So I say, just go on your own personal hajj to the Marrickville Mecca, volume at thin margins is their raison d’etre, after all. The nebulous nature of cross-region basket data opens itself to statistical misrepresentation like all survey-based data (which I think is the point), so it helps to have someone do the hard work like you did and break it down into some ‘clearer’ choices. Of course, my dad doesn’t need actual survy-based statistics, he has his own, just like 68.4% of all people.

I agree that the fuel and grocery watch ideas are populist, the expense of which probably denying the ABS of much needed data surveyors and analysts for more important pursuits (though maybe we can observe some sort of renegade CPI check with this data?). They weren’t going to be a success pre-election, and probably won’t be now. So it pains me to also have to agree with Craig, who sounds like he’d have a dancing John Howard on the dash board, but they really are a waste of money. I’d much rather my tax dollars be spent on something more meaningful, like HakwinsWatch, or BeyonceCHOICE (KerrChing??), but I’m not sure they’d listen to me. And I’m definitely positively truly madly deeply certain that they won’t listen to intelligent analysis like the above (post, not my rantings).

Telstra should set up AN “Idol-like” 55c min. call in to get a price on individual item. There are plenty of numbnuts out there who wouldn’t be able to leave the house without referring to it, probably repeatedly. Others will just go to Aldi. Where’s that fork……

One question though, whiilst the basket approach can hide a multitude of sins, I wonder whether it remains the most relevant single statistic given more people on average fill a basket rather than seek to purchase a single good when shopping in the hell holes that are Australian supermarkets.

Which brings me on to the real issue. Frankly I don’t think that grocery prices are the problem, these are merely a symptom of yet another sector (e.g. hotels, bottleshops, chemists etc) in which intense lobbying by a few large operators has effectively killed the likelihood that small business can thrive and provide us with the variety and freshness we all crave (or do we?).
What bothers me much more is the inability of the administration to work out how we should live….in relation to fresh food. If you only want to buy tomatoes in Sydney, a few cents per kilo is not the issue. The real issue is accessability to fresh tomatoes without having to jump into your 4×4 and slug it through 9 sets of traffic lights to a norton st grocer underneath a westfield car park to buy tomatoes which have travelled 3xs round Australia.

What can your investigative skill do to uncover how we source our freshgoods vs other developed societies? Maybe Sydney isn’t so bad. Maybe I’m just imagining it.

So, the obvious conclusion from the analysis is why are taxpayers being made to stump up to support yet another dubious (FuelWATCH) Governement sponsored initiative like this? The ACCC’s recent inquiry into grocery pricing has recommended changes that are likely to lead to even greater competition within the sector. For example, changing zoning laws to allow food retailers to operate in previously zoned non-food areas and removing various clauses in leases between supermarkets and shopping centres that prevent or delay the entry of other supermarkets. Now that’s what I’d call measurable and meaningful progress. If the Governement was actually serious about increasing competition in the grocery sector they would have done so long before now and they’d be doing more than simply watching prices.

One can only be left with a sense that this yet another lowbrow, vote grabbing stunt dreamed up by a bored politician who has run out of ‘Big Ideas’. Or, maybe this is a Big Idea?

And I’m not too familiar with the regions of Australia (that’s a vacation I have yet to take), but your analysis of how the prices change in different regions — especially when the grocery outlet is closer to home base — is very interesting.