Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The cost of living is something that is affecting all Australians. In many ways, Australians really face the brunt of the cost-of-living crisis, because after 10 years of neglect the cost of living has been driven up. After 10 years of doing nothing on supermarkets and nothing on supply chains, the cost of living for Australian groceries has only increased. In fact, Australians now pay among the highest grocery prices in the world. The average price of groceries in Australia is 54 per cent higher than it is in other countries around the world. That's because those opposite did nothing for 10 years—nothing to break down the monopolies and the lack of competition that exist in every single layer of Australian supply chains.

That is why we have a government now that is finally taking the cost of living seriously, a government that has finally decided to launch an ACCC investigation into price gouging in the supermarket sector, a government that has decided to appoint Craig Emerson to make sure that small Australian suppliers are not being taken advantage of and a government that has appointed CHOICE, the consumer group, to crunch the data and show us which are the supermarkets that are charging the most and which are the ones that are most reasonably priced.

This is a government that is taking this issue seriously. What we have over there is a group that did nothing, and over there a group that has stupid ideas for what to do about this issue. They're suggesting divestment. This is a competition of the most half-baked idea you could come up with for a very serious problem. If the Greens want to be a serious political party and if they want to talk about economic issues then they need to lift the quality of the ideas they are putting forward. Suggesting that we should Soviet-style split up the supermarkets—chop them in half, as if that's easy to do—is completely impractical. It's not done anywhere else in the world and it wouldn't be done here. Moreover, there is no evidence that it would actually reduce prices in the supermarkets. Two supply chains, two headquarters—that could increase the cost in our supermarket supply chains and, ultimately, mean that consumers pay higher prices.

On issue after issue, the Greens have cost-of-living ideas that do not pass the pub test. They haven't been fully thought through. We know the strategy of the Australian Greens is to shift into being a party not just of climate and the environment but also a party of economics. They want to talk about the cost of living. They want to talk about HECS. They want to talk about supermarkets. They want to talk about rents. But they have no solutions to those problems that would not make them worse. All of their solutions in housing would actually make the housing situation worse by reducing supply rather than increasing it. Their spending proposals would make the HECS indexation worse, not better, by driving up inflation. Their proposals for supermarkets would lift the cost of Australian groceries, not drop them.

It's one thing to spot an issue that matters to the Australian people, it's one thing to express empathy to those people, but it's another thing to propose solutions that actually work and make a difference for those people. For the last 10 years, the Labor Party have been the only ones proposing ideas that will actually work. We have been stuck in the middle—clowns to one side, jokers to the left. The clowns did nothing, the jokers have silly policies that simply wouldn't work.

The cost of living is an issue that is affecting so many Australians, and that is why the Labor Party is working methodically on issue after issue to ensure that we make a difference without making the underlying challenge of rising inflation worse. For the Greens to come up and present themselves as a party of economics, a party that can put forward proposals in all of these areas just doesn't pass the pub test of sensible ideas—ideas that Australians can grab onto and realise will make a difference. That's why their aspirations to be a party that appeals to the centre, a party that appeals to Australians with aspiration, and to go beyond their traditional voter base are simply not working.

We're very proud to be part of a government that is making a difference on these issues, a government that has put in place a whole range of cost-of-living measures that will help people at the checkout, help people when they're buying medicines, help people with cheaper child care and help people with lower costs on their TAFE. On issue after issue, the Albanese government is working. We've had no solutions from either of those sides opposite.

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