Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to start by saying that generally over time the supermarkets have done a pretty good job. We do need the supermarkets. They provide a service, they provide a way for farmers to sell their produce and they provide a service for Australian people buy food. We do need them. We need them to be profitable but we need them to be fair and we need them to provide sustainability for their suppliers. We also need competition amongst supermarkets to make sure we get that balance we are looking for in this policy. The balance is we want the lowest possible and fair prices for consumers but we don't want to threaten the businesses of the suppliers who supply the supermarkets. That is the critical balance we have to get in this policy. There have been instances where the supermarkets have abused their market power and those have been highlighted in the recent inquiries in this place.

Many people will know that my electorate of Nicholls is the food bowl—there are a lot of food bowls including in Toowoomba—of Australia and it grows 90 per cent of Australia's pears, nearly 50 per cent of Australia's apples, peaches, a huge amount of Australia's dairy exports and processed dairy products, so I and my constituents do have some experience in dealing with supermarkets. What the farm businesses have told me is, yes, there can be a good relationship with supermarkets but there have been times when the supermarkets have taken advantage of the fact that these people have a perishable product and that is not fair. They've also said that there's nothing more soul-destroying than going into a supermarket and seeing the goods that you've produced being sold for less than the cost of production. So I think the private member's bill that was brought in by the member for Maranoa and the member for Hume this morning is a great step forward in the way we look at supermarkets.

There's been a lot said about the divestiture powers that our policy entails, and there's been some serious misreporting on this issue. I've read articles by lazy journalists, if I can call them that, saying, 'Oh, the Nationals want to break up the big supermarkets.' That's ridiculous. All we're doing, with the coalition, is putting a deterrent in so that the supermarkets are less likely to abuse their market power. To say, 'The Nationals want to break up the supermarkets,' is like saying, every time you pass a law that's got a jail term, that you want to put everyone in jail. It's nonsense. I hope those divestiture powers are never used, but I also hope, and I believe, that the supermarkets will look at those enhanced powers, the higher fines and the divestiture powers, and say, 'We'd better not test this out, because we don't want to fall foul of what that might mean for us.' That will lead to better behaviour; to better outcomes for the suppliers of products to the supermarkets, the farmers around Australia; and to better outcomes for consumers, who will pay prices that are fair and as low as possible within the bounds of sustainability for farm businesses.

The other thing that the private member's bill and the coalition policy will do is appoint a supermarket commissioner, and that supermarket commissioner will act as an impartial, confidential avenue for farmers and suppliers to have their grievances heard. We certainly need that, so I think that's a really important part of the coalition's policy.

In the time I've got left, I note that the most important thing for Australian people is to have cheap, reliable and sustainably produced food, and I include business sustainability along with environmental sustainability in that. Policies that attack agriculture do not provide a sustainable supply chain for food in this country. Taking more irrigation water away from irrigators in the Murray-Darling Basin, forcing farmers to pay a biosecurity tax and making industrial relations laws so difficult that small businesses—and, let's face it, most farms are small businesses—can't navigate when they're trying to employ people are just some of the many policies that are an attack on agriculture and, therefore, an attack on the economy in my region.

The policies that the coalition presented this morning are very good and should be supported.

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