It’s not often you get former John Howard cabinet favourites turning up at protest rallies against big business, but Kevin Andrews was keen to put the slipper into Woolworths at a suburban rally in his seat on Saturday morning.

And Kevin wasn’t alone. He was joined by Victorian Labor’s shadow planning minister Brian Tee, the Liberal president of the Legislative Council Bruce Atkinson and six of the nine City of Manningham councillors.

The issue causing all the concern is the Supreme Court writ Woolworths has launched against the opening of a supermarket on Manningham council land at the Jackson Court shopping centre in East Doncaster.

Woolworths used to operate a Safeway supermarket at Jackson Court until it was converted into a Dan Murphy’s grog shop in 2008.

Traders have reported a substantial decline in business since the supermarket closed, but Woolies doesn’t seem to care because it claims to be making twice as much profit running the site as a Dan Murphy’s.

The company clearly took the protest seriously as Simon Berger, community relations manager in the Sydney head office, flew down for the weekend to attend.

Berger declined to address the rally but did provide some grabs for the story that ran on Channel Seven’s 6pm news on Saturday night.

Woolworths is used to copping flak for imposing supermarkets on resisting communities in places such as Maleny and Mullumbimby, but this scenario of walking away and then litigation to prevent a new entrant is something else.

The new Victorian government is clearly unimpressed. Legislative Council speaker Bruce Atkinson told the 200 assembled protesters that he was representing local member and cabinet minister Mary Wooldridge and that the Woolworths litigation was “vexatious”.

In a discussion with Simon Berger afterwards, it was pointed out that the Victorian government has given Woolies a dream run on other planning matters in recent times.

Indeed, outgoing Woolies CEO Michael Luscombe heaped praise on the former Brumby Labor government at the AGM in Brisbane last November when he said the following about the company’s new hardware store roll-out:

“I would also like to acknowledge the recent decision of the Victorian government to fast-track planning approval on 10 stores. From day one, they really grasped the extent of the investment in jobs and infrastructure and conducted a very diligent and thorough process to review the development applications.”

Companies such as Woolworths have always got their hand out requesting help or favours from government, but the new Baillieu government has drawn a line in the sand.

Woolworths wrote to Victoria’s new Attorney-General Robert Clark in December last year requesting approval to pursue litigation to stop ALDI opening at Jackson Court on the grounds that a routine 1958 sub-division somehow meant land given over to council constituted a public charitable trust for car parking in perpetuity.

The Attorney put them back in their place with this letter to Woolworths’s lawyers dated March 29, 2011, which included the following:

“Having considered all the circumstances involved, including the time that elapsed and the events that occurred prior to your clients commencing these proceedings and requesting my fiat, and having regard to the public interest, I have decided not to grant my fiat for these proceedings.”

In other words, Woolworths should stop gaming the planning system and get out of the way to allow a competitor to provide a much-needed supermarket service that it withdrew.

As Australians suffer the world’s most concentrated grocery market and Woolworths continues to enjoy the fattest profit margins of any major supermarket retailer in the world, maybe it is time the board reconsidered some of the tactics that have contributed to this outcome as political and community opposition continues to mount.

Stephen Mayne is a Manningham City councillor who addressed Saturday’s rally and was not paid for this contribution.