Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Hansard source

I have listened with great interest to this matter of public importance debate and to the contributions. Whilst I think the intentions of the member for Kennedy are well conceived, I do not believe that the assault upon the ACCC is the best way to improve the rights of the consumer. In fact, the best improvement that has happened for the rights of consumers—be they small farmers, consumers or people who have to deal in the grocery industry—happened on 24 November with the election of the Rudd Labor government.

The previous government—and I will not labour their failures too much because they are well recorded—were anti consumer, anti worker and anti farmer. The National Party are collaborationists with their city based Liberal friends, and in Queensland, in fact, they are now the Liberal Party or the National Party; I get confused. It has been left to the member for New England and the member for Kennedy to at least fly the flag for the constituency and the way they see it. I will watch with interest if Mr Oakeshott is successful in Lyne. Perhaps then there will be further, more independent voices in the bush, as opposed to the Liberal-National Party—the National Party of course being the Liberal embassy or branch office in the bush.

I will return to what I think is the key focus in this debate: the adequacy of the ACCC. I think that we need to understand and use as the key debating point in this issue of assessing the adequacy of the ACCC their most recent report into the competitiveness of retail prices for standard groceries. In fact, the report revealed—and it did reveal this, despite perhaps some of the sound and fury of the address of the very impassioned member for Kennedy—that there is real reform to be had in Australia’s grocery sector. The report found that grocery retailing is ‘workably competitive’, but it also highlighted a number of factors that currently limit the level of competition, including the complexity of planning applications, which provide the opportunity for Coles and Woolworths to ‘game’ the planning system to delay or prevent potential competitors entering local areas. According to the report the biggest impediments to improved competition include the high barriers to entry for large supermarkets, a lack of incentives for the major supermarkets to compete strongly on price and the limited price competition from independent retailers.

The Rudd government, the consumer’s best friend, ably led in this area by the Assistant Treasurer in advancing these reforms, is going to move in the following areas as a matter of urgency. It is going to refer the anticompetitive impacts of state and local zoning and planning laws to the Council of Australian Governments. One may ask: why didn’t the previous government act in its 12 years? Furthermore, the Rudd government is going to consider the best way to introduce a mandatory, nationally consistent, unit-pricing regime. Issues such as the product range that is captured and store size will need to be worked through in consultation with industry to ensure compliance costs are kept to a minimum. Unit pricing has proven to be a transparent and popular tool for overseas consumers, and one has to ask the question: why did the political party of noddies—I of course refer to the former government—fail to look at this issue?

Most importantly for the interests of the member for Kennedy and the member for New England and indeed all of the members of the government is that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry will work together with the horticultural industry through the Horticulture Code Committee to carefully consider the ACCC’s 13 recommendations to enhance the operation of the Horticultural Code of Conduct. This hopefully will improve the regulation of trade in horticultural produce between growers and traders and provide dispute resolution procedures, which are very important. Indeed, the member for Kennedy will recollect that in my previous life both he and I appeared on platforms to try and confound and push the previous government to stand up for the small growers.

The government will implement a law on creeping acquisition, releasing a discussion paper by the end of the month to gauge the best way forward. The matter of public importance perhaps does not capture that the interests of the consumer have been advanced by the Rudd government very strongly, working with the ACCC, and in fact we have even picked some of the low-hanging fruit—to conclude my contribution in a vaguely orchard-like manner. At least this government has a Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs, an accomplishment which the previous government could not seem to get around to in their 12 years. (Time expired)

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