It is a depressingly familiar story: empty supermarket shelves, restrictions on staple goods that aren’t there to buy, unattractive scenes as Australians fight over toilet paper. After six visits to my local supermarkets in two weeks, I know it well.

Workers re-stock shelves at Coles. Getty

When panic buying began, I resisted. Frankly, I found it obscene. I accepted the assurances of Prime Minister Scott Morrison after the major supermarkets said supply chains were sound. Stock would, we were assured, be replenished quickly.

But as the Prime Minister decries hoarding as “un-Australian”, there is no evidence those undertakings were valid. Stores Australia-wide are stripped. Our supermarkets are failing us when we need them most.

Like wartime armament manufacturers, they reap the rewards of our panic buying. Supermarket company shares, with those for medical and food-related companies, account for almost all the green amid the sea of red on the ASX live feed. If a lockdown is announced supermarkets will undoubtedly remain open.

During my expeditions seeking supplies we may need in self-isolation, or worse, if we catch the virus, I have seen no-one stocking shelves in any of the three major chains. Beleaguered staff don’t know when shelves will fill nor when stock will arrive.

On Tuesday at my local Aldi, hundreds of people spread out across the carpark before the 8:30am opening. But when the doors opened a mob scene erupted – pressed against each other, breathing each other's exhale and racing down the aisles. We found nothing. The truck had not arrived and staff did not know when it would.

The previous day my local Woolworths was also stripped with only fresh fruit and vegetables refilled. Staff could not say when the missing stock would arrive. An assistant at the pharmacy next door (also stripped of the basics) said the supermarket was restocking in the early hours because customers were stalking trucks and attacking staff.

It’s a disgusting story. But people are frightened and, as history tells us, fear makes people do ugly things. I, too, am frightened. I live alone, have little family and none in the city. I have chronic pain but Panadol is sold out in many places. I’m over 60, so if an Italy scenario eventuates here, I'm a candidate for dying in a hospital carpark should I succumb to coronavirus. I’m paying for my refusal to panic buy, aware self-isolation may mean imposing on friends’ kindness.

Perth brides have had to cancel their weddings and businesses are laying off staff, after the government placed a ban on all non-essential gatherings over 100 people due to the coronavirus.

That could be avoided by stocking my cupboards. Yet Tuesday night I received emails from the heads of Aldi and Coles announcing reduced services – shorter opening hours ensuring more people pressed up together in that shorter time. I had consoled myself that I could have online home deliveries to my porch, but Coles then suspended those, just when we needed them. Gone, too, is the click and collect that enables less face-to-face contact. To avoid inconveniencing those receiving incomplete orders, they wouldn’t do them at all, Coles chief executive officer Stephen Cain said. When we need them most, our supermarkets abandon us.

Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci denies this. On Wednesday’s ABC 7.30 he blamed customers buying more than they needed. But people are buying more because they worry supplies won’t be there when they need them. It is a week since toilet paper restrictions were introduced. If his argument holds, why is there still none?

Surely we have a right to expect better from our supermarket chains? Now is the time for transparency and information. Why is there so little on the shelves? Will those goods arrive and if so when? Why is no one stacking shelves? Why are staff unable to keep customers informed?

These are valid questions and we deserve answers. Customers are frightened yes, but also angry. Waiting outside stores, they rage against monopolies that have left shelves bare and Australians worried about providing for themselves and their families in isolation.

This week I interviewed Professor Nick Rawlins, an international expert on fear and anxiety. He says it is rational for us to be anxious, but the anxiety itself could be highly destructive. Learning how to manipulate our levels of it will help us get through. Coles, Woolworths and Aldi take a lesson: you are making this worse.

Dr Sue Green is a Melbourne freelance journalist.

