Prices move like rockets and feathers: they’re quick to rise and slow to fall, and that is why Australians are paying so much for even bare necessities, a report has found.

Supermarkets, electricity companies, childcare centres, airlines, pharmaceuticals, electric vehicle makers and banks are among the many sectors that overcharge consumers by leveraging a lack of competition and implementing a plethora of exploitative practices. 

That’s the verdict of leading economist and inaugural Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Allan Fels, who produced the 80-page report into price gouging and unfair pricing for the ACTU.

“When costs rise, business prices rise fast like a rocket, when costs for business prices fall, (they fall) slowly to the ground like a feather,” he told the National Press Club on Wednesday.

“It’s very profitable to delay price falls.

“(And) now as inflation starts to fall, I’m concerned there may be a rockets and feathers effect.”

He says supermarkets and fuel companies disguise price fluctuations amongst supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic, war or natural disasters.

He also flagged “considerable reservations” about childcare prices, saying both the early childhood education and care sectors were “riddled with overcharging”, principally because of the market’s design and the difficulty for people to switch services.

Many of these issues are exacerbated in remote areas where Australians are paying two to three times more for everyday items.

Amongst all this, companies are making record profits, which have added significantly to inflation.

Prof Fels also took aim at Qantas, an airline that has historically held a large portion of market share.

“We’ve had a dominant Qantas and then a much smaller competitor, Virgin, and a few hangers on – which make a difference,” he said.

“As I experienced in the 90s, if you have a third airline, it brings prices down a lot …  (so) if we do have new entrants, we should give them a chance.”

The report recommends introducing divestiture laws that would allow big businesses to be broken up if they are found to have breached competition law and if a court determines it is the best remedy.

Asked if this should be applied to Qantas, Prof Fels said “there is a case for it” and noted the airline had already moved around legal barriers in the past when it was granted an exemption from merger laws in the 1980s.

But now that the carrier has endured a gauntlet of PR disasters including the expedited exit of its former CEO, court losses and allegations of false, misleading and deceptive conduct by the consumer watchdog, all eyes are on Qantas.

“They’ve invoked the ‘national champion’ argument and got a lot of benefits and were paid a lot for it,” 

“(But now) have squandered some of their good name as a national champion and it’s made us less hesitant to impose more competition.”

To bring prices down, the government should implement a national competition and prices commission, which could give effect to the government’s policy and look at the reasons behind high costs.

The economist also called for legal powers to expose firms that charge excessive prices to be reinstated, after they were used by the coalition in 2000 when the GST was introduced.

Governments should require bank accounts to be portable in the same way they years ago made mobile phone businesses let customers switch suppliers and retain their numbers, he said.

Businesses often say they must increase their margins in anticipation of costs later on, but Prof Fels was sceptical of such claims, calling them “PR lines fed to the public” used as an excuses to raise prices.

Greens senator Nick McKim said the report confirmed what Australians had long suspected and showed the nation needed to tax corporate profits.

This post was originally published on Michael West.