Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think that this battle is far from over. We may not win in the parliament today, but the government must be served notice that every element of Australia is screaming for this. The minute the gun went off, the Leader of the Nationals said he was going for divestiture. The Greens said they were going for divestiture. Whether they said that before or not, I don't know. All I'm saying is that this is a rolling thunder ball, and it's going to keep rolling until we get some justice on this issue.

When these people had 50.1 per cent of the market, in 1991, we had 276,000 farmers in Australia. We now have 83,000. That's all that's left, and those that are left are in a pretty poor state. No country on earth has allowed this sort of concentration of market power—and it's in food; it's not as though it's in some commodity that is an indulgence.

I want to make the situation perfectly clear. In 1991, Woolworths and Coles had 50.1 per cent of the market. By 2001, the ABS said they had 68 per cent and ANOP said they had 72 per cent—so let's say they had 70 per cent—so they've gone from 50 per cent to 70 per cent by 2001.

This is the interesting part: their mark-up went from an outrageous 109 per cent to 196 per cent. We had to have a small basket because we're not a big research engine or anything of that nature. We just said, 'Put these items down. Go out and find out what price they are.' Whether you want to believe that or not, that's up to you. I don't care. I've held up constantly throughout this debate a picture of a potato. I've held up a potato. The potato on the day that I held it up last week was between 40 cents and 50 cents. That's 45 cents they paid the farmer. Their price here is $3.90. It's a mark-up of 800 per cent.

Does this place do nothing about it? Don't we care that people out there are going hungry now, and they're missing meals? Doesn't anybody care? Really, if you don't do anything about this, you don't care. Don't give it to an authority. Nothing's going to happen. Canberra will never discipline a giant like this. Don't do that. That's just a waste of time. Have another inquiry? People are laughing at you and they are voting. Just understand this. There was a Tasmanian result. I can't speak for other parts of Queensland, but I know that in North Queensland, every incumbent went for a fall, almost every single incumbent mayor, because the people are getting more and more angry. They can't meet their house payments and they can't meet the cost of buying food for their families. This place is doing absolutely nothing about it. I'm not going to go into the reasons why, but I think all of my crossbench colleagues would share my view that the boys on the gravy train are on my right and the boys on the gravy train are on my left here. They're on the bandwagon. Snouts in the trough is a term we used, and that's an accurate term to use. Because there can be no other explanation for their blatant and continuous refusal to do anything about a problem which, when I did the figures some time ago, the worst country outside of Australia was Great Britain. In Great Britain the big six had 36 per cent. In Australia the big two—they're claiming they've got somebody in to do the figures for them and they're saying 65 per cent. Hold on a minute. You're going to two per cent a year up to 2001, and you've done two per cent a year. Do you suddenly stop and go backwards? No. In your own reports you were skiting around how your market share was growing, both of you, over the next 10 years. Now it's 20 years and you're telling me you've gone down to 65 per cent from 70 per cent. Well, the only people not laughing at you are the people that have to go into your store and buy food. They're the people that are not laughing.

I repeat those figures. They had 50.1 per cent in 1991. In 10 years they had gone to 70 per cent of the market. They've been increasing at two per cent a year. So you can take the guess yourself. But I want my crossbench brothers and sisters to take cognisance of this, because there were two series. One was an ANAO P series and one was an ABS series. One said 68 per cent, and the other one said 72 per cent. Both series were discontinued two years after this place became aware of those figures. I rang up a person associated with the grocery world, who has long since left, and said, 'Why did you stop the series? He said, 'Why do you think?' That is all he said. They've even got the muscle to cover up their own success story, if you like.

For those that are worried about divestment, I've got to tell you that when Theodore Roosevelt broke up Esso, the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey under Rockefeller, he broke it up into 32 companies. The value of the shareholders went up. Rockefeller knew that, so he bought a whole stack of shares before the break-up occurred. To anyone who's a shareholder: don't be worried, because your share prices are going to go up, not down.

I went to Coles the other night. It was about 11 o'clock at night, I think, and there was no-one there. You had to serve yourself. There are cameras on you. Are they looking after their employees? No. They're doing everything humanly possible to eliminate employees. That's how much they care about their employees, whilst paying themselves a salary of $10 million to $12 million a year—that they admit to. I just can't think of any situation in any country on earth where this sort of situation has prevailed.

Theodore Roosevelt had the courage to stand up to the richest and most powerful man on earth, Rockefeller. Roosevelt's face is carved on Mt Rushmore, along with Abraham Lincoln's, and justifiably so. Would that someone in here had a tiny bit of spine to stand up to these giants.

I've always had great faith in the Australian people. I take cognisance of the fact that there were two of us in here when I came in—just two of us on the crossbench—and now there are 17. In election after election those people that are in power are being knocked off. They richly deserve to be knocked off. We've got no manufacturing left in the country. We've got no industry in the country. Those industries that we do have have been flogged to death. As far as being able to buy something, well, no other country on earth has the concentration of market power that has occurred in Australia. What we're saying is: let's not muck around any longer. It's going to be Theodore Roosevelt time here and we're going to get there. We might not get there today, but we will get there. (Time expired)

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