Australia news LIVE: Social media ban bill to be introduced as huge fines revealed; Coles to front supermarket prices probe

The rising cost of groceries, which executives seek to blame partly on inflation, could also be due to other issues affecting Australia’s highly concentrated supermarket sector.

The final public hearings of the consumer watchdog’s inquiry into supermarkets will begin a two-day grilling of representatives from grocery giant Coles on Thursday, as it continues sniffing around those issues.

Executives from Woolworths – Coles’ rival in a duopoly dominating two-thirds of the supermarket sector – earlier denied the company used its power to gouge suppliers, who had other options in the highly competitive grocery business.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s inquiry is investigating the extent and nature of competition between the pair.

“This will be a material factor in our assessment of the level and nature of retail competition more broadly,” it said in an interim report.

The watchdog is separately taking legal action, accusing the pair of misleading customers with allegedly fake or misleading discounts.

AAP