CHOICE supports an excessive pricing regime in principle, but we consider this proposal a missed opportunity.
We should be trying to stop price gouging wherever it happens.
There are plenty of industries in Australia that have only a small number of big players with a huge amount of market power. There is no obvious reason to prohibit price gouging by the supermarkets, but not, for example, by the airlines, or the major telcos, or the big petrol station chains.
Further, the Government risks complicating and disjointing our competition and consumer law by having various other misuses of market power outlawed across the economy, but only banning price gouging by two participants in a single industry. The proposed approach would also make it far harder for a future Government to expand the excessive pricing prohibition to other highly-concentrated industries where it would be a useful tool for regulators.
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