Good morning. Changes are needed to redress a heavy imbalance in market power between suppliers and supermarkets in Australia’s heavily concentrated supermarket industry. So says a report ordered by the federal government, to be released today, but its author, the former Labor trade minister Craig Emerson, stops short of calling for powers to break up the big supermarkets. He says heavy penalties would be “a far more credible deterrent to anti-competitive behaviour”.
Meanwhile, an explosion of interest from investors in rooming houses has prompted concerns about vulnerable residents, and Israel has withdrawn troops from southern Gaza.
