“We welcome the Greens contribution to the debate on tax reform, particularly with respect to closing the tax loopholes for the mining industry and an excess profits tax in big corporations. We need bold proposals to make our tax system fairer, ensure we have more funding for public services and reduce the inequality created by unbridled and excessive corporate profits,” she said.
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Notes:
Crisis profits are defined as earnings significantly higher than what would have been achieved under normal conditions.
Read Oxfam Australia Cashing in on Crisis report.
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A realistic tax on the excessive profits of ALL big companies, not just the food sector, is what is desperately needed. Especially the companies that belong to other countries that rape and pillage our natural resources at the behest of our government. The oil and gas industry comes to mind very quicky. Having worked in it for many years I am well aware of the obscene profits they generate while contributing bugger all back to Australian taxpayers. Each new government allows this iinsane practice to continue because they don’t want to upset their puppet masters.
Yes John C, agree. But don’t forget our own oligarchs and aspiring oligarchs. The Oz tax system needs structural change asap, even though the systems surrounding it are slowly but surely being reformed, and there’s a head of steam building internationally to bring the multinationals and jurisdiction jumpers to heel.
I notice that TEMU advertise on this site – has anybody bought from TEMU, what was the experience like as regards timely delivery, quality of the goods etc ?
Terry, Google put the ads there. We don’t sell advertising space (though several gambling mobs keep hounding us).
Every reader sees different ads, btw. Where one reader sees an ad for a holiday in Greece, another reader might see an ad for roofing contractors.
Thanks Michael
It seems that the world of advertising is in a very confused state at the present.
We are told that newspapers and free to air television are unable to survive with advertising dollars being withdrawn and relocated to digital platforms presumably that includes AIMN.
Recently I bought a pair of trainers advertised online and for weeks after I was bombarded with advertisements for, guess what ? trainers.
It seems to me that the advertisers have their algorithms all confused.
Terry, those algorithms almost know what we’re thinking.
The ads a person sees are mostly based on their own search history. Case in point, about a year ago I was bailed up by a very angry reader for having gambling ads on The AIMN. I have never seen a gambling ad here, but this person sees them everywhere.
I asked her about her internet search history. Turns out she is researching the horrors of online gambling so spent her time searching in Google for gambling sites to help her with her research. Bingo. If she’d been researching health insurance then she’d see health insurance ads on sites she visits.
It gets deeper and darker. In Facebook Messenger I was talking to a person about dentures. Guess what? I started seeing ads about dentures. I was also speaking to someone about how Canberra was turning into a townhouse city. Guess what? I started seeing ads about townhouse investments in Canberra.
It gets even darker. Some years ago I was emailing my travel agent about a holiday in America. Next day I saw ads about holidays in America. One ad even started with “For your upcoming holiday in America…”
And just when you think it couldn’t get anymore invasive, I started seeing ads about a subject Carol and I were discussing. Turns out Siri was collecting the information.
Here’s a test you can try to see for yourself: Talk to your partner about, say, about how much a new poodle was likely to cost. Then go onto Google and type in “How much” and notice the autofill suggestions that are displayed. Don’t be surprised if the top suggestion is “How much does a poodle cost.”
There are things you can do to limit ‘tracking’ and similar surveillance and boost your privacy, such as:
If you have a Google account, check & alter your settings in it
then, typically never log into your Google account
use an ‘open source’ browser like Firefox by Mozilla
in Firefox you can activate a tracker blocker against the likes of Facebook / Meta
Only use a search engine called DuckDuckGo, it never collects your privacy data and is FREE
DuckDuckGo also inserts tracker / surveillance blocker on all your browsers, search engines and emails
If you use social media such as Facebook (Meta), in settings adjust to max privacy
In social media such as Facebook (Meta), never click on any advertisements
Michael/Clakka
Thank you for that additional information – it gets curiouser and curiouser
Does that mean that advertising algorithms will now direct me to biographies of Lewis Carroll ?
I’ll let you know.