Supermarkets too big to fail

by Richard Denniss in The Canberra Times

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Originally published in The Canberra Times on April 1, 2011

Picking teams in Australian policy debates used to be as simple as picking sides in old movies; the good guys wore white, the bad guys wore black, and the audience knew where everybody stood. But life just isn’t that simple especially when we consider the milk price war that is raging at the moment. Am I on the side of cheap milk or do I instinctively oppose a big retailer like Coles? Should I be on the side of the small farmer or big business? But if I side with the small farmers doesn’t that put me on the side of the Japanese corporate giant Kirin Holdings which owns Lion Nathan National Foods which in turn owns the Dairy Farmers brand?

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