Alan Jones* says the ACCC is working against the consumer interest.

I nearly fell out of my chair last night, watching The 7.30 Report on the ABC, and the ACCC chairman, Graeme Samuel in a stoush with Telstra. That's not essentially the point, but Telstra are accusing the ACCC of obstructing Telstra's plans to build a high speed broadband network.

Now forget for a moment that detail. It was the response of Graeme Samuel that borders on the unbelievable. He accused Telstra of jibbing on Australian consumers. Elsewhere, he said, “There's no organisation that's more accountable to the Australian public than the ACCC”. And yet again he told us that, “Whatever proposal comes before the ACCC has to satisfy a fundamental criteria of being reasonable, fundamentally reasonable in the interests of 20 million Australians”.

Is Graeme Samuel kidding? He has to be. This is the same Graeme Samuel who told a Senate Petrol Inquiry last year that price gouging and profiteering are not defined in the law, nor are they illegal conduct under the Trade Practices Act, so that's why you're ripped off every second day at the bowser. By his own language, price gouging and profiteering are OK, yet last night he was telling us he's the protector of 20 million Australian consumers.

Well, where is he in relation to the Coles and Woolworths juggernaut? On this television station last week, on A Current Affair, Jack Hurkett, a Brisbane pensioner, has kept all his dockets from Woolworths and Coles, for the last four years. In 2003 he was spending $538 a month at Woolworths and Coles, the same items now, $894, a 50 per cent increase in four years. And Mr Samuel says the ACCC is protecting consumers? Headline, inflation, Mr Samuel, is 2.4 per cent.

But if you compare Woolworths and Coles prices in the first 90 days of 2007, with the first 90 days of 2006, you get fruit prices 15 per cent higher in a year, general inflation 2.4 per cent. Bread prices at Woolworths and Coles up nearly nine per cent, soft drink six per cent, eggs nearly 15 per cent. The annual inflation, 2.4 per cent.

And Mr Samuel last night was the guardian, he said, of Australia's 20 million consumers. What about small business trying to stay alive in shopping malls, paying up to 10 times more rent per square meter, than the larger competitors? Retail rents for the big boys, a secret market. Exploitation of small retailers by shopping centre giants, like Lend Lease and AMP, rampant.

In Chatswood Chase in Sydney, specialty small retailers occupy 27 per cent of the space. Those same retailers pay 80 per cent of the net centre income. And Graeme Samuel and the ACCC are guardian of our 20 million consumers. Which consumers is Mr Samuel talking about?

I've got an email in front of me from a business operating pharmacies in major shopping centres, they're being charged 20 times more per square metre rent than is being paid by Woolworths and Coles. We're the only country in the developed world where the price of food on supermarket shelves easily outstrips the rate of inflation.

Woolworths and Coles can raise their profits above what they would naturally be, if there was anything like competition in retail food, and virtually everything touched by Woolworths and Coles on the supermarket shelves has increased by more than double the inflation rate since this time last year, and the small businesses in the shopping malls, they're paying up to 10 times more rent per square metre than the larger competitors.

And Graeme Samuel is on national television saying that the ACCC, of which he's the boss, is the watchdog of the Australian consumer, and that he wants a fair price for Australian consumers. And what Telstra does must be fundamentally reasonable in the interests of 20 million Australians. And quote, “In terms of accountability, there's no organisation that's more accountable to the Australian public than the ACCC”.

Well, I'm sorry, Graeme Samuel, as far as the consumer is concerned, the ACCC is an absolute and outrageous joke.

*This is a transcript of a comment by broadcaster Alan Jones that first appeared on Channel 9's Today Show 16/5/07