Canada’s Tim Tam bargain riles up Nationals leader
Australia’s favorite chocolate biscuit is sold cheaper overseas than at home, drawing the ire of the National Championship leader.
Matt Canavan claims that a pack of Tim Tams costs more in Australia than in a supermarket in Canada.
The politician says the $A6 (or something close to it) he pays at Woolworths dwarfs Walmart’s typical $A4.10 price tag.
“So, to paraphrase the Simpsons, we lost a war?” he joked at the LNP’s annual state conference in Brisbane on Saturday.
“We should get these cheaper than everyone else.”
Senator Canavan seized on the sugary injustice in his speech to the party faithful to criticize the Labor government’s economic policies, particularly the failure to deliver on a promised $275 cut on electricity bills.
He says high energy prices have increased production costs and turned into expensive desserts made locally.
Under coalition policy, net zero targets will be abandoned, the moratorium on nuclear will be overturned, and domestic coal and gas resources will be mined and drilled in the search for “abundant, affordable” energy.
It would mark a departure from Labor’s policy of a solar and wind power grid backed by storage, which it expects will deliver on its climate commitments at least cost, with CSIRO modeling supporting renewables as the cheapest source of next generation.
This is not the first time that the issue of cheaper biscuits abroad has come to the fore.
In 2024, Liberal senator Jane Hume questioned representatives of Coles and Woolworths at a parliamentary inquiry about better Tim Tam deals available at UK supermarket chain Tesco.
At the time, a spokesman for manufacturer Arnott’s disputed the discrepancy and said Australian consumers on average paid less for the product than in the UK.
Grocery prices are affected by many factors.
Price tags vary from place to place, reflecting differences in overhead, regulations, competition, corporate strategy, and payment capacity; wealthier neighborhoods generally charge more.
Tim Tams has also been named in litigation brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission against major supermarket chains over false discount claims in recent years.
