Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm rising to talk about private member's business motions that were moved today in the House by the member for Hume and the member for Maranoa. This concerns the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Tougher Penalties for Supermarket and Hardware Businesses) Bill 2024 and, from the member for Maranoa, the Food and Grocery (Mandatory) Code of Conduct Bill 2024. Speaker, I know you would be an avid shopper at supermarkets and Bunnings. You look like a bit of a handy man. So you'll know how important it is when you go into these places—supermarkets, Bunnings and those types of organisations—for you to be getting the best deal and the cheapest prices that you can. In a previous life, I was in the investment world. Even back then, when I would speak to my international colleagues and people who were investing globally in the UK, Europe or the US, do you know what the term they used to give to Australia if they were investing in businesses here, in one of our leading companies? They used to call us 'Treasure Island'. You might say: 'Oh, that's good, Member for Page.' But, no, it was not good, because what they meant was it was a sure bet. If they were investing in one of our bigger businesses, such as—let's name names—Telstra, the banks, the supermarkets or one of our major airlines, why they said we were Treasure Island and a sure bet was because they viewed this country as having very little competition—that is, we are a country that is full of monopolies or duopolies within our major businesses.

So this is about shaking it up a bit. This legislation isn't dealing with all of those categories of business. These two private member's motions are just dealing with the supermarkets and the Bunnings of the world at the moment. What it is about is that, if these companies are found to misuse or abuse their market power, they will get severe penalties. What is outrageous about that? I would have thought nothing. If they continue to do this type of thing, the threat is that they will have to divest of an asset. Does that sound outrageous to you? It is not outrageous to me. Do you know why it doesn't sound outrageous? It doesn't sound outrageous to you or any of us on this side of the parliament because this is not unique. The US has this type of legislation. The UK has this type of legislation. Most Western countries of similar ilk and liberal democracies like we are have this type of threat. It is not often used because the big companies go, 'We better be careful.' Woolworth doesn't want to have to sell off Big W. Qantas don't want to sell off anything. This is not about Qantas, but if it was applied to everyone they wouldn't want to have to sell off Jetstar or that type of asset. So what they do is they pull their heads in and they don't do some of the practices they are alleged to do now. So this is, we think, very reasonable legislation.

Speaker, you know, I know and everyone in this country knows that at the moment cost of living is the issue from No. 1 to 10. What we on this side of the chamber firmly believe is that this type of policy will mean that we will get a more competitive sector in the supermarket industry and that prices will come down because of it. It's as simple as that. There are many examples of where supermarkets have been found to not do nice things and have been fined. The fines we have here now are not very big. I heard the Leader of the Nationals say today it was about $187,000. It's like going to the local supermarket and pulling out the till for that day and paying the fine. They don't care. The current penalties do not deter them from doing things that they shouldn't do.

One of the alleged ones that is most popular is land banking. That is when you buy up all the land around a growing suburb or a growing area so that your competitors can't buy the land and put in a competitive asset or outlet to compete against you. That's on that side of things. On the other side of this is some of the alleged behaviour of the supermarkets to the farmers. We have just had an inquiry into this. It had to be confidential and really quite secretive because what the supermarkets are alleged to do if they find a supplier saying that there are things the supermarkets are doing that aren't okay is blacklist and black ban them so they are not able to supply to one of the duopoly. So this is commonsense legislation, and I encourage the government to support it.