Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

We all know that, over the last 15 to 20 years, the supermarket industry has changed. It appears quite clear that this change is not for the better. A driving tour through the electorate of Calare in the Central West of New South Wales would once upon a time have taken you past hundreds of farm gates ready to supply local markets, local fruit shops and the supermarkets. Now that same drive will show a much smaller number of producers, each forced to scale to sustain downward pressure on prices applied by the likes of Coles and Woolworths. Evidently, the pendulum has swung too far away from the farm gate and onto the shelves. It appears that, no matter how much the cost pressures apply to consumers or growers, the supermarkets never lose.

Over the past few weeks with my committee, we've been going back and hearing from fruit and vegetable growers about the challenges they face from the lack of labour, the increased cost of production, intensive regulation and a Labor government that continues to roll out antifarming processes, and that's all without considering the effect of prices to the consumer. We've heard about farmers and the sneaky tricks used by the supermarkets, including tactics that see a large percentage of products deemed not fit for duty get lowball offers after they've been delivered, only to see this product end up on the shelves at the same prices as those that they have approved.

The Senate Select Committee on Supermarket Prices provides an opportunity to examine all of these markets closely. That is why I will be continuing to traverse the country and hear these true stories at the farm gate. We've already heard that farming families are walking away despite decades on the land. In Victoria, families who have grown citrus fruit for more than 100 years are tearing up their farms, worn out by the politics and expectations of Coles and Woolworths. We've heard people all over Australia quivering with fear about giving evidence and the consequences. They were already pushed down, and this needs to stop.