grocery and fuel

[muffinmum]

i an an aged pensioner off the poor variety , i live from pay to pay, my entertainment is my computer that costs me $29.95 per month , they say the fuel prices will be helped by tax concessions ,hello !! what about the poor beggers that haven,t a tax cut, i raised my children without gov help, no paid leave , no low wage help ,i had to pay for a sitter to mind my kids before and after i left for work till i came home ,i didnt get assistance then, now the grocery prices are realy getting to us , if the g.s.t. was removed that would help us a great deal ,10% on every bill is a big ask with such a small pay,

[4th class citizen]

GST is only on ready meals and some things like ice cream, biscuits, cake and soft drink. if you stick to basic have to cook yourself foodstuffs or heat up like baked beans etc you dont pay it. Have a look at you next receipt from the grocery store and you will see an asterisk on items that attract GST.

What I don't agree with is putting it on petrol on top of the excise tax already there, double taxation, and on putting it on electricity, gas and other essential heating or cooling.

Dread the idea of putting on top of this tax yet another to pay for carbon etc when we are cooling down and have been since 2001. Coldest winters in the Northern Hemisphere ever and we are told we will have the coldest too.

God knows what this will do to the low income earners and poor pensioners. We can only guess.

[Zavio]

There are 3 taxes on petrol(thats what I have been told) so the goverment are getting triple off the petrol and when the GST came in Howard said there will only be one tax for everything (yeah right) and us consumers have been paying for it for years now and now that the Liberals are in opposition now they want to slash taxes on petrol, what about before the election when it started going up, and I sort of cant blaim the goverment because they cant control the price of oil (Blame America).
As for Groceries, this time last year I was paying $70 a week for a full shop now I am forced to pay anywhere from $140 and up, that is double, I really dont know how the goverment and they supermarkets get away with it all and blame it in the rising cost of petrol, come on and give us a fair go.
I am trying to save for a better car and for a deposit for a house but at this rate I will be in the same position this next year as this year and it is only going to get worse for the pensioners.

[Krystal]

"There are 3 taxes on petrol"
Nope Zavio...there are only 2 (being the excise & GST)

As for the rising cost of groceries, it is directly related to the rise in fuel prices...it's called 'freight'.

4CC is correct in that GST doesn't apply to fresh foods...cook from scratch & you don't pay any GST.

What is getting to me (being farmers),is (apart from the ongoing drought) the cost of fuel has doubled, chemicals & fertilizer tripled in recent months & yet we get little more for our product. This government harps about 'working families'. Do they give a damn about anyone else?
Contract harvesters & transport(direct farmer cost), processors & all the middlemen can pass their costs on but farmers are price takers, not price makers...might as well quit the game before we go broke. Now they are talking about carbon taxes. How are we to pay that without an increased price for our produce? Agriculture in Oz is in a sick state
Off my soapbox now...

[4th class citizen]

On my soapbox - And why do they allow Chinese veggies in to be frozen and sold by simplot in their brands Edgells and Birds Eye when we have the greenest cleanest veggies in the world grown right here where simplot freeze contaminated Chinese produce in Tasmania.

We buy direct from local farmer who has a shed on the main road and anything he doesn't grow he gets from other Tassie farmers or from the mainland banana's and oranges which don't grow here too cold. Funny thing is he is a hell of a lot cheaper than Woolworth's and Cole's. I buy Gala apples for $2.50 kg in 1st class nick and same apples in either giants are $4.98 or even some times $6.98 kg.

Blame the men & women who shop and pay these high prices and buy Chinese food to feed to their little kiddies as I notice that often it is the very young women who have no care in buying food except it is 'cheap' and usually by a couple of cents only. When we are told daily almost that it is contaminated with E Coli, from being grown in human waste untreated, DDT dildrin and other banned chemicals and feed this to their babies. Different to my wife who walks miles around town to buy clean Australian food rather than Chinese or Asian stuff.
Like they still sell cat fish from the Delta river in Vietnam as Basa and that is the most contaminated river in the Asian area.
Oh for the days when you could pull into one place buy fresh/canned Australian grown produce and know it was good for you and you were keeping jobs here for you and yours and your neighbours kids.

It is all done in the name of profit and greed and of course all political parties are supported by donations from big business and that is a form of corruption.
BTW if nothing is wrong with Chinese foodstuffs why did the Olympic Committee set up farms with fresh uncontaminated dirt trucked in from overseas and proper non human fertilisers to grow food that would not poison the athletes?

[firefly3]

4cc ill join your soapbox,to start with the cat fish on the mekong is right next to sewerage farms which constantly overflow the fish love it.
as for chemicals our Aussie growers face something like a 60 point check for the most dangerous chemicals down to the lower end/ while o/seas rubbish faces only 20 point check of the lowest end only, as for fuel.
The supposed increase is mainly from china and india wanting more but I believe the yanks have alot to do with not allowing our govt refining our fuel they want our reserves which total as much if not more than the arab countries together, and our refining price is cheaper so our gov would not get their hugh taxes from it ,

[Krystal]

Bread prices are the biggest rippoff Before last year, the average price per tonne of wheat was around $200 & the amount of wheat in a loaf of bread was 10 cents. Last year, the price of wheat doubled to $400 (for those lucky enough to have some) & the amount of wheat in a loaf of bread rose to near 20 cents/loaf.

Bread in our town has risen over $1/loaf to near $4.80/loaf. Someone in the middle is making a massive profit.

Farmers are expected to absorb the input costs but it is becoming increasingly difficult. If we were reimbursed for our added costs in the price we get for our end product, prices would be WAY higher.

Perhaps I should give some figures...
Urea (fertilizer) rose overnight 1 & 1/2 weeks ago from $640 to $930/tonne. MAP (fertilizer) has risen from $580 to $1350/tonne & Roundup (widely used chemical) has gone from $4.80 to $13.50/litre in the last 12 months. On top of that, we absorb the high fuel prices too. Farmers aren't seeing big increases in the prices paid for their end product so just who is making the huge profits? There is no justification for the massive increase in the cost of food that we are seeing in the supermarkets. The cost of transport is one reason but not the whole picture. I bought some cheese today that normally cost around $7.Today, it was $10.25 for the same stuff

[firefly3]

Krystal.

The interstate owner/driver have only had a very small increase in tonnage rates in the past 25years,its the like of safeways and coles who get the hugh mark up.

safeway used to work like this (I dont know if they still do or not) Buyers purchace from grower then ads 85% mark up sells to ware house,ware house ads 150%then sells to their stores which then adds up to 100% customer gets stiched,quite often the mark up was much much more.

[Krystal]

firefly3 said...
" The interstate owner/driver have only had a very small increase in tonnage rates in the past 25years"

I understand firefly3 & in no way am I blaming the truckies. The point I was making is that farmers get no more for their product & cannot pass their huge increase in input costs on. We can't say "I want $500/tonne for my wheat, $300/tonne for my sorghum or $3.00/kg for the cattle I sell". The market won't pay it & we have to take what we can get.

Once past the farm gate, everyone (including the truckies) are able to pass their extra costs on by increasing prices for their service.

If Safeway/Coles/ Woolies operate like the example you gave, I'm not surprised at the high price we pay for fruit & veg but given that the farm gate price isn't much more than years ago, someone in the middle is making a *lot* of money. The ACCC report that they can't pinpoint where the huge markups occur...I don't think they are looking too hard

In the current climate, grain prices need to stay high for farmers to remain viable. That flows though to the eggs, meat & milk market (all reliant on grain). Food prices won't be dropping anytime soon

[Croman]

I find it very sad that everyone in the chain makes more money than the people that work hardest to produce what we eat.

You are right Krystal, ACCC cannot be looking too hard. I really don't know why wee have ACCC. They seem totally useless.

[4th class citizen]

I totally agree with remark re ACCC. Since the departure of Alan Fels they seem to me to have stopped work completely but make the noises expected - buzz words spin hype and then nothing happens bit like the last 6 months of government.

Food prices in Australia have gone up 43.6%
Food prices in USA have gone up 21%
Food prices in UK have gone up 11.6%

Over the same period and they other two have also had the same increase in petrol prices.

If the ACCC does not find why - I would like to see a change of management and staff.

[shillard]

You might have a point - if food is transported over similar distances in the US & UK, and if our market was as big as theirs to provide the same economies of scale.

But since neither of those conditions are true, you don't have a point.

[4th class citizen]

Oh dear - the usual get out - economies of scale.

I can remember one of the princes of the ACCC saying the same about using Hookers for real estate when it is franchised off so makes absolutely no difference on commissions charged on selling. They haven't improved since then.

What about the petrol/diesel prices are to blame then. Plus double taxation on it

How about the prices paid to farmers and producers of our food have been steadily going down for some years but up in the supermarket even where it is shipped into the nearest town even?

And this was happening prior to the sharp increase in price of fuel pushing it up to the point that a lot of food is almost out of reach for some pensioners and low income earners.

Profit and greed mate.

Mainly because of the Oil futures which if a storm or strike is on in an oil producing country they push up the price on speculation, then then take the profits.

Our own truckies are hurting and you just pass it off as this buzz excuse as usual.

British truckies are demonstrating too saying they are going broke.



Next you will be saying let them eat cake.

[deref]

Buy all your fruit and veggies from your local farmers' market. You'll know the name of the farmer who grew it, you'll pay a fraction of the cost that you'll pay in the supermarkets, you'll be supporting local business, you'll reduce transport costs and greenhouse gasses and, most importantly, you'll wonder how you ever ate the crap that the supermarkets sell.

[Croman]

Deref I think that you assume that eveybody lives close to where fruit and vegies are grown. Some of us live in big cities. I live in inner west Sydney, several km from CBD. If you can tell me where I can buy good stuff at a fraction of the cost of big supermarkets, I will start shopping there. Otherwise don't make comments without thinking.