1 week Ago By Anne Hyland
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Gina Cass-Gottlieb isn’t what most Australians would envisage when asked to describe an “enforcer”.
She is slight in stature, with thick, long black hair, and a calm, watchful demeanour. However, the 63-year-old Cass-Gottlieb commands one of the most important roles in the nation, a role that has earned her some enemies, but an even bigger group of admirers. Cass-Gottlieb’s job, as chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, is to balance the competing interests of business and consumers.
Those interests have become opposed amid a cost-of-living crisis as consumers have become acutely sensitive to price hikes on everyday goods and services, with businesses under pressure to justify them. The recent feisty federal Senate inquiry examining the market power of Coles and Woolworths was evidence of such angst. For our breakfast interview, Cass-Gottlieb has picked bills cafe in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst.
We’re here to discuss her extraordinary career, which diverged from early plans of becoming a doctor, like her father, into becoming the country’s leading competition lawyer. All stories have turning points, and we’ll come to Cass-Gottlieb’s. Although I’m fascinated to learn that she did have an early apprenticeship in.
