Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, thank you for reminding me of that, Deputy President. This is doable. This kind of reform is doable in the Australian parliament. I want to remind senators of a time when we all worked together to get significant reform to Australian competition policy. I remember, when I started in the Senate in 2012, Mr Bruce Billson—who went on to become the small business ombudsman—was floating the idea of a competition effects test. Competition policy in Australia at that time—if you wanted to pursue a big corporation, especially a supermarket giant who was dealing with farmers, for example, in terms of buying their produce and the contract terms, you had to prove intent. If you wanted to pursue a big corporation for misuse of market power or misconduct, you had to prove that they were deliberately conducting anticompetitive behaviour, which is extremely difficult to do.

My personal experience of this was an interesting one. I went to King Island as a new senator in 2012, and farmers right at that time had had their abattoir shut down. They'd had a state-of-the-art upgrade to the abattoir on King Island, which was important because the only other option was to send their cattle in boats across one of the roughest stretches of ocean on the planet, Bass Strait, to be processed in Tasmania. Their abattoir was bought by JBS, one of the biggest, most aggressive corporations on the planet, who at the time appeared to be supporting farmers on King Island but very shortly shut down the abattoir. They rationalised their portfolio of assets because they had processing capacity at Longford in Tasmania. The state government had just put in a $4 million taxpayer funded grant to help the effluent plant at King Island become a lot more sustainable.

Of course, farmers were furious. I wrote a letter to the ACCC, asking if they would investigate JBS for anticompetitive behaviour, and the ACCC wrote back to me, saying, 'Senator, it's going to be very difficult to do that because you need to prove that they've done this intentionally.' I thought there was a good case because it was clear that they had bought the abattoir to shut it down to make their Tasmanian business more profitable. That's when my and the Greens' campaign to get an effects test started: 'If that's what it takes—here's a really good example of how these big companies are ripping off small businesses and farmers—then we're going to do it.'

The story gets more interesting, because we had a couple of champions in this chamber to get what turned out to be one of the most significant reforms to competition policy in decades. One of them was Senator 'Wacka' Williams, who used to be in this place and who many of us remember and remember fondly, quite frankly. The way it turned out was that, in 2015, the Harper review into competition policy also recommended that the government implement an effects test, but the Liberal government of the day said no, they weren't going to do that. I tell you what, there was the mother of all fear campaigns. We've seen some pretty big ones in our time in this place, but there was the mother of all fear campaigns, saying that if we got an effects test it would literally shut down our economy overnight.

Of course, big business railed hard against it. They wore out the carpets in this place lobbying against it. And do you know how we got it? The Greens put up a motion in here for an effects test. As it turned out, Mr Malcolm Turnbull's leadership challenge against Tony Abbott in 2015—at that time, the Nats crossed the floor to join the Greens to support an effects test. That was the day that Mr Turnbull was negotiating with the Nationals to pull them into a coalition with him as leader. Wacka Williams told me: 'We've put it on the table. We're not going to bloody well form a coalition with Malcolm Turnbull unless we get an effects test.' Because he was standing up for farmers. This was in the days when the Nats actually cared about farmers and small businesses. They weren't just in this place supporting the interests of big fossil fuel companies, which is what they do now.

As it turned out, true to his word, the LNP reformed under Mr Turnbull's leadership, and then we got an exposure draft for an effects test in 2016. I'm very proud to say the Greens, working with the Nats—because the Nats were part of the LNP then, which they're not anymore—had the numbers with the LNP to get that through, and, of course, the government did it. In 2017 we got an amendment to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, and we got an effects test delivered in this country. Of course, the sky hasn't fallen in. It's been a very sensible amendment to competition policy in this country, just like Senator McKim's bill is here today. If we work together, and we actually do care about battlers, and we do care about small businesses, and we do care about railing against misuse of market power, this is exactly the kind of legislation we should pass.

Let me give you another example of when the Senate led on cracking down on predatory pricing and financial misconduct. The Senate passed a Greens bill for a parliamentary commission of inquiry, which was a royal commission that reported to parliament, not the executive. It was one of the few times that a private senator's bill has passed the Senate and gone to the House. At that stage, once again, Wacka Williams, along with other Nationals senators and, at the time, the Labor Party, supported that bill, and it went to the other place. Of course, Malcolm Turnbull, the prime minister at the time, was under a lot of pressure. It was kind of like kryptonite; he didn't want to touch it. But, in the end, Mr Turnbull, facing a potential rebellion from some of the LNP senators and MPs at the time, called a royal commission into the banks. And it shocked the nation. It literally shocked the nation. Within a week or two of the evidence, some of the biggest critics of that royal commission in the lead-up to it came out and did a mea culpa and said, 'I had no idea how bad things were.'

The Greens—Senator McKim, others and I—had nearly 16 Senate inquiries in the lead-up to this, and we couldn't do the job that needed to be done but we knew what was at stake here. I must say, One Nation supported our bid for that royal commission into the banks, that would have reported to parliament. This is another example of how we can work together to actually shift the dial on the misuse of market power and take on excessive corporate power and excessive greed. There is plenty of precedent for the Senate and senators working together on this.

I put this question genuinely to the National Party and the Liberal Party, who are currently at war with each other: What's it going to take? Are you going to work with the Greens on this? Are you going to support this bill to get momentum and get it going? I don't know if there are any supporters in the National Party. They haven't given a contribution on this. Let's face it, the National Party has been the tail wagging the dog, for some time now, on a number of things. It appears they're more like fleas on a dog right now, but I'd like to see what they're going to say. Are they going to be in here supporting a bill that supports battlers at a time when Australians are doing it so tough, at a time when we have a cost-of-living crisis and at a time when we have a housing crisis—a housing affordability crisis and a lack of supply? Once again, we can all work together on that to get more housing supply into this country and help people who desperately need a roof over their head and give some hope to young people and Australians on low income who would also like to own their own home or at least have access to public housing. It's for women who are suffering from domestic violence and who desperately need shelters and long-term secure accommodation.

There are so many reasons that we need more housing in this country, but the reason we haven't dealt with this crisis is the parliament of Australia. We haven't been able to put aside our differences, wean ourselves off the vested interests that are in here constantly trying to lobby us not to do this kind of thing when we know that we can make a difference to the battlers of Australia, and a price-gouging bill—we know it's a major driver of inflation, as Senator McKim said in his contribution. We saw the Reserve Bank raise rates. I don't think that's going to have any short-term effect on inflation. It's the same game all the time. It's like whack-a-mole. Why not do something structural that actually impact inflation in this country, like tackle corporate price-gouging?

Supermarkets are a clear example, but this problem goes far beyond the check-outs across Australia. Price-gouging is happening across the economy, and it's keeping inflation higher for longer. Of course, if we keep raising interest rates, then we're increasing to price people out of the market, especially low-income and young Australians who want to own their own home. It's also tough on mortgage holders, many of them who are also struggling to pay their mortgage and put food on the table. The Greens bill would make price-gouging illegal across the economy and give the ACCC the powers it needs to investigate and prosecute corporations that exploit their market power to unfairly hike prices. As Senator McKim also said in his contribution, this bill has the support of key and very experienced, may I say, experts in this field, like Professor Allan Fels.

Rather than facilitating big companies ripping off Australians—Australians that are doing it tough—we can actually make a difference here today. The ultrawealthy are getting richer than ever before, and the major parties appear to be giving them special treatment. Instead of leaving the inflation fight to the Reserve Bank and interest rate rises, the government should be tackling corporate price-gouging, which, as I said, one of the major drivers of inflation. Our politics is becoming a place where billionaires speak the loudest, and they're expecting you to listen. We mentioned in the chamber this week that we've seen the latest AEC data, where a number of very wealthy people, including Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest citizen, give significant money to a right-wing attack group like ADVANCE, which I noticed has essentially been campaigning for One Nation—the irony of that!—and for some of the issues like mass migration and the kinds of political frame that we find ourselves in now. Of course, we saw Mr Clive Palmer yesterday here in Canberra talking about a High Court challenge, talking about the caps to political donations.

We know billionaires have a big influence. The ultrawealthy have a very big influence on our democracies, not just here in Australia but overseas, and I tell you what—it's on the nose. It's on the nose for a lot of Australians. As I said before, they've got very good BS detectors, and when they see billionaires trying to influence our democracy, pumping money into right-wing advocacy groups that have been out there spending tens of millions of dollars prosecuting their agendas—they're not agendas for the battlers, by the way. This bill before us today is an agenda for the battlers of Australia, not for billionaires. Do you think billionaires really care about price-gouging and the fact that prices in the supermarkets have gone up and that Australians are struggling? I don't think so. As I said the other night, I don't know exactly what the agendas of some of Australia's most prominent billionaires that have, for example, been in the media this week, like Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer, are, but I can guarantee you that their agendas aren't your agendas. This bill is something that Australians would support. They all want to see excessive corporate power being tackled by the parliaments of Australia. It is our job to regulate these companies. It is our job to regulate in the public interest, not in the interest of a few wealthy Australians or big corporations.

I'll finish by commending Senator McKim for bringing this bill forward. I urge all senators to support this bill—send it to the House so we can have a really good debate.