"Do we actually want to pay our workers $1.50 and $2.50 an hour? Of course they are cheaper in Indonesia," Mr Davis told reporters on Tuesday following a shareholders meeting.

Coles boss, Ian McLeod, has been accused of deflecting attention from allegations that the major supermarkets have been bullying suppliers by publicly comparing the price discrepancies between products in Australia and in Asia.

This includes identical items sold in Australia and Indonesia by CCA, like 2 litre bottles of Coke which sell at a 54 per cent mark up in Australia.

"Yes I can bring in cans from Indonesia cheaper than I could produce them in Australia. That is absolutely right, but I am not going to do that because I am ferverently a believer that we have to have a manufacturing industry in this country, because if we don't we do it at our peril."

The issue has also impacted on CCA's packaged fruit business SPC Ardmona which has lost half of its local market share to imports sold under private label brands by Coles and Woolworths.