IT is heartening to see the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission taking a close look at how business is done within the beef industry.
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The decision is confirmation that collusion – or something akin to it – was a factor in nine meat processors all not attending a sale at the Barnawartha saleyards in February last year.
ACCC chairman Rod Sims told a Senate Inquiry looking into the red meat processing sector in Canberra last week Australian laws were not robust enough to take the matter to court.
He said a little-publicised Harper competition review recommendation, in relation to concerted or facilitating practices, highlighted a deficiency in Australian laws.
Mr Sims said other jurisdictions had laws on concerted practices which covered market signals being sent out in various ways that amounted to a substantial lessening of competition.
“I think it would be something sensible to look at,” he said of the Harper recommendation during the inquiry. “Our laws are quite limited in a number of ways.”
Mr Sims said there was no law dealing with facilitating practices in Australia but there was a variation of it that applied only to banking, “which is frankly, rather silly to have a law that only applies to one sector”.
If representatives of the Barnawartha Nine had shared information, and a record confirming the information , such as “I’ll do this, if you do that” existed, then the ACCC could pursue the case.
Without concerted practices laws, which exist in many countries but not here, the ACCC is powerless.
If those laws were in place the ACCC would have switched from looking for collusion to looking under the concerted practices heading.
You can expect, regardless of what the ACCC discovers in this beef study, it will recommend a change to Australian law to clarify what is and what is not collusion.
The ACCC study, like the Senate Inquiry, wants transparency in the industry and that should help get more money flowing down the process chain to the farm gate.
The ACCC also has more power and authority that the Senate Inquiry, which will table its findings in May.
It will take submissions and it has stringent confidentiality processes.
Beef producers spoke up to make the Senate Inquiry happen, they need to speak up again.
