Australia

If this is the first time you’re hearing about it, you’re not alone. Despite the significance of the changes, these latest rules are the result of industry codes, which differs to regular legislation. These codes don’t go through parliament. Instead, they’re developed by the tech industry and registered by the eSafety commissioner in a process called co-regulation. On one hand, this can be good: it can allow for more flexibility or technology-specific detail that is less appropriate in legislation. On the other: it creates risk of industry co-option, and by bypassing parliamentary process, can give an enormous amount of power to an unelected official (in this case, the eSafety commissioner).

Greens senator David Shoebridge has called the implications of age verification for search engines “staggering” and noted that “these proposals don’t have to go through an elected parliament and we can’t vote them down no matter how significant concerns are. That combined with lack of public input is a serious issue.”

The age verification policy development process has been littered with blunders that make a mockery of meaningful consultation and evidence-based policy development. It is particularly striking that these codes were drafted before the completion of the government’s $6.5m trial into the efficacy of age assurance. Later, the trial’s preliminary findings conceded the technology is not guaranteed to be effective, and noted “concerning evidence” that some technology providers were seeking to collect too much personal information.

While a government-commissioned survey on the teen social media ban found overwhelming support in theory, it also found most people have no idea what that means in practice, with many uncomfortable with the methods it might entail – such as biometric face scanning or handing over your credit card details. And while there was much fanfare around the social media ban, it’s not clear there is a social licence to extend this approach to search engines and beyond. It seems many people may be unpleasantly surprised.

If this is the first time you’re hearing about it, you’re not alone. Despite the significance of the changes, these latest rules are the result of industry codes, which differs to regular legislation. These codes don’t go through parliament. Instead, they’re developed by the tech industry and registered by the eSafety commissioner in a process called co-regulation. On one hand, this can be good: it can allow for more flexibility or technology-specific detail that is less appropriate in legislation. On the other: it creates risk of industry co-option, and by bypassing parliamentary process, can give an enormous amount of power to an unelected official (in this case, the eSafety commissioner).

Greens senator David Shoebridge has called the implications of age verification for search engines “staggering” and noted that “these proposals don’t have to go through an elected parliament and we can’t vote them down no matter how significant concerns are. That combined with lack of public input is a serious issue.”

The age verification policy development process has been littered with blunders that make a mockery of meaningful consultation and evidence-based policy development. It is particularly striking that these codes were drafted before the completion of the government’s $6.5m trial into the efficacy of age assurance. Later, the trial’s preliminary findings conceded the technology is not guaranteed to be effective, and noted “concerning evidence” that some technology providers were seeking to collect too much personal information.

While a government-commissioned survey on the teen social media ban found overwhelming support in theory, it also found most people have no idea what that means in practice, with many uncomfortable with the methods it might entail – such as biometric face scanning or handing over your credit card details. And while there was much fanfare around the social media ban, it’s not clear there is a social licence to extend this approach to search engines and beyond. It seems many people may be unpleasantly surprised.

The ban will prohibit very large retailers from charging prices that are excessive when compared to the cost of the supply plus a reasonable margin.

The new ban on excessive pricing of groceries for consumers in the Food and Grocery Code is now law and will come into effect on 1 July 2026.

This will fix a key gap in Australia’s competition and consumer protection framework and provide a safeguard for consumers.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found in its Supermarkets inquiry that Coles and Woolworths have limited incentive to compete vigorously with each other on price and that their dominance of the sector seems set to continue.

If Coles and Woolworths breach these new price gouging laws, the maximum penalty per contravention is the greater of: $10 million; three times the value of the benefit derived, or, if that value cannot be determined; 10 per cent of the company’s turnover during the preceding 12 months.

The ACCC will be responsible for policing the excessive pricing regime.

Competition led to Coles shortening the amount of time it established a higher price before it was discounted — down to four weeks under its internal policies known as "guardrails".

The guardrails were designed to ensure shoppers weren't misled by prices rising and falling too quickly.

But Coles was desperate to move quicker because it was watching arch-rival Woolworths do exactly that and feared being left behind.

During the trial, Coles admitted it had broken its guardrails on pricing for at least two products — Arnotts Shapes biscuits and the Nature's Gift dog food.

It also downplayed the significance, saying it was due to mistakes and errors — not any "planned" campaign.

The ACCC hit back, saying 62 of the 245 products were sold at the higher price for less than 28 days before being discounted, and it wasn't just one or two "outliers."

It would appear the economic volatility of recent years is not going to ease in the foreseeable future, so it’s concerning we’re not getting any better at protecting the food security of particularly vulnerable Australians. Rather, despite a number of short-term measures, such as one-off payments and rebates, a significant number of households continue to struggle to meet their fundamental needs.

Australia’s housing affordability crisis appears to be supercharging food insecurity in a way we haven’t seen before with nearly 1 in 2 rental households reporting as food insecure. It is entirely unacceptable that people across Australia are facing scenarios where food and shelter have become mutually exclusive.

Overall food insecurity levels have not improved on 2024, with certain groups being observably worse off. Shockingly, nearly 7 in 10 (67%) of households that have a person with a disability or health issue now experience food insecurity, with three quarters of these severely affected. Also alarming is that a similar proportion (68%) of single-parent households are now food insecure. 

Er… Nothing.

Entry into Australia's supermarket sector isn't so simple, according to retail expert Lisa Asher from the University of Sydney.

Aldi entered the market in 2001 and it had taken the company 24 years to get to 600 stores, which was a market share of slightly less than 10 per cent, she said.

"So this idea that it's easy to get market share when Aldi is one of the most innovative grocery retailing models that we have at the moment in the world," she said.

[…]

Ms Asher [highlighted] that divesture powers existed in places such as the United Kingdom and United States.

Without these powers in Australia, she said retailers such as Coles and Woolworths had minimal competition.

In 2000, Franklins had about 12.3 per cent of Australia's market share.

Now, no single retailer outside of Coles and Woolworths has more than 8 per cent.

"There are no disincentives for entrenching market concentration and dominance," she said.

The focus should be less on large foreign chains entering Australia's grocery market, and more about empowering local entrepreneurship, she said.

The ABC used data analysis tools to investigate about 11,000 food products listed on the Woolworths website, and looked at the percentage changes for the main or “characterising” ingredient — like raspberries in raspberry jam — across a 15-month period.

Of these, the ABC then selected 47 products where the main ingredient appeared to decrease in proportion, according to the label.

These products include ice cream, meat, dips, jams, cereal and packaged meals, with some brands represented more than others.

[…]

While some manufacturers said their changes were to improve the recipe, others said they were due to supply chain cost increases and wanting to keep the price of the product low.

Similar changes, where the quality of the product decreases but the weight and price stay the same, have been labelled as “skimpflation” in overseas media.

Supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths expect to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more to repay staff the companies underpaid, following a legal judgement experts say could have wide-reaching implications.

Woolworths has flagged potential additional costs topping $500 million after tax, while Coles has put its preliminary estimate at up to $250 million.

The development could see the total cost of the underpayment scandal soar past $1 billion, with Woolworths having already repaid $330 million to thousands of staff, while Coles has repaid $31 million so far, and had set aside a further $19 million before Monday's extra provision.

On Friday, the Federal Court handed down a judgement on the historical underpayments of employees at the two major supermarkets, affecting nearly 30,000 employees.

The dispute centred on annual salary arrangements, where the employees were paid above the award rate over the year, in place of calculating actual entitlements — under what was known as a "set-off" arrangement.

You might have an idea about how supermarket specials work — there’s a retail price, and if there’s extra stock or a special promotion, there’s a discounted sale price.

But for thousands of products at Coles and Woolworths, like the box of Cadbury Favourites and the packet of Tim Tams, these specials aren’t occasional. They follow a clear, and sometimes predictable, up-and-down movement.

The ABC analysed the online prices of nearly 44,000 items at Coles and Woolworths available to purchase between the end of May and mid-August this year, not tied to any specific location.

The analysis assumes the shopper is taking one product off the shelf, and so it excludes “multi-buy” specials, such as two-for-one.

It found that roughly 2,500 products moved in weekly cycles, mostly alternating between two or three price points, just like the box of Cadbury Favourites.

Shocked, but not surprised.

Australia's universities are paying external consultants and contractors an estimated $1.8 billion a year without disclosing which firms they are hiring and what the money is being spent on.

Consultancies have been accused of infiltrating universities, wasting scarce public funds on questionable advice about cutting courses and jobs, and undermining the sector's principles of public good.

[…]

When the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) embarked on a process in 2024 to reduce debt and balance its budget, it could have sought advice from its own Business School, which includes some of the finest minds in finance, accounting and economics.

Instead, it called in external consultants from KPMG, which charged about $7 million for what UTS academics have described as "cookie-cutter" advice on how to save money.

After winning the contract, KPMG embedded itself within UTS as it began assessing which courses and academic programs were generating revenue for the university and which were not.

At least 24 KPMG staff, including directors and partners, soon had UTS email addresses, could access the university's Microsoft Teams and SharePoint systems, and were attending staff meetings.

"That is the standard operating procedure: get into a client and look as much like you're a part of the client, infantilise the client, make them think that they can't do things without you," says former KPMG partner turned whistleblower Brendan Lyon.

Mr Lyon, now a professor of practice at the University of Wollongong, said when he was at KPMG, the education sector was seen as an area ripe for revenue growth.

"That was a real focus. They'd recently recruited a former vice-chancellor of an Australian university. From what I saw within KPMG, it was a real growth area and a real growth target," he said.

UTS staff had to use a freedom of information request to access the report KPMG wrote for the university. The document they were given was highly redacted.

Eventually, a handful of staff, including associate professor Paul Brown, were allowed to view a copy of the report under strict supervision.

[…]

Dr Brown said that while there were some suggestions that made sense around working capital, he was shocked to see that one section of the report suggested the university should change its organisational structure to be more triangle-shaped.

"We laughed because it was like a Woolworths-type organisational structure, not a university with all its complexities … where you're going to do serious research and have to do world-leading innovation," he said.

"Just the lack of understanding … was astounding," he said.