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

I move:

At the end of the motion, add:

"and, in respect of the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Divestiture Powers) Bill 2024, the bill be referred immediately to the Select Committee on Supermarket Prices for inquiry and report by 7 May 2024".

I won't take up too much time because I know we've got a lot of things to deal with this afternoon, but I do want to explain why it is that the Greens believe that a select committee—the Select Committee on Supermarket Prices, in this case—is the appropriate vehicle to conduct an inquiry. That committee has heard already in its existence multiple witnesses and has received multiple submissions calling for the introduction of divestiture powers into Australia.

It's a matter for the government that it has already ruled out the introduction of divestiture powers into Australia. Of course, by ruling out support for introducing divestiture powers, the Labor Party—once the party of the worker—has exposed itself as the party of capital. That's because, in opposing divestiture powers which would enable much-needed competition to be brought into the supermarket sector, the Labor Party is taking the side of the big supermarket corporations, Coles and Woolworths, who are each booking billion-dollar profits every year whilst using their market dominance to do over farmers, workers and customers. Labor is backing them in over the millions of Australians who are struggling to make ends meet and who are being price-gouged at the supermarket checkout.

Australia needs divestiture laws because right across our economy there is too much concentration of market power. Monopolies, duopolies and oligopolies, which we have repeated examples of in this country, never give good outcomes to consumers and they never deliver good outcomes for suppliers. That's the case in the supermarket sector, in the bank sector, in the airline sector and in multiple other sectors in the Australian economy. Labor should support divestiture laws.

The reason this inquiry is the appropriate vehicle is that there are people sitting on this committee who've heard repeated evidence about the need for divestiture laws in this country. We will be hearing evidence from a range of experts in this area and it is appropriate that the Select Committee on Supermarket Prices be the vehicle for an inquiry into this report.