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

Since the announcement of the Greens-led inquiry into price gouging by the supermarket duopoly, people have been flooding my office with examples of how they are being sucked dry by the likes of Coles and Woolworths while those same supermarkets are raking in billions of dollars in profit during a cost-of-living crisis. Examples include cabbages going from $4 to $9, coffee beans going from less than $24 a kilo to over $44 a kilo, a two-litre tub of ice cream going from $8 to $11, a large box of cereal going up from $5.50 to $10.80 and nappies going from $29 to $39 a packet in just 18 months. Another shopper got in touch and said that their local supermarket charged nearly $17 a kilo for simple sausages, which they calculated would equate to more than $10,000 for a single head of beef. I can assure folks our farmers are not being paid that amount of money. Despite supply-side challenges starting to reduce, prices are not coming 'down, down'; they are continuing to go 'up, up'. We will force the CEOs of the big supermarket corporations, Coles and Woolies, to come in, front the Greens-led inquiry into price gouging and explain, if they can, how they can justify prices going up. Millions of Australians are unable to afford to put a decent feed on the table during a cost-of-living crisis while rents are going through the roof, with a record series of interest rate rises, while their supermarkets are making billions of dollars in profit. (Time expired)