Agmates

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John Mikkelsen [pictured] writes:

JUST what will it take to get some action on fuel rip-offs in the wake of the global financial crisis and tumbling international oil prices?

By now even the dogs are barking about it.

Everybody knows we are being taken for a ride by the oil companies - the letters to the editor and SMS text messages keep repeating it, the TV news and current affairs programs are pushing it.

It’s obvious to everyone, with the very significant exception of the Federal Government, their new Fuel Commissioner and that other toothless tiger, the ACCC which is supposed to safeguard consumers against profiteering.

Well, with the international oil price hovering around $67 a barrel or about $80 below its peak several months ago, you don’t have to be a mathematician to realise it greatly exceeds the drop in the Aussie dollar over the same period.

But the price of unleaded and diesel fuel has slowly trickled down about 10 cents a litre over that period.

A couple of independent retailers in Sydney highlighted their dissatisfaction with the oil companies’ restrictive pricing policies when they dropped their prices below $1 a litre during the week. A couple of Brisbane servos did the same yesterday when the average unleaded price there was around 143 cents a litre.

They may have created traffic chaos for the authorities, but they made their point.

An NRMA spokesman came out against the restrictive pricing that discriminates against the independents. He said that with the present low international oil prices, motorists in New South Wales should be paying no more than 135 cents a litre. If you translate that to Queensland, where the State Government supposedly provides a subsidy of 8.35 cents a litre, we should be paying around 127 cents a litre.

At the time of writing, Gladstone’s two supermarket “discount” sites were selling unleaded for 147.9 cents a litre, with distillate at 155.9 (Woolworths/ Caltex) and 157.9 (Coles/Shell).

But credit where it’s due. A small independent outlet at Boyne Island was selling unleaded for 142.9 and distillate 146.9 cents a litre.

According to NRMA president, Alan Evans [pictured], the supermarket “duopolies” enjoy a buying advantage over independent NSW sites of eight cents a litre from the oil companies.

His message was that if the independents are squeezed out of the industry, the major players will have open slather to virtually charge what they like.

Isn’t that what we are seeing already?

The other concerning news amidst the global financial turmoil is that Australia’s inflation rate has (hopefully) peaked at five percent. With the price of fuel impacting on every commodity we buy, that’s no big surprise.

It’s time PM Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan took the next decisive step to introduce a realistic competitive domestic fuel pricing policy to replace the present anything goes “free market forces” system.

Or are they worried about how much they would lose in combined GST and excise if the price dipped below $1 a litre where it should be headed?

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Have Your say!

Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

Independent Senator for South Australia Nick Xenophon writes:

I am calling for urgent action from the new Petrol Commissioner after it was revealed retail petrol prices have fallen less than 14 cents a litre, even though world oil prices have dropped by $50 a barrel - the equivalent of 57 cents a litre.

These oil companies use spikes in world oil prices to justify putting retail prices up. But when world oil prices fall, the oil companies keep their retail prices sky high.

According to media reports today, if retail prices had fallen in line with world oil prices, Australian motorists would be paying less than a dollar a litre. Currently the price is around $1.50 a litre.

Australian motorists have a right to be angry about this. The Petrol Commissioner, Joe Dimasi [pictured] , and the ACCC need to take these companies to task as a matter of urgency. We must have greater transparency.

I have requested an urgent meeting with the Petrol Commissioner to discuss this issue and to push for an overhaul of the wholesale marketing of petrol in Australia.

We need to end the cosy relationship between the oil companies at the wholesale level. That’s where the real savings for consumers are.

Petrol companies should not be allowed to pump motorists for outrageous profits at a time when millions of Australians are facing the hardest economic conditions of their lives.

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Have Your Say!

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Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

The Daily Telegraph News paper today has exposed what we all guessed - The giant corporate petrol companies are ripping us off.

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Expert analysis reveal the cost of oil in Australian dollars has dropped more than 20 per cent since the start of September - yet petrol prices have risen more than 5 per cent.

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Picture: The Daily Telegraph.

And Surprise, Surprise the government with all of its safe guards won’t do a damn thing about it.:

“New petrol commissioner Joe Dimasi was unavailable yesterday and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission declined to discuss the petrol issue.”

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Interestingly Agmates reader Peter Schuback [pictured] just emailed us this morning with this:

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“Australian dollar today @ 66.05 cents against the US Dollar .

Oil Price US 74 .54 a barrel Add difference between Ausi dollar and Us dollar brings oil price up to $ 108 .49 a barrel Australian .

You should be paying no more than $ 1.08 a litre for your petrol and diesel .

Why are you? Whose ripping you off?”

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Peter I think we all know who is ripping us off. That is except the ACCC and the Petrol Commissioner. According to them when they have looked in the past they can find no evidence of oil companies price gouging consumers. Thats Laugh out load stuff.

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Have your say! What are you paying for fuel where you live?

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Brazilian owned global processing giant JBS trading as Swifts Australia is in the due diligence stage of buying the south Queensland beef exporter Kilcoy Pastoral Co and Western Australia’s only export beef plant Harvey Beef.

QLD farmer body AgForce is not happy about it.

Swifts became the largest meat processor in Australia in May of this year when it purchased the Tasman Group for $150m AUD. At the time Agmates wrote:

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“Brazilian owned JBS is on the verge of being the largest beef processor on 3 major cattle producing continents. This is world domination of the export beef market on a grand scale never seen before.”

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Swift Australia currently controls 21.45 percent of Australia’s red meat kill. The purchase of Kilcoy and Harvey who’s major share holder is the Singaporean Harmony Group would see Swifts control 25% of Australian beef exports.

If the sale goes ahead AgForce will consider lobbying the Australian Competition watch dog the ACCC to block the purchase on the grounds that Swifts in QLD will hold somewhere between 30-40% of the beef processing and export in Australia’s N01 cattle producing state.

What AgForce and the ACCC need to consider is that the Brazilian owned corporate giant JBS is not only the largest exporter of beef in Australia but also on the two major continents that are our export competitors, South America and North America (USA).

From Agmates article April 25th of this year.

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“JBS is South America’s largest beef processor and one of the world’s largest exporters with 23 plants in Brazil and six in Argentina.

JBS is currently awaiting U.S. Department of Justice approval for acquisitions of U.S. beef processors National Beef Packing Co. and Smithfield Beef Group.

If approved, JBS-Swift, currently the third-largest U.S. beef processor in terms of slaughter capacity, would become the USA’s largest beef processor and control some 30 percent of its entire slaughter capacity.

That will mean JBS will be the largest beef processor on three continents - North America, South America and Australia”

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JBS is still awaiting US federal government approval of the purchase which is meeting stiff competition from US cattle producers.

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“R-CALF USA has now provided the U.S. Justice Department with five separate submissions, and has met personally with the agency to help it better understand how the U.S. cattle market functions and how the proposed merger would have a detrimental impact on the competitiveness of the entire U.S. cattle industry.“

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Swifts Australia and others have argued that their market power is an asset to beef producers as they benefit from the global market reach of the company that employs more than 5,000 people world wide.

But workers at Australia’s largest processing plant Dinmore at Ispwich just west of Brisbane may differ with that opinion.

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AUSTRALIA’S largest meat plant has added hundreds of foreign workers on visas while standing down Ipswich workers for nearly six weeks without wages.

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Have your say!

Do you think that the Brazilian owned JBS Swifts should be allowed to further increase their market dominance here in Australia and indeed in the USA?

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Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

Bob Long has made an offical complaint to the ACCC over the governments blatant ‘climate change’ TV ad that it is spending $9million dollars of tax payers money on to re-educate us.

The ad is blatant propaganda and registers on our Bulls**t Watch.

If you have not seen it the offensive ad is in the video below followed by Bobs Complaint.

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I wish to complain about the Australian Government “Climate Change” advertisement currently showing on Australian TV (August, 2008).

I claim the advertisement fails these Advertising Standards Bureau Truth and Accuracy issues:

1. Misleading or deceptive advertising.
2. Misrepresentation in advertising.
3. The exploitation of community concerns in relation to portraying a product or service as benefiting the environment, if it does not.

A. The advertisement says, “scientists warn”, without qualification or reference to whom those scientists are. There are many scientists who dispute that climate change will cause significant problems. [1], [2], [3]

B. There is no qualification of what “hard hit” means.

C. There is no qualification of how high temperatures are supposedly going to rise; thus it is impossible to know from the advertisement whether such rises are significant and will thus result in a “hard hit”.

D. There is no qualification of whether “more scare” water applies to certain areas of Australia, nor of how significant such scarcity will be.

E. The reference to “economists warn” does not reference those economists, or that there are dissenting economists with differing views.

F. The advertisement uses the term “carbon pollution”. That is a meaningless (and misleading and deceptive) phrase. Carbon is an element. In the context of the climate change discussion, carbon as an element is not part of the discussion. The advertisement should refer (at least) to carbon dioxide, which is a gas.

G. The advertisement states that “carbon”, hence carbon dioxide, is a pollutant. But carbon dioxide is an essential gas present in trace amounts in the atmosphere. Without it, life on earth would not exist. Except in high concentrations, carbon dioxide is harmless to humans. There is considerable doubt that increases in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are a significant cause of increased temperatures. [4], [5]

H. The advertisement implies all climate change is something to avoid (”We’re developing a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme to tackle climate change…”), but does not mention that climate has been changing for thousands of years, with the earth having been both colder and warmer than it is now. That is a misrepresentation of facts. [6]

I. The advertisement exploits community concerns by attempting to cause fear by using the phrases “hard hit”, “must act now” and “can’t afford not to”.

J. The claim that we “must act now” are misleading because it implies temperatures are rising at a dangerous rate. In fact, global temperatures since 1998 have not passed that 1998 peak, and early 2008 global average temperatures are marginally less than the equivalent period of 1988 (repeating: 1988, not 1998). [7],

K. The claim that a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will “tackle climate change”, presumably successfully, is false and deceptive. Australian greenhouse gas emissions are less than 1.5% of global emissions, so even if such a scheme were to be totally successful in eliminating all Australian emissions, the effect globally would be minuscule.

L. The phrase “We can’t afford not to” is misleading and deceptive. There is no qualification as to what the costs will be, so it is impossible for the advertisement to so claim.

M. The advertisement displays images of both cooling towers and “smoke stacks”. Both are deceptive. In the case of cooling towers, the only emission is of condensed water vapour. In the case of the smoke stacks, there is a misleading confusion of particulate pollution with colourless carbon dioxide gas.

The advertisement thus fails, in many instances, the tests for truth and accuracy.

Bob Long

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Have Your say? Do you find it offensive that the Government is spending $9m of tax payers money on blatant propaganda like this?
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ABC TV program 4 Corners special report on the Supermarket duopoly of Woolworths & Coles is must watch viewing. The price we pay.

We have extensively covered the outrageous findings of the ACCC inquiry in that that agricultural producers where being fairly treated by Woolworths and Coles.

Bull**t Watch,

Australian Beef Producers & Consumers left Seething after ACCC Grocery Inquiry,

Woolworths and Coles are squeezing Farmers Too Hard,

Supermarket Duopoly Ripping Off Australian cattle Producers.

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Heres some of what the 4 Corners program promo has to say:

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“Supermarkets have bulked up. These days they’re retail superpowers who make money not just when we eat or drink but increasingly when we fill the petrol tank, play pokies or buy a hammer from the local hardware - and they’re quietly stalking pharmacies, newsagents and florists.

But food is their staple. Coles and Woolworth’s sell 70 per cent of the dry groceries and half the fresh food that Australians consume - among the highest concentrations of market power in the developed world.

Last month the competition watchdog the ACCC officially ticked this arrangement, insisting the market is working.

But the growth in supermarket muscle has come at a cost to many suppliers and small retailers. “Crippling” is how one industry analyst terms Coles’ and Woolies’ power over food producers; the regulator calls it “simply tough dealing”.

“It’s just eating my farm away, we’re just finished,” says a despairing pumpkin grower whose produce retails for as much as 10 times the price he gets for it. He scoffs at the ACCC’s view that the gap between farm gate prices and the checkout isn’t growing.”

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Woolworth have just posted a record $1.63billion dollar profit:

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The proof is in yesterday’s full-year profit result of $1.63 billion, an increase of 25.7 per cent on the previous year, amid the toughest economic environment in two decades.

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“The Price We Pay” - on Four Corners 8.30 pm, Monday 1 September and 11.35 pm Tuesday 2 September on ABC1 (also 8am Tuesday on ABC2).

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This is must not miss TV. Please email this onto any body that you know by using the email a friend icon at the bottom of the page.

(thanks to Agmate Sally)

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Have your Say!

Why not come back here after you’ve watched it and tell us what you think and join an online conversation about the program?

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John Mikkelsen (pictured) in his weekly column for the Gladstone Observer writes:

I’M a great believer in the old adage, charity begins at home.

Yes, there are other countries doing it tough and if people, churches and charities want to donate their hard-earned dollars to help educate and feed starving kids in Africa or any other third world country, that’s great. Those kids deserve it and Mrs Mikko and I will put our hands up to help too whenever we can.

But I do object when our governments dole out millions for political rather than humanitarian reasons to countries such as Indonesia.

A sizeable segment of that country’s population seems to think the only good Australian is a dead one as evidenced by the Bali bombings - and a large percentage of our generous government handouts seems to go to military build-up rather than the poverty stricken living on the pickings from rubbish tips.

Makes one wonder about priorities; sometimes even the churches seem to lose sight of what is happening right here in Australia.

Take last week’s issue of Agmates Rural News - an on-line free weekly newsletter which provides an excellent mouthpiece for our struggling rural community and allied industries.

The publication points out that 37 religious leaders meeting in Sydney - including Christians, Muslims and Jews - were calling on the Federal Government to aid countries in the Pacific affected by climate change.

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“Churches preach faith. It seems that faith now extends to the certainties of climate change, although not one of them is a scientist, and even when a huge proportion of the scientific community don’t believe,”

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Agmates states.

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“The president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ikebal Patel, says Australia has a moral responsibility to act because it is the biggest polluter in the region.

In the Pacific there are people who live from day to day, from hand to mouth, and any effects of our climate change on them is really a responsibility that we should seriously look at and make sure that we do support them,” the Islamic leader is quoted as saying.

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Which prompted the following response from “Mick”, one of Agmates’ subscribers:

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“Yes, in our neck of the Pacific those ‘who live from hand to mouth’ are called pensioners, farmers and truck drivers … we have hundreds of thousands of ‘em. Sorry these religious Top 40 are not praying for them, only preying on them … at least on their money to go to Samoa and Tonga … Climate’s been changing every year - it’s called the weather…”

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Anyone who doesn’t believe our farmers are doing it tough must still believe in the tooth fairy and the effectiveness of bodies such as the ACCC to achieve justice for them and ordinary consumers like you and me.

After months of study, that body has come up with Grocery Choice, a website that has cost anything from $10 to $15 million to set up, which compares monthly grocery prices around the nation.

Struggling mums with kids in tow, busy workers and aged pensioners who wouldn’t know the first thing about accessing websites will probably find the savings that offers are on par with the much hyped Fuel Watch if it ever gets up and running - bugger all.

But what has really riled the farmers is the ACCC report to the Federal Government which maintained farm gate prices for products such as eggs, milk and meat were rising at the same rate as supermarket prices.

Agmates says it appears the ACCC has fudged the starting points for measuring prices in each industry “to give the results it or the big supermarket duopoly’s wanted.

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“Economics best practices for testing data is to have a common start date to analyse from. Instead, the ACCC has beef pricing starting in 1998, milk in March 2002; both were low points in the farm gate commodity price cycle and the results show a favourable result for the supermarkets… Had the ACCC chosen the beef start year in 2001, it would show that beef producers are actually receiving less today for their cattle than they were seven years ago.

“What has happened to input costs and supermarket prices in the last seven years?”

….I find none of the above surprising. As someone once said, “There are lies, damn lies and statistics…”

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Meanwhile the silence is deafening following my recent challenge about fuel pricing - particularly diesel. At the time of writing one of Gladstone’s major supermarket “discount” outlets was still charging 175.9 cents a litre - eight to a whopping13 cents more than some independent sites which started dropping their prices a couple of weeks ago.

Now the ACCC is reportedly chasing companies making exaggerated claims about environmental performance in light of looming carbon taxes.

Go figure.

Graeme Samuel and the ACCC is under fire over its report into grocery prices prepared for the Federal government.

The report maintains that farm gate prices for things like eggs, milk and meat are rising at the same rates as supermarket prices.

Any one in the farming industry will tell you thats Bulls**t.

Now academic’s and peak body groups have looked at the way the ACCC has analyzed the data and they agree.

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Frank Zumbo, associate professor of the Australian School of Business at University of NSW, says key ACCC indexes in the Government’s report are “misleading”.

“They have different start dates and don’t go back as far as available data …. This is inconsistent with best practice in econometric testing of data. Economic analysis is sensitive to start and finish points.

In short, any economic analysis and results produced can be misleading, depending on the start dates. We also need to ask the reason or motive behind the choice of different start dates by the ACCC.’

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It seems that the ACCC has fudged the starting points for measuring prices in each industry to give the results it or the big supermarket duopoly’s wanted.

Economics best practices for testing data is to have a common start date to analyze from. Instead the ACCC has beef pricing starting in 1998, milk in March 2002. Both were low points in the farm gate commodity price cycle and the results show a favorable result for the supermarkets.

The Eastern States Young Cattle index below back to 1996 shows this graphically. Had the ACCC chosen the beef start year in 2001 it would show that beef producers are actually receiving less today for they’re cattle then they were seven years ago. Whats happened to input costs and supermarket prices in the last 7 years?.

You know there are lies, lies, lies and dam statistics.

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The ACCC is claiming that the start dates are just a coincidence (yes right), but Craig Kelly of the Southern Sydney Retailers reckons:

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The odds of randomly selecting different base years which just “co-incidentally” match up with the low point for the farm-gate price, is about 1000 to 1.

The only conclusion that can be reached is that these dates have been deliberately selected. And by selecting the low point in farm-gate prices, it falsely shows that farm-gate prices have “increased” when in reality they have remained depressed for a long period of time.

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Graeme Samuels in his article in the Australian today defends his findings -

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…..the ACCC has a mandate to be rigorous and independent. After all, our sole vested interest is that of 21 million Australians.

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That would be 21million Australians minus a couple of hundred thousand Auatralian farmers wouldn’t it Mr Samuel? .

Full marks to The Sydney Morning Herald and its reporter Michael West for exposing this issue. Also thanks to Agmates Reader Sally for bringing it to our attention.

The Grocery Inquiry Report scores 85/100 on the Agmates Bulls**t Metre

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Update: 5.26pm 12th August:

A farmer, Vince Heffernan….. “As a farmer I find the inquiry into food pricing insulting … The reality is that supermarkets have been making 18 to 20 times the profit per kilogram on meat that farmers make - not bad for 10 days to 14 days’ work as opposed to the 17 months the farmers put in for their meagre earnings.”

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Have Your say! Have your farm gate prices been rising in line with supermarket retail prices?

Australia’s beef producers are demanding Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke convene a royal commission into Australia’s beef industry. They have been left cluesless after the Rudd governments ACCC Grocery Inquiry findings where announced earlier this week.

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“Australia has the lowest cattle prices in the developed world, Australian consumers pay some of the highest prices in the developed world. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work out that somewhere between the cattle producer and the consumer there must be is a huge “robbery”.

If the ACCC and NFF believe that our two major supermarkets are only working on beef “mark ups” of 3% and 17% as they are claiming, they clearly believe in the tooth fairy. I challenge the two organisations to find where in the beef chain the great $4 billion dollar “robbery” is occurring.”

When the unsubsidised US cattle producers can get up to 40% more than their Australian counterpart for exactly the same feeder steer and the US consumer is paying as little as half the Australian consumer, we have a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes.”

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The Inquiry conducted by ACCC Chairman Graeme Samuel has been widely criticized in the city media. The sole tangible outcome is another web site called Grocery Choice that has been labeled a “sham” after being up just 2 days.

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“The deluge of complaints since Grocery Choice was launched forced the Government last night to admit the online system was inadequate and needed to be refined.

Consumer Affairs Minister Chris Bowen has admitted the $13 million grocerychoice website failed to meet all shoppers’ needs to save money on groceries.”

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“THE Federal Government’s new Grocery Choice website has been labelled a “sham” that does more to help big-name supermarkets than struggling families.”

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“Caught by the perceptions created before the election that grocery and fuel prices could be controlled, the Rudd Government had to be seen to be doing something.

GroceryChoice is that something. But it’s as useless as a three-wheeled shopping trolley.”

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After the cost of a full 6 month ACCC Inquiry and the only tangible result is a $13,000,000 web site that the general public label a sham and worthless.

I’ll ask again - How incompetent is this government?

(Thanks to Agmates readers Sally, Brad and the ABA)

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Have Your say.