Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I have looked at the wording of the Trade Practices Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, which was—let us not beat around the bush—the subject of a fight to secure some action from the previous government on the issue of Woolworths and Coles. This place amazes me. If we added up the number of studies we have done on the water resources of Northern Australia we would find that about $300 million has gone up in smoke. There were two $40 million studies that I know of, and absolutely nothing has happened. We just finished another inquiry, with the ACCC coming out and making the motherhood statement that it would be nice if we could get more competition. It was good of it to say that; I believe in motherhood too.

As I said in the debate on the MPI, the head of the ACCC, in a most extraordinary statement, said there has been no increase in the difference between what the farmer gets paid and what Woolworths and Coles charge. He said that in the report and in the national media. This is the only country in the world that has allowed more than 30 per cent of its food retailing business to go into the hands of two companies. Those who have read Fair market or market failure?, the 1999 report of the Joint Select Committee on the Retailing Sector, which included members of all parties, including the Australian Democrats, will know that the report mentioned six other countries and there was not one that came near Australia. The next closest was Britain. In the other four or five countries mentioned there was something like 45 per cent market share. We had 68 per cent held by just two corporations.

The report effectively gave us another round of motherhood statements and another round of ineffectual proposals. I went to that committee and I had numerous discussions with the Queensland National Party senator and Senator Chris Schacht. Everyone on that committee knew that there were only three things that you could do. The first was capping and divestment, which was effectively what Theodore Roosevelt did to Rockefeller, and he became so famous that his face went up on Mount Rushmore. Capping and divestment was what NARGA, the National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia, requested. The second was to make really tight laws inside the ACCC’s portfolio of enabling legislation. I was there when Senator Schacht put the three proposals up. The committee knew that there were three proposals and proceeded to make a recommendation that it do absolutely nothing.

We have a farmer committing suicide every four days because they are being paid nothing. I went to a meeting of one of the leading farmers’ representative groups in the north. There were 15 farmers at the meeting. They had asked along the acting local mayor because they all wanted subdivisions; in other words, they all wanted to get out of farming—yet this was one of the most active groups in Australia. I have been to Swan Hill and Shepparton. I know they are all getting out. Farming in this country is simply closing down.

I met with the prominent economist Mark McGovern and a senior journalist here at Parliament House, and Mr McGovern said: ‘I know the best argument to use with the Prime Minister. He is worried about ethanol, for example, because it may result in food shortages in the world. Food shortages are imminent throughout the world, and the countries that will be worst off when food shortages come will be those that cannot feed themselves now. Australia, of course, will be in that category.’ Mr Deputy Speaker, I keep saying this here and no-one seems to be interested. They do not really care whether or not Australia can feed itself. The last time I did the sums, I worked out that within nine years this country will be a net importer of food.

This government was elected on the basis of collective bargaining. The only thing this government has done since it was elected is to remove from the wheat farmers the right to collectively bargain. If the Labor Party is a party of principle, I am rather curious to know what the principle is. It can hardly be collective bargaining. The unions are now finding out that maybe this government does not believe in collective bargaining. Certainly its attitude towards the farmers would indicate that.

The only thing we can say about the other mob is that they make no secret of the fact that they are totally opposed to collective bargaining. And obviously they do not read many history books, because they always accuse me of wanting to go back to the 1960s. I say, ‘It’s a hell of a lot better than going back to the 1860s.’ Laissez-faire capitalism is a phenomenon from a century ago. For those who do not read history books, little six-year-old children with dog collars went down into the coalmines on all fours. That was a result of that sort of approach. England was the most successful slave-trading nation on earth, and that was a result of those sorts of laws. Half of the Matabele tribe was slaughtered in Africa to make Cecil Rhodes rich, and that was a result of those laws. If you believe in free markets, what happened in India? What happened in Africa? A hundred thousand people died in the Boer War—28,000 women and children—under the free market policies.

If you say you want free markets, then have a look at what happened in the world when we had that situation previously. As I have said on many occasions to trade union groups throughout Australia when I have addressed their meetings from time to time: what will happen to you is what happened to the farmers. I will not go into all of the deregulations; I will simply say what happened in dairy. What happened was that we all went, under collective bargaining, to a tribunal. Some objective people—judges and those sorts of people—decided what was a fair thing for farmers to be paid, what was a fair thing for the retailers to be paid and what was a fair thing for the consumers to pay. We went into collective bargaining and it was decided what was a fair deal. It was decided that consumers should pay around $1.15 a litre, I think it was, for milk. The farmers got around 58c a litre for milk, and the rest of the consumer dollar was taken by the people in between. That was a fair thing.

Within four weeks of deregulation, my farmers got a letter in the mail that said, ‘As a result of deregulation, you will no longer get 58c. Now you will get 39c.’ That is not a free market. That is the operation of an oligopolistic marketplace. That bears no relationship. Does no-one here have any economics training? If you have a market where, the minute you deregulate, the price goes down 30 per cent, then clearly you do not understand what you are talking about if you say that we have now achieved a free market for milk. Clearly we have not. Clearly there is a total elasticity of demand if the situation is that you suddenly move from 58c a litre down to 39c a litre. For the consumers, it went from about $1.15 up to about $1.80 over the next two or three years. Didn’t Woolworths and Coles have Christmastime! If you multiply that by the litreage in Australia, that is a thousand million dollars of extra profit that went into the pockets of those people—as a result of actions taken by this place.

I came in here last week and I brought five of the most common grocery items that I could find. If you were to ask anyone to name the most common items, they would probably include beef—and we could not get pricing on beef; that is very complicated—but apart from beef they would say ‘sugar, milk and potatoes’. These are just ordinary, average items. On each item there was a 320 per cent mark-up! Heavens, when it was a fair thing in dairying it was less than 100 per cent. It was about 60 or 70 per cent mark-up; it was most certainly less than 100 per cent. Now there is a 300 per cent mark-up. Does anyone think it is fair that little Mrs Housewife out there, who is desperately trying to make ends meet, should be paying this sort of figure?

Let me come back to the bill. I do not want to disparage the good senator. God bless him for getting something through: his Birdsville amendment. God bless him for trying. But at the end of the day it is a fairly pathetic sort of effort if that is the best that the last government could do. It was passed 12 months ago and in that period of time Woolworths, in their report this year, claim that they have increased their market share by 10 per cent. So much for the effectiveness of the Birdsville amendment. But God bless the senator from Queensland for at least trying. That is what we have until we get serious in this place, pass some serious legislation and there is an effort to try and get a fair share in the marketplace.

There is no question about the 80 per cent that Woolworths and Coles hold. There is no question about that. ACNeilsen did a series of surveys, and in 1991 they found that Coles and Woolworths had 50.5 per cent of the market. When the inquiry was undertaken, an interparty inquiry, in 1998, the inquiry unanimously agreed that, whether you looked at the ACNeilsen survey or whether you looked at the ABS survey or whether you looked at the survey the committee did themselves, you came up with between 64 and 68 per cent of the market. So it had grown from 50.5 to 68 per cent in the space of seven years. Without going into all the CPIs and allowing for GDP growth and all of those things, that works out to about 2½ per cent growth a year.

A very interesting story in itself is why the ACNielsen series was discontinued. I rang up certain people who published it and they said that it had been discontinued because ACNielsen refused to do it anymore. I said, ‘Why?’ and was told, ‘We wanted it done, but there are obviously forces at work which have said that they won’t continue the series.’ But you know that it is two per cent a year. If Woolworths are out there claiming that they have had 10 per cent market growth, it is not as if they are denying that they have that share of the marketplace—though when they are under attack they will of course deny it. But wouldn’t someone in the ACCC or someone in the government say, ‘Hey, listen. In 2002 you told us that the growth in your market share was 11 per cent, Mr Woolworths, and you tell us this year that it is 10 per cent market growth.’ I have not checked the years in between, but I will bet London to a brick that they will make similar claims for the years in between. So they are telling one thing to their shareholders and they are telling another thing to people in this place.

It will be rather interesting to see when this place actually decides to stop them. They have taken over all the service stations and they have taken over all the liquor outlets. In fact, you cannot get a job in this country unless you work for them—and unless you work for peanuts as well. God help those people game enough to get out there in the marketplace and have a go. In my home town they closed both the florist shops. I think they closed five butcher shops in Charters Towers. And then we have the corner store. The state government in Queensland—those wonderful friends of the poor—the ALP government in Queensland, have announced that they are considering open trading hours. So all the corner stores will close. So much for the poor people who do not have cars and cannot drive to the shopping centre. Too bad for them! Too bad for the little single mother with three or four kids whose husband has walked out on her. Too bad for her. She cannot afford a car. She will just have to walk or get a taxi to go to the shopping centre.

But this place here does not seem to worry about any of those people. This place does not worry about the farmers, with a suicide being committed every four days. It does not worry about poor little Mrs Housewife with food costs skyrocketing through the roof. It does not worry about them. It does not worry about the pensioners who no longer have their corner store. Every single move this place has made has been in the interests of Woolworths and Coles. That was true of the last mob and it appears that it is true of this mob.

This legislation purports to make it easier for government to restrain Woolworths and Coles. That is not my opinion. I have had a look at the Birdsville amendment and I have had a look at the proposal here, and I will be voting against the proposal here. I will be putting my money on the Birdsville amendment. But I do not do that because it is effective. Clearly, it is not effective. Clearly, its effectiveness can be read in the annual report of Woolworths, where they have claimed they have another 10 per cent market share. And then we have the question of what happens if you go to unlimited trading hours and if you own all of the service stations, which Woolworths and Coles effectively do. They have bought 1,100 outlets.

I say to young people, ‘Don’t look at the class of politician you’ve got now—please don’t look at them—because you will be disheartened, you will be cynical, you’ll be hateful and you will cut yourself off and alienate yourself from the system. Remember that, once upon a time, there were people in this place who had guts.’ Once upon a time, there was a man called Doug Anthony who stood up in this place and said, ‘Mr Shell and Mr BP, you will be limited.’ He and the much maligned Malcolm Fraser stood up in this place and took the oil companies head on and said, ‘You will be restricted to 400 outlets.’ So I say to young people, ‘Don’t look at what you’ve got now—cowardly, spineless people who come in here and serve the interests of big corporations and couldn’t care less how many people commit suicide in Australia or how many little mothers go hungry because they can’t afford to buy enough food for their kids. Look at the great men who were once in this place who had the courage to stand up on these issues and did not fight about some obscure wording in a piece of legislation that won’t make any different to anything.’

We should come into this place and do things that seriously need to be done. Before you go to bed at night or when you get on your knees and say your prayers to the good Lord up there, all of you should ask yourselves whether, by continuing to support the growth of these people, you have done the right thing in this place. In all conscience—unless you are a self-deceived person—you will have to say to yourself, ‘I have not done the right thing by the people of Australia; in fact, I have done terrible things by the people of Australia.’ (Time expired)

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