Attention of Michael Sukkar:
The Australian Minister for Housing
minister.sukkar@treasury.gov.au
Minister – The largest industry in Australia today is the Real Estate Industry.
The most powerful force in shaping how Australian real estate is sold and the cost of that selling, is the monopoly website – www.realestate.com.au
The website is majority owned by News Limited and this has created a situation over the past 2 decades, in which Australians are forced to pay advertising costs which are far greater than they ought to be, when selling or leasing any property.
Such costs are out of step with industry regulatory practices and real estate marketing pricing worldwide!
Additionally, because of the relationship between the largest property portal (realestate.com.au) and the largest media group (news limited), press coverage of cheaper alternatives is almost non-existent. This fact exacerbates the monopoly position that exists.
There are a great many anti-competitive practices being used by the majority portal and its owner (REA Group), which further limits competition and contributes to higher than necessary housing prices.
Therefore minister, this is both a housing affordability issue as well as a competition issue and an anti-competitive practice which is systemic and long lived.
Your office and the ACCC to date, have failed to protect the interests of the Australian public, but there is time to remedy the situation if you act promptly.
To summarise, there is both selective pricing and price gouging by a monopoly portal that is owned by a monopoly media group.
There is absolutely no market force able to counter the situation and only Government intervention can alleviate the many serious abuses of power which have been occurring for decades.
While the situation described has existed unchallenged for 20 years, the Covid pandemic has made the status quo far more dire and troublesome for all Australians.
The Australian public demand your intervention given the conspicuous absence of any action by the ACCC….. and therefore your immediate attention is requested in this matter.
Thankyou for your attention to this matter Minister Sukkar – Andrew Blachut on behalf of the Australian Public and the real estate agent industry.