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

Yes, as Senator Scarr has rightfully pointed out, that is four months. That is just not okay. In some cases, that would have been longer than the spuds were in the ground or the apples were on the tree. That sort of thing is not okay, and it was allowed in the supermarket sector because of the concentration of market powers.

I was very happy to see the announcement today from Mr Dutton and Mr Littleproud that the coalition are adopting a policy of supporting divestiture powers in the supermarket sector. It's on the record that the Australian Greens believe that divestiture powers should exist across our economy, and that was the framing of the legislation that we tabled and brought on in the Senate for debate and vote last week. I do note that not a single Nationals senator voted against our legislation last week, and I'm very pleased that the Liberal Party are now on board with divestiture powers, albeit with a more narrow scope to just apply them to the supermarket sector.

I will make the point that the Greens would support such a provision were it ever to be put to the Senate, and what that means is that the numbers are there to pass such a bill through this place. That means, of course, that it would be only the Labor Party standing between Australian shoppers and lower food and grocery prices. We know from the chair of the ACCC that, in the ACCC's view, if there were greater competition in the supermarket sector, food and groceries would be cheaper in Australia. Ms Cass-Gottlieb has been abundantly clear about that during Senate estimates—on more than one occasion, I might add.

So this is a moment of choice for the Australian Labor Party and for Prime Minister Albanese. Is he going to keep cuddling up to Coles and Woolworths, the giant supermarket corporations who've donated so much to the Australian Labor Party in dirty political donations over the years? Or is he going to actually take the side of Australian shoppers, who are being price gouged at the supermarket checkout? This is a moment of truth for the Labor Party. Right now it is only the Australian Labor Party that is standing between Australian shoppers and lower food and grocery prices because it is only the Australian Labor Party that is preventing divestiture powers scoped to the supermarket sector from passing this parliament and becoming law. That's where we find ourselves today post the announcement from Mr Dutton and Mr Littleproud.

What this shows, just as the banking royal commission showed, is that if you get the Greens and the Nationals on a unity ticket on something, things happen in this place. If you get someone in an Akubra standing next to someone in a koala suit, things start to happen in this place, colleagues. That's how we got a banking royal commission, and that's how we're going to get divestiture powers, scoped at least to the supermarket sector, and I hope and trust that, over time, those powers, which are scalable, will ultimately be expanded to cover the entire economy because, whether it's the airlines, the banks, the supermarkets or some parts of the energy sector in this country, we need more competition. It is competition policy 101 that, if you increase competition, you will end up with better results not just for the consumers and, in the case of supermarkets, the shoppers but also for the suppliers into those sectors.

I will tell you: if ever there was a sector ripe for divestiture powers, it would be the supermarket sector, although I have to say that I reckon the airlines are running neck and neck with them there. They are legitimately running neck and neck with the supermarket sector. Coles and Woolworths together have about two-thirds of the supermarket sector in Australia, and we know from Choice, who did really good work recently, that the choice between shopping at Coles and shopping at Woolworths is basically no choice at all. There was less than one per cent difference between Coles and Woolworths on the basket of 14 staple food and grocery items that Choice calculated the cost of.

I welcome into the chamber Senator Canavan, who did support the Greens' divestiture laws, and I want to acknowledge that. And now we can be on a unity ticket once again, Senator Canavan, when, I hope and trust, this Senate can find it within its capacity to consider legislation that would create divestiture powers scoped to the supermarket sector. But, as I was saying, the choice between Coles and Woolworths is basically zero choice at all, as the Choice work clearly showed. We know that another significant supermarket player in Australia came in far, far cheaper than Coles and Woolworths, but the big tell was that, when you compared Coles and Woolworths on the basket of 14 staple items—and they used mystery shoppers to do this, so the supermarkets had no idea that the particular shopper was buying particular items at a particular time in a particular supermarket—there was less than one per cent difference between Coles and Woolworths. Colleagues, the choice between Coles and Woolworths is no choice at all, and that is because there is too much market concentration in the supermarket sector. Coles and Woolworths together have about two-thirds of the market share on a national basis.

What we've got from Labor on divestiture is this weird fantasy from the Prime Minister that these are 'Soviet-style' powers. Of course, that renowned command-and-control economy, the United States of America, has had divestiture powers in place since 1890 and they've been used very successfully to bust up big corporations who were price-gouging customers and had too much market share. They broke up the monopolies that the robber barons held in many sectors in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and that's because divestiture powers deliver good outcomes for consumers. In fact, the Soviet union doesn't have divestiture powers—news flash for the PM. That's why the oligarchs are busy price-gouging the people in the Soviet Union. Where we do have divestiture powers—for example, in the US and in many countries in the EU—we are seeing them used in order to take on supermarket concentration, such as in some cases right now in the European Union. And they're doing that because they know it will put downward pressure on food and grocery prices. Australians are getting smashed at the moment, wherever they turn—whether it's rents, whether it's their mortgage payments, whether it's energy bills, whether it's school fees, whether it's GP visits or whether it's price gouging by the supermarket sector. We need to take action!

Debate interrupted.