maple street co-op

From the editor
From "Maple Street Co-op News", Apr/May 2006

The dreaded day has come to pass: the opening of the Woolworths supermarket in Maleny on Monday 3 April (just as we're going to press). However, Maleny locals embraced the day by not shopping there. Instead, they dropped by Maple Street Co-op, which had its best ever sales for a Monday, and the Maleny Supa IGA was packed with loyal customers throughout the day. Not so at the new Woolies with its big police/security presence, as you'll read in my cover story.

Last edition, I suggested the ACCC should be pursuing Woolworths for false advertising over its "Fresh Food People" slogan for selling produce that could be up to a year old. Some creative locals took up the challenge and wrote to the ACCC, which replied that the word "fresh" could be "puffery", or what the courts call "self-evident exaggeration", and this is not in breach of section 52 of the Trade Practices Act. With the ACCC's inaction over predatory pricing, this response is no surprise. On the ACCC's advice, the Maleny group has since written to Food Standards Australia New Zealand. According to the Courier-Mail (14 March), "FSANZ is helping the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission draw up a food definition or food descriptor guide to try to ensure the use of words, such as fresh, [is] not misleading." Looks like Woolies won't have to spend millions changing their signage or practices for some time.

As suspected, Woolworths Maleny is stocking little in the way of local produce (apart from Maleny Dairies products), and we're not convinced that persimmons "grown locally in Woodford" qualify.

Woolworths was recently slammed by the Qld Industrial Relations Commission as "a ruthless, two-bit operator, with a poor industrial relations track record" over its three-month failure to negotiate a new workplace agreement with maintenance and warehouse workers before the controversial new WorkChoices "reforms" kicked in on 27 March (Courier-Mail, 27 March). And in the lead-up to the opening, we hear that Centrelink has pressured at least one job-seeker to apply for a position at Woolworths. Meantime, local Woffers continue to make a dent in Woolworths' bottom line by returning the corporation's catalogues; they're close to totting up $20,000 in reply paid postage!

A police-sanctioned march/rally for Saturday 8 April will give residents a chance to turn their back on Woolworths and complete this phase of the protest. Be at Cudgerie Street across from Maleny State School with your bells and black armbands on at 9.30 am for a 10.00 march to Tesch Park for a party/wake with food and entertainment. Be careful crossing the road – now that Woolworths has opened, Maleny's traffic chaos is hitting new heights.

Ruth

[From "Maple Street Co-op News", April/May 2006; published by The Maple Street Co-operative Society Ltd, 37 Maple Street, Maleny, Qld 4552, Australia, tel (07) 5494 2088, email maplest.co-op@serv.net.au,
website http://www.maplestreetco-op.com.au]