The chief executive of the country’s largest lender, Commonwealth Bank’s Matt Comyn, has attacked what he says are insidious and performative populist policies on all sides of politics, highlighting the rising tensions between Canberra and big business.
“What we find is that when Bunnings goes into a new region or goes into a new category, it generally decreases the prices improves choice.”The criticisms of the Coalition, Labor and the Greens represents a low ebb in relations between Canberra and the country’s largest companies. Executives are being more frequently called to parliamentary hearings and aggressively questioned on everything from prices to network outages, with video quickly shared on social media.
This week, Mr Dutton said the difference in profit margins between Bunnings and its smaller rivals, Mitre 10 and Home Hardware, were “astronomical”. “The quality of their testimony at the supermarket inquiry was substandard,” he said. “Had the CEO shown up, or even someone with some proper answers instead of pre-written rehearsed stuff, I think this might never have come to this.”“It’s not just about pricing. It’s not just about retail. It’s about getting that market balance right across all areas. And when 70 per cent of the retail market for Greenlife products is through Bunnings, that’s getting very, very scary,” he said.
“I just see it too often now, particularly in external environments, claims that are made that just are not demonstrably true, and that is weakening and driving a fundamental distrust across citizens.“It is a real cause for concern, and I just don’t think the right thing is to position things when they’re factually incorrect.”