GroceryChoice scheme ignoring reality of shopping
By John Boots - South Hobart, Tas
I live in the federal electorate of Denison, and as such have had the "benefit" of Duncan Kerr's Denison Report "Price Watch" for several years. I shop at three different large supermarkets a week on average and shop at seven in total. Price Watch reports the maximum difference between weighted baskets of consumers goods is about $2.50. This is a fairly large amount but fails to take into account the various realities of grocery shopping.
There are four main effects that the Labor Government don't consider; location, knowledge, supplier effects and specialised markets effects. When you consider these effects it's easy to see this is another waste of time and money, although it may divert the public from more pressing issues.
Location effect: People tend to shop as close to their home as possible, especially if they are elderly or relatively poor. So there is little benefit in knowing you can save $2 if you have to take two buses or trains or pay a taxi twice as much. Similarly, it takes longer to get to a more distant shop. Finally, some shops are simply better designed. If you are elderly, infirm, disabled or have three kids it makes a lot of sense to shop where it's convenient and you don't have to walk too far. I always go to a particular shop when it rains so I don't have to walk several hundred metres in the rain.
Knowledge effect: Have you ever gone to a different supermarket and spent 15 minutes trying to find where the split peas are? Again, the people most in need are less able to find items in a different supermarket or any shop. Imagine having three upset kids and trying to find something you need in a supermarket or shop you ve never been in before.
Supplier effect: The price of items is sometimes determined by the supplier. An example of this was the concurrent special in Coles and Woolworths of the same brand of soups, two for $4. Not much point going to somewhere different in this case.
Specialised markets effect: As a commenter noted, the prices can be very low. I shop for vegetables and fruit at such a market and the prices are on average about a third of the larger chains. But, the problem here is they don't have a full range of goods, you might not be able to buy margarine and you can't get light milk there. So, again this means the people least able to afford items have to go to a larger supermarket anyway. It might seems cheaper, but having to pay a taxi or walk several hundred metres to a bus or train with a load of groceries only to have to go to Coles or Woolies anyway is absurd.
In general, these schemes only seem good. I doubt they're of benefit to the more affluent members of our society and I'm sure they are of no use at all to the people who really need help the most.
Finally, I doubt Rudd and his experts have ever shopped for more than a new suit in their lives.
Easy comparisons
I recently returned from an overseas trip in Sweden where they have unit pricing on all products in all supermarkets.
I saw this five years ago when I first went to Sweden, and my partner who is Swedish, says that it has been in for as long as she can remember (she is 44).
It is so easy to make a price comparison between two items regardless of size between the two.
The sooner we bring this into Australia the better. No more marketing trickery that currently goes on and no more standing in the aisle doing mental arithmetic. Easy Easy Easy.
Craig Stewart - Belmont, NSWKeating driven by manic hate
Are the ABC that desperate for guest commentators on the 7.30 Report that they have to drag in the apology for a treasurer who gave us "the recession we had to have" for economic comment?
Anyone watching knows that anything said by this former treasurer and prime minister is going to be extremely negative on anyone who had any association with Howard. He has a manic hate of anything Howard because it was he who threw Keating out of the job that Keating thinks was his divine right.
The same can be said of John Hewson who tried to sell a GST to the electorate and failed miserably only to be shown up by Howard when he one electoral approval for such a tax.
If the 7.30 Report is going to use commentators on economic policy please make them credible because these two are certainly not!
Peter McDonald - Dubbo, NSWFair go for China
I am an Australian resident of China for five years now and I have two things to say:
1. Give China and its Olympics a fair go;
2. Send every immature, air-head, sensationalist journalist back home to Oz. These guys have not done their homework on China. They are an embarrassment to me and my country Australia. Shame on them.
Enjoy the Olympics
I think that people should stop the winging and enjoy the spirit of the Olympics. I am just counting down the hours to the opening ceremony and know that it is going to be a blast - bigger and better than anything we have ever seen and will get even better in the years to come.
Vijay David - Boronia Heights, QldGet Sam Newman off the air
I am absolutely amazed that Sam Newman is still on the air. He's absolutely disgusting and a national embarrassment. He has no idea what's funny and what's not. The man has 40 years more life experience than I do, and yet he has the maturity of a four-year-old. Any moron can see the man is socially and mentally inept and it's a sad state of affairs for the AFL that this man represents them. It's been said that his on-screen persona is nothing like his actual personality, but I don't believe that for a second.
Any man - sorry, child - who can say and do the things he does, has absolutely no conscience or integrity. Most people would probably regret saying the things he does, but no, not him. He's a weak excuse for a human being and one of the lowest forms on life on the planet. Even the humble worm serves a greater purpose than this idiot. The AFL and Channel Nine need to see this incompetent fool for what he is and sack him for the sake of the Footy Show, and the sake of the sport itself.
Tom - Watson, ACTChina's censorship 'sensationalised'
Why the continual sensationalism of censorship on the internet in China? I am living in China and find that none of the sites that I have wanted to visit have been blocked. This includes sites often critical of China such as the ABC, CNN and the BBC.
Maybe the Western media should cease acting as a puppet of the Western governments and start to act independently. There are many good noteworthy points of success that the Chinese Government is achieving in terms of increasing the living standard of millions.
All countries have censorship on the internet and mainstream media, including Australia and the US, depending what they believe is in their own national interest and what is required to keep law and order. Look at Australia and the US which has encroached on many civil liberties all in the name of stopping alleged terror.
Why not try to understand the challenges involved with governing and improving a country of 1.3 billion citizens, which I would suggest the Chinese Government knows how to do better than any other government on the earth. Is it not good that the Chinese departments involved with the media are taking pro-active steps to prevent extreme very small minorities creating problems for entire population?
Timothy - Dalian, ChinaSmoking parents 'are child abusers'
Congratulations to the NSW Government for finally making a decision in the interests of children's welfare. It is a sad day when a blatant form of child abuse requires criminalisation to be stopped.
Any parent or care giver who exposes children to the dangers of cigarette smoke, knowing full well the dangers to their health at anytime, in the car, the home or anywhere should be labelled for what they are: A child abuser, a criminal, an unfit parent.
Elisabeth Sattler - Oberon, NSWRobbing Peter to pay Paul
The current grocery unit pricing is the biggest con of the century.
It does not help struggling single mothers or large families, it does not help pensioners and it does not help the homeless. To improve the nutrition intake of the country the price of basic food essentials should be halved or subdised on items such as bread, milk, butter, cheese, meat, fish eggs and vegetables. The rest of the store's lines can be priced in such a way to combat inflation and interest rates.
Commonsense should tell the government that a majority of Australians are tightening their belts at night to fight hunger. But simply adopting the age old principle of robbing Peter to pay Paul will not feed the masses. Start waking up Kevin; you are going back to sleep after the elections.
Winston D'Cruz - Keysborough, VicExpand the nation's rail systems
If the benefits of public transport were measured on pure financial terms, then none would ever be built. Profit is not the motive for establishing and expanding the nations railways, it is the public benefit to Australian society. The objective is to provide transport options for the ever expanding population growth in all sectors of our major cities in each state to service the nation's population and CBDs. The planning alternatives to road transport and the world's ever diminishing fuel requirements need to be put on the drawing boards immediately, not sometime in the future.
We do not need sceptical economic rationalist views, we need the foresight of a 21st century CY O'Connor. There is little intelligence or logic in forever developing new suburbs, if the public cannot be serviced with efficient public transport. Some 50 years ago my father (an engine driver with the WAGR) told me that future governments would "rue the day" that they had not adequately planned for the future, as land resumption to build future rail services would be astronomical. He was spot on with his predictions.
Fashion victim Olympians
Did we miss something here? I am here looking at the fashion style of the Aussie olympic team and what is with those stripes? Is this a social political statement? Where is the yellow and green? Oh boy, get rid of this fashion consultant next Olympics.
Ana - Chatswood, NSWFight for your child's education
Parents please support your teachers. It is your children we are fighting for! If the Government gets its way your children will have larger classes, less individual help, no money for resources, and with the new funding criteria possibly your child will be shunted from one class to another, as teachers are withdrawn from the school during the year. It could happen if a couple of children leave your child's class, the funding would be withdrawn, the teacher would have to move to another school, your child's class would cease to be and your children would be divided between the other classes. This scenario could occur throughout the year. Would this really be the best education for you child? I think not. We are really fighting for the best education we can give your children. Please fight with us.
Dagmar Preusker - Angaston, SAChina 'should apologise for past wrongs'
In regards to Timothy's email (China's censorship 'sensationalised', 31/07/08) about China censoring websites, I do beg to differ with his insinuating assessment of "extreme minority groups" because of the Chinese Government's propaganda, or Politburo propaganda. Just because the Politburo managed to shut down Tibet during recent turmoil and presented their side of the story, that does not mean, Timothy has seen the real side of the picture. Recent escapees from Tibet tell of how the Chinese authorities came down hard on unarmed Tibetans with tear gas and firearms. People were shot and wounded or killed and were immediately removed using tanks to dispose of any physical evidence.
Sonpal - Mosman, NSWFaulty climate change policies
It is absolutely pathetic the way both parties go on about climate change. The Liberals do not like to do anything and Labor is intent of taking with one hand and giving it back with the other. I always thought that the idea of taxing - or as is now the vogue "carbon trading" - was intended to put a cost on each of us to moderate our "carbon foot print".
But by following what Labor intends to do, nobody will have an incentive to change. The polluters will pass on the extra cost to the end consumer who in turn will be compensated by the government from the taxes it raises. What a joke.
And for the Liberals - they are not going to do anything, which is probably just as well because in the end we will save the cost of yet another bunch public service salaries.
Frank W Taylor - Baldivis, WADetention changes 'a great move'
Mandatory detention with the onus of proof on immigration to show good and lawful reasons for taking away a person's liberty is a great move. It has restored protection of personal liberty to the heart of our democracy, to paraphrase Mick Palmer, author of the Rau report.
It means the Federal Government has anticipated the many passionate submissions to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Migration which tells what we did to innocent asylum seekers, our latest "boatpeople", was unnecesary and wrong. Evil, some people say.
A person seeking protection from persecution can always be given the benefit of the doubt and never subjected to the further torture of indefinite detention. A trained official can pick a fraud at 10 paces and deal with them differently.
Another tick for the Government that abolished the Pacific Solution and Temporary Protection Visas to be followed up soon by the rescinding of offending legislation, we hope.
Search for news
Have Your Say
Write to us and we will publish selected emails. Contact us.
In Brief
Our society is drowning in two liquids. One is oil. The other alcohol. It will not be easy to rescue swimmers from either.
Cliff B - Elizabeth Downs, SAAny public sympathy for the Qantas engineers in their push for higher pay and the causes for the threat to strike are eroding by the day.
Robert Stewart - Lameroo, SAWouldn't it be amazing to spend the same money on finding conserving and preserving water on Earth as they have to discover a drop on Mars.
Pantelis Roussakis - Darkwood, NSWAlcohol and tobacco are the biggest killers of Australians. There should a "tax" imposed that goes directly into a fund for those that are dying of those related diseases.
Tony Grant - Kanwal, NSWSurely men like Cardinal Pell and Bishop Fisher, along with their counterparts across the Catholic world who, once the mask of feigned care slips, as it so easily does, display arrogant contempt for survivors of clerical sexual abuse, are an embarrassment and a hindrance to Pope Benedict XVI.
Fr Patrick McCafferty - Belfast, IrelandThere is so much hard work still in front of Cadel Evans before Paris. However this is Australia's best chance of winning the Tour. Everyone, get behind and support him. An intelligent and humble warrior.
Luke Morrison - Torquay, VicAustralia has a fantastic opportunity to help our closest neighbour and massively improve a torn relationship, by accepting Papua New Guinean workers into the Pacific Labour Scheme.
Rick Frost - Hanoi, VietnamI make a call for the regulation of Banks. It is appalling to hear they are increasing their interest rates when the Reserve Bank is considering lowering the official rate. Profiteering seems more important than "working families". Why is Kevin Rudd so silent?
A Walker - Sanctuary Point, NSWWhen will the leaders of this increasingly dry country, finally recognise the sheer urgency and desperate need to act vigilantly, to seriously preserve all our existing water resources?
Wendy Bunce - Moree, NSW
