Grocery watch a hoax says Truss
11th August, 2008
The Rudd Government’s grocery watch scheme, Grocerychoice will do nothing to lower grocery prices for local families, Federal Member for Wide Bay, Warren Truss said today.People living in an area extending from south of Gympie to north of Bundaberg have all been lumped into the one grocery price collection district, known as ‘Eastern Central Queensland’, according to Labor’s Grocerychoice website www.grocerychoice.gov.au/Basket.aspx?region=41.
“Who has ever heard this area called ‘Eastern Central Queensland’ before???
“If the Government expects that a shopper in Gympie, Tiaro, Maryborough, Hervey Bay, Burrum or Bundaberg could glean anything useful from this website it is seriously deluded,” Mr Truss said.
“The information on the website is up to a month old and it is not able to account for local, daily or weekly specials or price changes, once the price has been locked in.
“Grocerychoice information is not only out of date, it does not give consumers any price details relating to individual products. It does not provide any details of special surcharges, quality differences or purchase limits.
“The website does not even disclose the supermarkets at which the basket of goods was sampled. The supermarkets are only referred to by general geographical location, which in some cases, could be hundreds of kilometres from consumers.
“How this sample of prices, on undisclosed products, from undisclosed retailers from undisclosed locations is supposed to reduce the cost of groceries is anyone’s guess.”
Mr Truss said the website exemplifies the hypocrisy and arrogance of the Rudd Government and its obsession with spin over substance, in trying to dupe voters at the last election.
“Mr Rudd mentioned rising grocery prices at nearly every one of his press conferences during the federal election campaign. He left voters with the impression that he would actually do something to ease cost of living pressures. Had Mr Rudd revealed that his grocery watch scheme was his only answer to lowering prices during the campaign, it would have been exposed as a stunt that achieves nothing,” Mr Truss said.
“The Grocerychoice website is a cruel hoax for voters who believed that Kevin Rudd and Labor would ease grocery prices. In spite of Labor’s cost of living forums, held right around the country during the election campaign, it is now abundantly clear that Labor never had any plan to reign in these costs.”
“Grocerychoice is exposed as a complete farce and a total fraud. It fails to deliver any useful information for consumers and it highlights Kevin Rudd’s desperation to be seen to be doing something, when in reality he is doing nothing.”
