Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

They will be questioning about them! Time is short, but we have a series of plans to deal with inflation. You shrugged your shoulders when you were in office and said: ‘Australian working people have never been better off and therefore there is nothing we can do. There is nothing we can do about grocery prices. There is nothing we can do about petrol prices. We will just let the market reign. We won’t care about competition.’ We believe in competition on this side of the House. You do not, but we believe in competition. That is why we have given the ACCC real teeth. That is why we are getting the ACCC to ensure that there is competition in the grocery market. That is why we are giving the ACCC the job of standing up for Australian consumers. You shrugged your shoulders and said that there was nothing you could do about the fact that grocery prices have gone up 43.6 per cent over the last 12 years, a rate double that of comparable countries. You thought it was fine. Well, we do not. We have a different approach. We believe that competition can play a role in reducing inflation. We believe that competition is how consumers win. That is why we have given the ACCC real teeth and that is why the ACCC has used the powers that we have given to it.

The shadow Treasurer really needs to think carefully the next time he goes on a Sunday current affairs program. He might be better off staying in bed. At the least, he should read the Reserve Bank statement before he goes on and understand that inflation is not caused by the Treasurer saying that inflation is a problem. There is a difference between cause and effect. Inflation going up causes the Treasurer to say that inflation is a problem. The Treasurer saying that does not affect inflation. (Time expired)

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