Big taxing budget has no growth story, Coles pants pulled ‘Down Down’ & CSL shocker

James Thomson· Host0:00

[upbeat music] The Australian Financial Review. [upbeat music] Hello, I'm James Thompson, senior Chanticleer columnist at the AFR. Welcome to our weekly news breakdown of all things business, finance, and markets. With me today, as always, it's my Chanticleer colleague, the man whose budget won't be running a $31.5 billion deficit next year, it's Anthony McDonald. How are you, Anthony?

Anthony Macdonald· Host0:29

Fiscally stimulated this week, James. What a time to be alive.

James Thomson· Host0:33

[laughs] Fantastic. [upbeat music] Well, this week we are all about the budget, the big messages, the big numbers, the big risks, and the hidden stories, and we'll help you decide whether this really was an aspirational budget or just a cheap attempt to win votes.

Anthony Macdonald· Host0:51

But first, James, let's start with another political grenade you jumped on this week, [laughs] the supermarkets and whether they're gouging customers. On Thursday, the court ruled Coles was too quick to put down down tags on some of its items, saying four weeks wasn't long enough to be claiming a discount. What's going on here?

James Thomson· Host1:12

There's two separate cases, one against Coles and one against Woolies, where the ACCC, which is the competition watchdog, claim that Coles and Woolies had misled customers because they'd whacked down down stickers or suggested that prices had been discounted- Mm-hmm ... when actually the price hadn't been at the higher level for very long. I'll give you a little