At my electorate office in Gladstone, we run a community pantry to do what we can to provide food to people who need it, and right across the road from that pantry is a Woolworths—a Woolworths that has a massive amount of food that's the result of a system of production and distribution that relies on thousands of farmers and workers to deliver that food to its shelves. But what is the point of that system if it can't feed ordinary people? What is the purpose of it if it can't prevent Australians from skipping meals? Ultimately, all this system is designed to do is to deliver billions of dollars in profits to Coles and Woolworths and the exorbitant executive pay going to their executives in the top one per cent. When we say that the economy is doing well, why is that defined by share prices and corporate profits? What is an economy for if it's not to deliver goods and services and food to people? But this isn't how our economy is run. Our government has let the supermarket duopoly decide how much food people can afford. If Coles and Woolworths cannot deliver the essentials to ordinary Australians without price gouging and excessive profits then what are they good for?

One of the most important sections of our economy is failing to perform its basic function, and, when that happens, we need to start talking about alternatives. Publicly owned supermarkets need to be on the table, and nationalising some of those supermarkets also needs to be on the table. In a democracy, power should not rest in the hands of duopolies; it should be with the people, and, if the people had their say, supermarkets would be run for human need, as my office's pantry is, and not for corporate profit.