(Translation of registrant's name into English)

800 TOORAK ROAD, TOORONGA, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA

(Address of principal executive offices)

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Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorised.

Date March 17, 2005

Coles Myer Ltd.

ABN 11 004 089 936

800 Toorak Road, Tooronga, 3146

Telephone (03) 9829 3111

Facsimile (03) 9829 6787

Postal Address: PO Box 2000, Glen Iris, 3146

News Release

Underlying net profit after tax increased by 20.5% to $429.7 million.

"This is an outstanding result in which all of our major businesses have continued to increase their earnings in a highly competitive retail market across all sectors," Coles Myer CEO John Fletcher said.

"Profit and sales have grown double-digit, our balance sheet is strong and we have commenced a capital management program to return surplus funds to shareholders and improve long-term shareholder value.

"The company has made excellent progress in the past three and a half years and remains on track to reach its aspirational FY2006 goal.

"Our food and liquor business continues to grow strongly; our newest business, Coles Express, has been a spectacular success and our non-food brands have produced exceptional results. Our business transformation initiatives are now delivering benefits to customers in-store.

"We are now clearly achieving our goals of growing shareholder value through delighting our customers and being the best team," Mr Fletcher said.

The Food and Liquor business reported strong growth, up 9.6% to $351.7 million, while Coles Express produced another outstanding performance on a standalone basis.

The non-food businesses delivered another great result, with retail EBIT up 24.0% and ROI of 20.3%. Target, for example, achieved a 61% increase in earnings on top of last year's corresponding earnings lift of 29%.

Underlying margins have continued to increase in all major businesses.

"This is a terrific outcome, considering the shareholder discount scheme came to an end during the half. Removal of the discount has enabled us to reinvest savings and so maintain sales and earnings momentum despite an unprecedented level of competition," Mr Fletcher said.

Cost of doing business continued to reduce across the Group, with a 147 basis points reduction for the half. Importantly, Food and Liquor costs continued to fall, with a 19 basis points reduction on the prior year. Gross operating margins in non-food increased by 74 basis points.

The balance sheet continued to strengthen. Return on investment increased to 22.8%, up from 19.9% in FY2004. Operating cashflow of $504.8 million was impacted by the timing of creditors' payments.

Directors have declared a fully franked interim dividend of 16.25 cents per share, up 2.25 cents on last half year.

Given the strength of the company's balance sheet, the Board today announced a capital management program that includes an off market buy back of $700m worth of ordinary shares. The program will also include the conversion of convertible preference shares ("ReCAPS" - ASX Code: CMLPA) into ordinary shares in mid-July, 2005. The dividend policy for the Group remains a target payout ratio of around 65%.

All businesses remain focused on delighting customers with great value, great range and great convenience, complimented by Australia's best retail loyalty program, which includes Coles Express fuel discount, enhanced FlyBuys, Coles Myer Source MasterCard and the new MYER One program.

The MYER One loyalty program was launched in August 2004 and has continued to win customer support, with over 380,000 members.

Two highly successful initiatives, the Coles Myer Gift Card and the Insurance Claim Card, were launched during the half.

Since its launch in August 2004, Coles Myer's innovative, flexible and practical range of gift cards has been met with a strong customer response. Customers appreciate the convenience and practicality of a gift card that can be redeemed in eight brands across the CML group, representing over 2,000 stores across Australia.

Almost 2.5 million Coles Myer and brand gift cards have been sold since the launch in August.

The Coles Myer Insurance Claim Card also continues to grow in popularity, with three major insurers part of the program and strong interest from a number of additional insurers. Customers and insurers have applauded the card, which offers both parties a seamless approach to insurance settlements. The business is expected to continue to grow strongly in the next 12 months.

As Australia's largest private sector employer - with a team of 189,000 people - recruiting, training and retaining the right team members is critical to Coles Myer's success.

Initiatives put in place to build the best team and right culture are now being recognised as the best of their kind.

CML's on-line recruiting service, www.careers.colesmyer.com, the most accessed corporate web site in Australia - has recently been awarded Australia's best Corporate Careers Website for 2005 by independent communication research firm, Potentialpark Communications of Sweden.

The Coles Myer Institute - offering courses ranging from traineeships to MBAs to all Coles Myer team members, in partnership with DeakinPrime - was awarded the prestigious global Corporate University Xchange (CUX) Excellence and Innovation Award.

Building leadership to ensure the company is well positioned for the future continues to be a Coles Myer priority. During the half, four Managing Director appointments were successfully filled by internal candidates (Food, Liquor and Fuel, Target, Officeworks and Kmart).

The Safety RIGHT NOW program continues to ensure everyone at Coles Myer is focused on a safe working and shopping environment, with further improvements achieved in the half.

"We are committed to attracting and retaining the very best people which means that we must make Coles Myer a great place to work as well as to shop. In pursuit of this goal, new initiatives have been commenced to develop a values framework for the Group and to improve workforce diversity and worklife balance," Mr Fletcher said.

Although trading conditions in FY2005 are expected to remain highly competitive, the Group still expects to achieve low double digit sales growth for FY2005.

FY2005 earnings guidance remains unchanged at an increase of around 18% in earnings (NPAT) to $670 - $680 million. This is after expensing the net supply chain implementation costs, the restructuring costs of the organisational change in food and liquor and the repositioning and relaunch of Megamart.

Group Managing Director Food, Liquor and Fuel, Hani Zayadi, said that the Food and Liquor business had achieved strong interim profit growth and remained on track for the full year.

Underlying retail EBIT margin rose to 3.71%, reflecting reduced shrinkage and continued streamlining of costs across the supermarkets and liquor division. The margin increase was achieved in a highly competitive market.

The Food and Liquor CODB to sales ratio (excluding Coles Express) fell by 19 basis points to 20.52%.

"Our focus on delighting customers continues to deliver results for both customers and shareholders," Mr Zayadi said.

"Key initiatives for the Food and Liquor group included ongoing product innovation and improved value in fresh departments. More investment in training and development of the in-store fresh department teams has also driven an increased customer and product focus.

"Similarly, customers continued to respond well to the petrol discount loyalty offer, including innovative offers between our liquor and fuel businesses.

"During the half, the liquor team was successfully relocated from Sydney to Melbourne and developed its new strategy.

"The new integrated supermarkets team is also now in place, with long-term financial and operational benefits far outweighing the $20.7 million in implementation costs incurred in the first half. Reducing management layers and eliminating duplication will enable greater agility and speed to market with new and improved customer offers.

"The store expansion program continued, with 20 supermarkets and 10 liquor outlets opened in the half year. Gross store openings in the order of 10 supermarkets and 20 liquor stores are expected in the remainder of FY2005. Net store increases for the second half will be approximately 10 supermarkets and 10 liquor stores (after closures and replacements but excluding new hotels*).

"Business transformation initiatives are improving on-shelf availability for customers and creating operational efficiencies. The first release of the new Food, Liquor and Fuel merchandising system has been implemented. Following successful trials, preparation is underway for the introduction of roll cages in Victoria in the second half of FY2005, followed by a progressive national rollout. This, combined with the introduction of shelf ready packaging, continues to deliver in-store efficiencies.

"Today's updates on the progress of the rollout of our supermarket housebrand strategy and the broader liquor strategy show the strong foundations we have in place for growth in these areas.

"A dedicated housebrand team has been established, with local and international brand, consumer and marketing experience, and is developing and sourcing new products in each of the three tiers designed to delight our customers, no matter what their budget.

"The progressive rollout of our housebrand range from mid-calendar year will see the introduction of new products under three distinct quality/price tiers - coles $mart buy (Good), you'll love coles (Better), followed by George J Coles (Best). The three tiers are designed to meet or exceed customer price and quality needs at each level.

"We have completed a strategic analysis of the liquor market, including consumer and industry trends to 2010 to identify optimal propositions and locations for future growth.

"As a result, we have defined three distinct channels to service our liquor customers - value, convenience and specialist.

"The new large format store offer will capture the value segment and will commence rollout from June FY2005, with two new stores this financial year and up to 15 in FY2006, including the conversion of our Quaffers stores, and up to 15 stores annually thereafter.

"Our new large format store, 1^st Choice Liquor Superstore, will provide a wide range of liquor, low prices and a unique shopping experience for our customers.

"This week we have agreed to acquire 8 hotels* in Queensland which will provide an excellent strategic fit for our large format roll out.

"Our fleet of Liquorland stores will be refined to a true convenience proposition. We will refurbish more than 100 of our Liquorland stores over the next three years to include improved signage, tailored ranges and clearer price points, to better service the convenience customer.

"Meanwhile, we will continue the incremental rollout of liquor on supermarket shelves in Victoria and ACT where regulations permit us to do so," Mr Zayadi said.

Future growth of the Food and Liquor business will be driven by:

• great value and innovative offers;
• continued improvement of fresh food categories;
• rollout and growth of the new housebrand model;
• new format destination liquor stores and new look convenience fleet;
• leveraging the CML loyalty program; and
• network expansion across Food and Liquor

Coles Express, incorporating fuel and convenience stores, reported retail EBIT of $20.1 million for the half. This was an outstanding result for the business.

"The total network of 597 sites at the end of the half provides the Group with clear leadership in both the fuel and convenience retailing channels, leveraging off its quality Shell fuel offer, prime locations and well established convenience stores.

"Building on this strong foundation, Coles Express will focus on enhancing the customer experience by providing improved service and developing the convenience store offer, while further strengthening its links with the Group loyalty program," Mr Zayadi said.

The non-food businesses - Kmart, Myer, Megamart, Target and Officeworks - delivered a strong result for the half with retail EBIT up 24.0% and ROI up 690 basis points to 20.3%. Gross operating margins grew during the half by 74 basis points to 33.24%.

"This is an outstanding result in which all the major non-food businesses have continued to grow EBIT margins and return on investment," Mr Fletcher said.

Kmart reported a 19.0% increase in retail EBIT to $89.1 million, with EBIT margin improving by 39 basis points over the half.

Kmart Managing Director, Larry Davis, said Kmart's strong performance was very pleasing and positioned the brand well for the second half of the year.

"We continue to rebuild Kmart in the very competitive discount department store retail sector, and our focus remains on improving our product offer to customers and delivering it in a comfortable shopping environment.

"Customers responded positively to our seasonal Christmas products and we saw good performances from our toys and leisure and sporting goods areas. Our home division performed strongly, and we will continue to maximise our home merchandise opportunities, with brands like Living with Deborah Hutton providing customers with a range of stylish, affordable products.

"In apparel, our continued focus on delivering up to date ranges of products and brands resulted in another very good performance. Key brands within menswear (Now, Golden Breed) and womenswear (Girl Xpress, Georgie and Annabella by Delta) proved extremely popular with customers, and our childrenswear, footwear and accessories range also sold well. Early customer reaction to our winter ranges has been excellent.

"We opened four new stores over the half, bringing our network to 179 Kmart stores across Australia and New Zealand," Mr Davis said.

Myer reported an increase of 2.4% in retail EBIT to $60.7 million for the half. The result reflected good progress against strategy with solid margin growth in key categories such as Womenswear, Footwear, Accessories, Menswear and Cosmetics, and a stronger Private Brand offer.

The result was achieved despite the removal of the Shareholder Discount card which, as anticipated, impacted sales, particularly on big ticket items such as furniture and electrical, increased marketing to counter competitor activity and one-off costs associated with the launch of the MYER One loyalty program.

MYER One has quickly become Australia's leading department store loyalty program, exceeding pre-launch targets with more than 380,000 active members. Members are accounting for an increasing volume of sales, recently hitting a high of about 18% of total sales.

Myer continued to deliver new initiatives during the period, including the launch of Virgin Music and Entertainment and a major focus on new and exciting product such as the Apple iPod, which Myer sold more of than any other Australian retailer in the lead up to Christmas.

Work commenced on a major upgrade of Myer Brisbane, to bring the store to the standard of Myer Bondi by mid year.

"This is a solid result for Myer and demonstrates significant progress in an intensely competitive market. The continued strength of our famous four categories merchandise offer, strong customer focus and our strategic marketing program are delivering results," Myer Managing Director Dawn Robertson said.

Megamart's performance in the highly competitive electrical market was disappointing. The EBIT loss of $18.5m reflected poor sales for much of the half and costs associated with the December re-launch.

Sales in the electrical and furniture categories remained extremely competitive, with both - as anticipated - the most impacted by the removal of the shareholder discount program.

The Megamart customer offer was repositioned and re-launched in December, supported by a strong marketing campaign.

However, the issue of scale remains, with Megamart a nine store brand operating in four states, requiring a higher relative marketing spend to attract customers.

The performance and future of the brand will continue to be reviewed over the balance of FY2005 as the customer response to the repositioning becomes clear.

Target reported a 60.6% increase in retail EBIT to $141.2 million for the half.

Managing Director Launa Inman said that Target delivered its highest interim profit in the brand's history. This follows the significant increase in retail EBIT in the prior half year.

"Target continued to deliver on the strategy of on-trend, affordable and high quality ranges, coupled with the ongoing development of the Target brand as a fashion franchise," Ms Inman said.

"Target's retail margin rose by 281 basis points to 8.64%, reflecting a disciplined approach to in-store presentation and delivery of new and distinctive product, ensuring maximum return from merchandise.

"Target continued to lead the Group in increasing the direct sourcing of imported goods, delivering greater cost efficiencies and faster access to new, unique and highly differentiated merchandise. Target has also benefited from a stronger Australian dollar during the half.

"Our speed to market with new merchandise ranges has fantastic customer appeal. Strong support for seasonal events was a feature for the half, along with our key promotions such as Stocktake and Massive Home Sale.

"Target opened four stores during the half and closed three. Stores were opened in two new locations and relocated to new sites in two other towns, as part of the ongoing strategy of opening stores in key growth areas, closing non-performing stores and moving to larger premises where appropriate.

"Our focus on the right merchandise, events, store layout and execution should position Target well going forward as we continue to reinvest in the business," Ms Inman said.

Officeworks delivered another strong performance with retail EBIT growth for the half of 14.2%.

Officeworks Managing Director, Joe Barberis, said the business continued to strengthen its position as the number one choice for quality office and technology products for small to medium size businesses and home offices with its great range, convenience, customer service and low prices.

"Strong events during the half continued to strengthen the brand's positioning, with a highlight being the successful Back to School campaign.

"The result reflected excellent sales growth, new merchandise initiatives including our modern contemporary furniture range, and ongoing business efficiencies," Mr Barberis said.

Officeworks opened five new stores in the half, increasing the network to 83, with the business well on track to achieve six to nine new stores for FY2005.

Coles Myer is progressively transforming the way we do business to improve productivity and efficiency that will, in turn, deliver better value and service to customers and increased returns to shareholders.

Supermarkets are now benefiting from reductions in the number of direct-to-store deliveries. Five deliveries per store per day have been removed, reducing costs and allowing team members to spend more time on the shop floor and less time on the loading dock or in the storeroom.

Following successful trials, over 3800 'shelf-friendly packaging' lines are now in place in our supermarkets, reducing double handling and allowing easier filling of fixtures.

System enhancements and operational changes have improved on-shelf and warehouse availability. On-shelf availability is now measured in supermarkets twice weekly, with availability continuing to increase. More accurate forecasting of volumes are reducing costs through better management of storage and warehouse requirements.

Further productivity and efficiency gains are being realised across the Group as common reporting systems and integrated technologies are implemented.

Following a pilot phase, Coles Myer has begun scheduling and managing transport from suppliers into distribution centres, reducing the cost of inbound freight. Eight suppliers are now live on factory gate pricing with a new transport management system selected and currently being implemented.

The next six months will see a number of further significant projects implemented.

Site selection for the new food and liquor distribution centre network is well advanced, with construction at key sites commencing by the close of FY2005. A new warehouse management system will also be operational.

Roll cages will be introduced in supermarkets in key states, trials of returnable plastic crates will be finalised and the next phase of the new automated merchandising system is expected to commence for our Food, Liquor and Fuel businesses.

To support the Group's direct sourcing from Asia, a common international shipping system will be completed (iTrade), allowing non-food brands to better manage and track overseas inventory, reducing cost and improving speed to market.

The balance sheet continues to strengthen, with total shareholders' equity increasing by 11.1%, strong trading results and a low net cash to equity position. The strong balance sheet position has enabled the business to announce a capital management program that returns surplus funds to shareholders in the second half of FY2005.

Return on investment increased strongly to 22.8% from 19.9%, an improvement of 290 basis points on the prior half year.

Inventory levels rose by 5.9%, including new stores and acquisitions (in particular Coles Express), considerably lower than the 17.0% increase in Group sales. Stock turns were maintained across the Group and inventory quality remained high. Increasing levels of direct sourcing, resulting in inventory entering our supply chain earlier, offset stock turn improvements in our non-food brands.

Trade Creditors support was impacted by the timing of payments for inventory purchased earlier in the season by comparison to the corresponding half last year. Direct sourcing from Asia is also impacting support levels as such purchases are usually on letter of credit. The overall support level was 63.4% of inventory at the end of the half against 70.2% last year, impacting working capital and cash flow. Creditor support has risen several percentage points in February.

Total capital expenditure was $371.4 million (2004: $464.2 million), with the forecast for FY2005 approximately $900 million. Investment in stores and future growth opportunities remain a key priority for the Group in FY2005 and beyond.

Operating cashflow was impacted by lower creditors' support at the end of the half and, to a lesser extent, by the timing of the tax payments.

The higher dividends paid reflected both a higher final dividend for 2004 but in particular the suspension of the Dividend Reinvestment Plan.

The directors present their report for the 26 weeks ended 23 January 2005.

The names of the directors in office at the date of this report are:

Richard Allert, AM Chairman

John Fletcher Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

Patricia Akopiantz Non-executive Director

Keith Barton Non-executive Director

William Gurry, AO Non-executive Director

Anthony Hodgson Non-executive Director

Sandra McPhee Non-executive Director

Martyn Myer Non-executive Director

Michael Wemms Non-executive Director

The above directors each held office during and since the end of the period.

Mark Leibler, AO, retired as a non-executive director on 18 November 2004.

The results of the operations of the CML Group during the period are reviewed on pages 1 to 12.

A copy of the auditors' independence declaration as required under section 307C of the Corporations Act 2001 is set out on page 29.

CML is a company of the kind referred to in the Australian Securities & Investments Commission Class Order 98/0100 dated 10 July 1998. As a result, amounts in the accompanying financial report have, where appropriate, been rounded to the nearest one hundred thousand dollars except where otherwise indicated.

The directors declare that the financial statements and the notes set out on pages 13 to 27 are in accordance with the Corporations Act 2001, including:

The directors further declare that in their opinion there are reasonable grounds to believe that CML will be able to pay its debts as and when they become due and payable.

This directors' report and declaration are made in accordance with a resolution of the directors.