Government storekeeper in the bush

By ERWIN CHLANDA

Exorbitant prices for groceries in outback stores are often the subject of outrage but are rarely dealt with a great deal of logic. I gave it a shot 31 years ago.

Tracker Tilmouth (pictured) was applying his admirable activist’s skills to the very same problems that are doing the rounds at the moment.

He presented to a gaggle of journalists a list of overpriced groceries and amplified the drama with references to poverty, overcrowding, morbidity, homelessness, vulnerability, dispossession and so on.

I was producing a story for the Seven TV network and flew to Papunya to test Tracker’s assertions in the community-owned store.

I asked the store keeper, words to the effect, can I please get some footage of your overpriced merchandise?

“Be my guest,” was the surprising reply.

When I finished filming the storekeeper took me aside: “What you need to know is that our prices are set by the elders on the committee which controls the store.

“We own the building. We don’t pay rent. We could beat Woolworths in Alice Springs on prices. The freight is less than what we are saving on rent.

“The store profits are spent on second-hand cars from interstate for certain people.”

It sounded like a great story about craft and corruption out there in the sticks. Well, no.

There wasn’t any public transport in Papunya. (Now Centre Bush Bus runs twice a week.)

Aboriginal people almost always share their cars.

The store could be seen as part of a nifty savings scheme, or a commercial enterprise which is endlessly called for but rarely achieved. The taxpayer is doing his part by providing, via Centrelink, the cash spent by most of the store’s clients.

This raises the question: Why should the public purse kick in $50m over four years from 2025‑26 to provide remote stores with low‑cost access to about 30 food products?

And why should it “invest” $21.4m over the same period to improve diet‑based outcomes in remote communities?

We put related questions to the Central Land Council on February 10. We got no reply but they copied us into a media handout about the latest government Closing The Gap initiative from chief executive Les Turner: “This is great news for our people.

“They have been crying out about unaffordable food and other essentials in their communities. For many years they have struggled with prices that are 40% higher than at the major supermarkets in town.

“We can’t beat the epidemic of diabetes, kidney disease and rheumatic fever that is shortening our lives if we can’t afford healthy food.”

This is the state of play: As of this week Outback Stores (OBS) are charging within a cent or two the same prices as Woolworth in Alice Springs, a survey by the Alice Springs News indicates.

This is a reduction of 30% to 50%, according to an OBS spokesperson, and is a lead up to a multi million dollar Federal program cranked up as the election looms.

Its 2021/22 annual reports says OBS was founded in 2006 to address “nutrition-related health problems, unreliable food supplies and poor management practices associated with retail community stores”. This may well be pointing to the rip-offs widely rumoured.

The Minister responsible for OBS in the 2023-24 reporting period is NT Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, Minister for Indigenous Australians.

An OBS spokeswoman says: “The stores we service are either considered managed or supported. Managed stores are generally commercially self-sufficient and generate a profit.

“Supported stores require financial support on an ongoing basis. Any store profits are retained by local store owners and are utilised by those owners for the benefit of the community.

“For non-profitable stores, Outback Stores supports the store with financial underpinning to ensure that food security is maintained.”

OBS started with two stores in 2006 and has since assisted 68 remote community stores. It has halted the closure of 17 stores, managed 13 of these stores out of administration, four out of liquidation and a further 16 stores through significant financial challenges.

In the 2023 fiscal year 23 of the stores received grants from OBS totalling $2.7m “to support working capital and essential infrastructure upgrades” including Imanpa ($348,011), Titjikala ($73,077), Nyirripi ($66,103) and Kiwirrkurra (12,183).

OBS orders merchandise, sells it, charges a management fee and remits any profit to the community which owns the store. The Commonwealth usually picks up any losses.

OBS helps with staffing, produces financial statements, does the books for each of the member stores, takes care of complicated transport and logistics and provides retail training as far as Cert IV to interested staff.

The communities usually own the premises. No rent is being charged nor needs to be paid.

There are an estimated 12 non-OBS stores in Central Australia.

OBS in 2023/24 had a revenue of $27m and expenses of $24m, including $17m in employee benefits and expenses for its 342 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and 60 non-Indigenous store workers.

OBS has a sugar reduction strategy agreed to by 35 store boards resulting in 1.25 litre Coke bottles being replaced by one litre, and 375 ml cans replaced by 250 ml. The proportion of sugary drinks sold has dropped from 76.5% to 49.1% since 2012.

But, three decades after Tracker’s protest, there is still no strategy by anyone for running, without public handouts, stores which have a captive clientele with a guaranteed income, own the real estate they operate from and for staff could draw on a vast pool of unemployed in the community.

PHOTO (courtesy OBS): Store workers in Balgo, WA.