Our politicians are letting big business and lobby groups dictate our way of life.  We’re getting taken for a ride and they’re turning a blind eye. As a nation we’re losing our sense of a fair go.

Take these as examples.

• The price of fruit and vege

So we have a natural disaster – flood or cyclone – and the wholesale price of food goes up. That’s understandable. But the food giants put up their prices by the same percentage or more. They conveniently forget that their wholesale cost is only a small percentage of their total costs – and they didn’t go up! But that’s of no concern to their spin doctors. Fair go? Don’t think so!

• The amount dairy farmers are paid for a litre of milk

Coles and Woolworths have an estimated combined share of the grocery market of between 55-80 percent. That’s a lot. And with that market share they can afford to play games with the retail price of milk while they force dairy farmers to sell for less than their cost of production.

Can someone tell me how that’s fair?

• The cost of a beer – no, make that anything – at the footy or a concert

At around 10 bucks for a drink is it any wonder that so many otherwise law-abiding citizens risk breaking liquor laws to smuggle in grog? I’m one of them. Quite simply the prices are a rip-off and they can be. The punters have nowhere else to go, there’s zero competition so the event suppliers can charge whatever they want.

The same extortion applies to water, which they won’t let you take into the ground. Oh, and a micro-waved Mrs Mac’s or a tub of soggy chips.

$7.20 for a sausage on bread, $5.20 for a cup of chips, and $6.60 for a mid strength beer at the Gabba. Licenced thieves!

Fletch, the reason the pollies aren’t doing something about it is that they’re in the corporate boxes sipping and chomping it for free. No idea of reality. – Peter Brewer, Queensland

The worst price I paid for drinks lately was at the Burswood Superdome for the tennis. $12 for the barman to empty a sm bottle of CC & Dry into a plastic cup. Had more in bottle but he threw that away! Was $9 for the beer. Next time I might have to be sneaky…Michelle Hall, Perth

• The price of a pint of beer in Perth

Seriously, $15 for a beer in many Perth pubs is just a joke. In the East it’s about half that. Again the problem is the ridiculously restrictive liquor licensing laws. If a pub (or a restaurant) wants to charge too much let the punters bring their own. And ban corkage charges. Now that’d get publicans and ripoff restaurant owners thinking.

• The price of snacks at the movies

It’s the same old story, give big business enough power and they’ll abuse it. Rose Jackson explains the pincer move perfectly:

Well Peter, we went to Hoyts, it was $90 for 5 kids tickets to Yogi Bear, $30 for 5 cokes and $5 each ice cream. Now THAT is not a cheap family day out is it?! Oh and a bucket of popcorn and 2 cokes was $20, if you wanted it, we just bypassed that one!

Popcorn costs a whole $1 if THAT to make and they want $10 plus for it? The cokes we had we could have bought 2 blocks of coke for that.

The answer is simple, let the punters bring their own. The current system just isn’t fair.

Our sense of fair go is too precious to surrender, too important to entrust to the poor judgement of politicians who too long ago lost touch with reality. It’s time to take a stand.

Image source: pool.org.au [tweetmeme]

In the past couple of months floods have destroyed huge swathes of Australian food crops. Already we’re seeing food prices jump as a result.

But wait a minute! Why are retail prices prices rising so sharply?

Let’s say the wholesale cost of fruit and vege goes up by 20 percent I’m betting that retail prices will go up by the same, maybe more. Coles and Woolies in particular are sure to ignore that the wholesale price is only a small part of their overall costs. But I’m betting that’s not the story their spin doctors will tell.

The Australian people are being taken for fools and our politicians are standing by doing nothing.

Wake up Australia!

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I’m looking for a new dishwasher and some patio furniture. It’s that time of the year when the bargains are on so I thought I’d pop into the David Jones website.

What a disappointment.

In this day and age where store inventory records are digitised and could easily be made available in an online environment, DJ’s effort of providing a simple catalogue, downloadable via PDF, is just appalling.

What planet are these guys on?

Perhaps they, along with the equally inept Myer, believe that the Internet will never be a big deal. I’m not sure the good folk at Amazon or ebay would agree, but I guess they’re making more coin then I am.

But seriously folks, what are they thinking?