Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Climate Change and Water (Senator Wong) to a question without notice asked by Senator Moore today, relating to the grocery prices.

Any Australians listening to, or watching, question time today would have to have been rather worried. We had here the Minister for Climate Change and Water asked a question: ‘How much will grocery prices rise?’ under her emissions trading scheme. She gave an answer—a rather exceptional circumstance in this place. She said the prices rises would be in the order of 0.1 per cent. It was put to the minister that this was at variance with the estimates made by others in the field, particularly the Australian Food and Grocery Council, of a five per cent rise in grocery prices. Indeed, some members of that organisation, some larger retailers, are estimating increases of up to seven per cent in the price of groceries as a result of the emissions trading scheme.

That is a very alarming difference. That is a difference of some 6,000 per cent or more between the estimate the minister has given the chamber and the estimate given by those people who are actually selling the groceries, or representing those who are selling the groceries, to the overall majority of Australians. Who are we to believe?

The minister says that her figures are based on modelling. We have not seen that modelling. We do not know what the modelling actually says. We only have the minister’s word that it accurately and appropriately reflects a scheme which delivers a mere 0.1 per cent rise in grocery prices.

Those in the field say that their estimates are much, much greater. They point out that grocery prices make up about 20 per cent of the average household budget each week, and that a hit of around five per cent—what they call a price shock—for Australian made food and groceries will be a significant impost on Australian families. And so it will. It will be a very significant impost because, as they point out, this is not just a hit to the bottom line of Australian families; it is also a very serious hit to Australian food producers because that five or seven per cent increase, which the sellers of food in this country say is likely to occur, is a hit on those who—