Coles has hit back at the minister for agriculture David Littleproud after he labeled the supermarket’s milk levy an “empty media stunt”.
The supermarket giant says it is committed to supporting farmers, having already committed funds for drought relief.
A 30c levy was introduced by Coles on all of its three-litre home brand milk products to raise funds for drought-affected dairy farmers to be distributed through the Dairy Drought Relief Fund.
However, Littleproud has criticised Coles’ handling of the levy.
“The reality is they’ve kept it very narrow, they’ve kept it to three-litre milk,” Littleproud said in an interview with ABC yesterday.
“What they've also done to compound this is actually made a bureaucracy around getting that 10c a litre back to the farmer. They’ve actually now asked the farmers to apply for it.”
“I was initially prepared to give the benefit of the doubt but it hasn't been followed up with good policy work – it's an empty media stunt. The result is a half-baked policy which only applies to Coles' three-litre variety of their own milk brand," Littleproud also said.
In response Coles has said it is unhappy with the comments by Littleproud.
“It is disappointing that the Minister has chosen to criticise Coles, which has already committed over $12m for drought relief, before becoming familiar with the facts,” a Coles spokesperson says.
“Coles has established the Dairy Drought Relief Fund to ensure 100% of the funds raised from this 30c increase on the price of Coles own brand 3L milk will be donated directly to dairy farmers affected by drought.”
Coles also says that independent auditor PwC was appointed to oversee the application administration process and verify that funds have been allocated to drought-affected dairy farmers as committed.
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