Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Fair Go for Consumers and Small Business) Bill 2024, which creates a new designated complaints function for consumer and small-business groups to raise complaints with the ACCC relating to systemic market issues. But anyone who thinks that the Albanese Labor government is actually taking on the major challenges in our economy, in our society and in regard to the Australian environment is absolutely kidding themselves.

One of the major problems that we are facing in our economy is a concentration of market power. That is the case across many sectors of the Australian economy, and it is the case in regard to the Australian economy as a whole. In general terms, Australia's economy lacks competition. What that does is to allow big corporations, many of whom pay absolutely no tax whatsoever in this country, to ruthlessly abuse their market power to profiteer and to price-gouge. Nowhere do we see that more clearly than in Australia's supermarket sector, although there are many other sectors, including the banking sector, where it is undoubtedly the case. Of course, what that means is that the big corporations make off with massive profits which benefit a small number of Australians, whilst a large number of Australians—the consumers of the products that these big corporations offer and the buyers of the products that these big corporations sell—are getting absolutely shafted. Who hasn't got to the checkout in a Coles or Woolworths store in the last year or two and been horrified at the increase in the cost of the basic fundamentals of life? All of us in this place are lucky that we can absorb those costs because we are very well paid, but millions of Australians are having to make really difficult decisions: Do they skip meals to feed their kids? Do they skip meals to pay the power bills? Do they eat two-minute noodles or a packet of corn chips in order to be able to afford a better meal in the future or to pay the school levies for their children? There is not enough competition in the Australian economy, and the big corporations mercilessly exploit that situation by price gouging their customers and raking in billion-dollar-plus profits in many cases.

At Senate estimates only a few shorts weeks ago I asked the Reserve Bank governor, Michele Bullock, whether she accepted the proposition that some corporations are using a lack of competition and the cover of high inflation to hike their prices above what would be required to meet increases in their input costs, and Ms Bullock accepted that proposition. In doing so, she joins a growing consensus amongst economists around the world, including the OECD, the IMF, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve in the US, luminaries such as former ACCC chair Allan Fels here in Australia, and the Australia Institute. There is a growing consensus among all those people and groups and many more that corporations are price gouging to boost their own profits in a cost-of-living crisis which is driving up inflation which triggers the Reserve Bank to increase interest rates, which then triggers a whole lot more cost-of-living pain for Australian mortgage holders and renters in particular.

Increased mark-ups and price gouging represent millions—and, in some cases, billions—more in profits for the massive corporations, while everyday Australians increasingly struggle to afford to pay for essential goods and services. And just so folks understand what we're talking about here, we're talking—amongst a range of other things—about food. To state the blindingly obvious, if you don't eat, you die, and there are millions of Australians who are either not eating enough or are not eating healthily enough to survive and, in many cases, to lead a dignified life.

Nowhere is the issue of lack of competition more stark than in the supermarket sector, where Coles and Woolworths combined have about two-thirds of the market share. That is a global outlier in terms of concentration of market power in the supermarket sector. That's why late last year the Greens initiated a Senate inquiry into supermarket pricing, and the evidence that we've received through this inquiry is clear. The supermarkets are not only ruthlessly using their market power to price-gouge shoppers but they are also ruthlessly using their market power to exploit their workers and to crush primary producers and farmers. We have a crisis on the land in Australia. Family farms are giving way to corporate farming. In many cases, children on family farms simply don't want to take the business on, because it is too hard to make ends meet because they don't have a sustainable business model because they are getting absolutely screwed down by Coles and Woolworths.

The supermarket duopoly rakes in billions of dollars in profits while our farmers are going to the wall, while their workers are being exploited and while shoppers can't afford to put three square meals on the table a day. Well, I can assure Australians of one thing, the Greens will always back people over corporations. We know that urgent action is needed, which is why we introduced our divestiture bill, to give courts and competition regulators the toolkit and the power they need to smash up the supermarket duopoly and other price-gouging corporations across the economy where they misuse their market power.

Now, the Prime Minister, in an astounding display of hubris and ignorance, has recently dismissed divestiture powers as Soviet-Union-style powers. But divestiture powers are not a controversial idea. The UK has this power; in fact, it was introduced by Margaret Thatcher. The US has this power and has used it regularly since the 1890s. The competition agencies of countries like Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands are right now or have recently required divestment in the supermarket sector using divestiture powers in order to increase local competition. The former head of the ACCC, Professor Allan Fels, has recently stated that Australia should introduce divestiture powers. The current head of the ACCC, Ms Cass-Gottlieb, has agreed that if divestiture powers were introduced in Australia they could increase competition in the supermarket sector, and, under economic analysis, she has agreed with the proposition that this would bring down the cost of food and groceries.

Mr Albanese needs to make a choice here and the Labor Party need to make a choice here. Are they going to back in the big supermarket corporations and the big banks, who are ruthlessly price-gouging their customers? Or are they going to back in ordinary Australians who are struggling to put food on the table? Is Mr Albanese going to keep dancing to the tune of the Business Council of Australia, which has come out strongly against divestiture powers? Of course they were going to back in Coles and Woolworths, because they are members of the Business Council of Australia. Or is Mr Albanese going to back in Australian shoppers who are getting price-gouged by Coles and Woolworths? This is a fork-in-the-road moment for the Labor Party and for Mr Albanese. Is he going to back in the big supermarket corporations who are raking in billions of dollars in profits while doing over their workers and screwing down farmers? Or will he back ordinary Australians—people who can't afford a feed, people who are skipping meals, people who work for Coles and Woolworths and the farmers who work so hard on the land to grow the produce that we all eat? This is a fork-in-the-road moment for the Australian Labor Party. And, mark my words, we'll give them the chance to vote for divestiture powers in due course in this Senate.

The supermarket duopoly are major donors to the Australian Labor Party. It is amazing and astounding how much money buys you in Australian politics, how many outcomes a relatively small amount of money can purchase you from parties like the Australian Labor Party. Well, it's time that Mr Albanese stopped letting the political donations of Coles and Woolworths drive Labor's policy on competition in Australia. It's time Mr Albanese stopped letting the political donations of Coles and Woolworths drive his opposition to divestiture laws in this country, which would allow for greater competition in the supermarket sector and lower food and grocery prices. It's time for Mr Albanese to take the side of the Australian people over the big corporations. It's time for him to prioritise the ordinary, everyday needs of people who are just scraping by to put food on the table over the billions of dollars in profits that are booked by Coles and Woolworths every year.

This bill, which we will support, tinkers around the edges. We need far more significant, far deeper and far broader competition powers in Australia. Of course, we need stronger merger laws in Australia, and I acknowledge that there is a process underway around merger law reform in this country. But let's be very clear about laws around mergers. They may prevent more concentration of market power from developing into the future—and I use the word 'may' because I'm not convinced at all that Labor is going to bring in a robust suite of amendments there, and in fact I predict that they won't and that they will instead tinker around the edges again as they're doing with this bill. But regardless of the scope and the significance of any outcomes from the consideration of merger laws that the government currently has underway, that will not provide a crucial tool in the toolkit to allow for the requirement of more competition in a particular sector, including supermarkets. That is the key problem that Mr Albanese and the Labor Party have.

It's time for divestiture powers in this country. They exist in most so-called free market economies around the world. They are a standard part of the toolkit of regulators in places like the UK, the US and many, many other European countries. The problem is that, if you don't have divestiture powers, the big corporations will continue to price gouge and continue to rake in billions of dollars in profits. You know who loses out? It is ordinary folks who can't afford to put food on the table. They are the people that miss out. The corporates make out like bandits, and the ordinary people get done over again.