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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This of course is the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Make Price Gouging Illegal) Bill 2024. Folks in the chamber and, I'm sure, many people around the country will remember the Select Committee on Supermarket Prices that the Greens established in the last parliament. It was a committee that put the supermarket corporations, and in particular the CEOs of those corporations, on the rack and held them to account for their rampant price gouging. In particular, Coles and Woolworths, the duopoly in the supermarket sector, together enjoy a market concentration of about two-thirds of the entire supermarket sector in this country—a concentration, I might add, that far exceeds any other similar jurisdiction around the world, whether it's the UK, whether it's the US, whether it's European countries, whether it's New Zealand. Australia has the most concentrated supermarket sector in the world. Thanks to the pressure that committee brought to bear—I acknowledge Senator Cadell in the chamber today, who was a very constructive member of that committee. It reminds me of Mr Joyce's quote; the way to make things happen in this place is when people in Akubras and people in koala suits get together. That committee recommended a range of things, including divestiture law reform but also making price gouging illegal.

I spoke about the supermarket duopoly, but of course there is a political duopoly in this place: the Labor and Liberal parties. Together they resisted the Greens' attempts to make price gouging illegal right across the economy. In fact, I very clearly remember when Labor voted this bill down—this very same bill—in the previous parliament. So, out of the goodness of our hearts, we are now bringing this bill back on to give Labor another opportunity to do the right thing.

Under pressure from the Greens, the Prime Minister got up in the early days of the election campaign last year and committed Labor to making price gouging illegal in the supermarket sector. I'll say a couple of things about that. Firstly, it shows that pressure from the Greens works. It shows that, when we go to work, when we raise an issue and explain clearly how people are being hurt by what is going on—in this case, supermarket price gouging—we can put enough pressure on Labor to force them to act. That's exactly what Labor did. They've now come in and introduced regulations that make price gouging unlawful in the supermarket sector. Those regulations will kick off on 1 July, and the Greens will be scrutinising those regulations very closely—both ahead of 1 July, during the disallowance period, and post 1 July if those regulations stand—to make sure they do what it says on the tin.

The simple fact is price gouging should be illegal not just in the supermarket sector but right across the economy. Whether it's the big banks, big energy companies or big insurance companies, when you have a concentration of market power in particular sectors of the economy, big corporations should not be able to exploit that market power to price gouge their customers. It makes no sense at all to make price gouging illegal just in the supermarket sector when you've got the big banks, the airlines, the insurance companies and the energy companies also misusing their market power to price gouge ordinary Australians. Millions of Australians are getting smashed everywhere they look now, whether it's at the supermarket check-out, whether it's their medical bills, their power bills, their school bills or their transport costs or, importantly, given the interest rate rise this week, whether it's their mortgages or their rents.

We saw the performative hand-wringing from the Treasurer and the Prime Minister this week after the RBA put up interest rates, pretending that there was nothing they could do about it. They blamed it all on the RBA—'the RBA is independent; there's nothing the government can do'— when, in fact, the government has plenty of levers it can pull to take inflationary pressure out of our economy and reduce the pressure on the RBA to put up interest rates.

I mean, you wouldn't think that Labor could have turbocharged an already out-of-control housing crisis after coming to office, but that's exactly what Labor has done. There's their ongoing support for the mindbogglingly generous capital gains tax discount. Over half of the benefit goes to the one per cent wealthiest people in this country. It overwhelmingly favours older Australians; young Australians get next to no benefit out of it. Of course, that pump primes demand in the housing sector and puts houses more out of reach for renters who're trying to buy their first home. There's Labor's five per cent deposit scheme, which every economist in the country warned them would put house prices up. And look what happened—it did! The combination of those two things is worsening the housing crisis and driving the great Australian dream of owning your own home further out of reach for millions of Australian renters and young people.

The other thing Labor could do to rein in inflation and ease the pressure on the RBA to act is to make price gouging illegal. At Senate estimates in 2024, the Greens questioned Ms Bullock, the governor of the Reserve Bank, and she conceded that some corporations are using the cover of inflation and the lack of competition to hike prices higher than any increase in their input costs. That is a textbook definition of price gouging.

Of course, when big corporations with market power jack up prices simply because they can—because Labor won't stop them from doing it—that drives inflation higher, it drives costs for ordinary Australians higher and it puts pressure on the RBA to lift interest rates, which then applies more financial pressure on millions of Australians through their mortgages and through their rents.

Do you know who cheers the loudest when the RBA puts up interest rates? That's right: it's the big banking corporations, because there is a direct correlation between interest rate rises and increased profits for the big banks. While millions of Australians are now struggling with higher mortgages and millions more Australians will struggle with higher rents as a result of the increase in interest rates, the big banks are laughing all the way to the bank. While Australians are suffering deepening financial stress, the supermarkets, the airlines, the insurance companies, the banks and the telcos put up their prices and report ever-growing profits. In the last financial year, Qantas reported an 18 per cent increase in profit. Australia's largest insurer, the Insurance Australia Group, reported a staggering 30 per cent increase in their profits. Australia's big four banks booked an eye-watering $31.5 billion profit between them last financial year.

Since Labor came to government in 2022, the cost of essentials across the economy has skyrocketed. Insurance has jumped by 38 per cent since Labor came into government. Essential food products, like bread, cereal and milk, are up by 20 per cent. When the Treasurer and the Prime Minister brush off any responsibility whatsoever for rate hikes, what they fail to tell Australians is that they have the capacity to bring inflation down, which would lower the likelihood of rate rises. They could start to exercise that power right here, today, by supporting this bill to reduce corporate price gouging. This needs to be done across the whole economy, not just in the supermarket sector.

After voting down the Greens bill to make price gouging illegal during the last parliament, Labor capitulated during the election campaign and announced that they would make corporate price gouging illegal in the supermarket sector. Their capitulation on this issue is proof that Labor could act if it made the political choice to do so. But of course Labor rakes in political donations from many of the big corporations, who would not be able to price gouge if this Greens bill were successful.

The other proof point in Labor's delivery of price gouging reform in the supermarket sector is that it shows that the Greens campaign against the capital gains tax discount actually is starting to bite and that Labor does feel political pressure. When you point out the egregious unfairness of the capital gains tax, in terms of both economic inequality and intergenerational inequality, it is an absolute no-brainer for reform. If the Treasurer is looking for budget repair, I offer him capital gains tax discount reform. If the Treasurer wants to deliver for working Australians, as he said he would after his economic roundtable, the Greens offer him capital gains tax discount reform. If the Treasurer wants to deliver on intergenerational equity, as he said he did after his economic roundtable, the Greens offer him capital gains tax reform. The great thing about capital gains tax reform is that, because it overwhelmingly benefits such a small number of Australians—the ultra-wealthy of this country—you can actually pluck the largest number of feathers with the smallest amount of squawking. It is a political no-brainer, it's a budget no-brainer and, most importantly, it is a no-brainer in terms of fairness. It is a no-brainer to address soaring wealth inequality in this country and it's a no-brainer to make sure that young people get a fair crack not just at owning their own home but in getting ahead and having a dignified life. Going to work for a living is turning into the worst way to get ahead in this country.

If you go to work every day and you're on the average wage, you pay more tax in a year than someone who makes the same amount of money flipping investment properties. That is how cooked our economic system is. That's how biased our tax system is against working people. Then you've got a Labor government, a party that was formed to look after the interests of working people, who lock in behind this eye-wateringly unfair tax provision where well over half of the benefit goes to the top one per cent, the wealthiest people in the country, and people under 35 get well under 10 per cent of the benefit. It overwhelmingly favours older Australians, and younger Australians keep getting shafted—as they are by climate change, as they are by biodiversity collapse and as they are by the housing crisis. And now Labor is locking in behind this unfair provision in the tax code.

In relation to making price gouging illegal across the economy, renowned experts, including former ACCC chair Professor Alan Fels, have recommended making it an offence to charge excessive prices. Professor Fels, I note, did not recommend that that provision be limited to only a single sector. The Greens bill is based on Professor Fels's recommendation and the support of a range of economists right across the political spectrum. It's based on the EU model, which is working to keep prices down in the EU and stop corporations from price gouging. It is possible to take on corporate Australia. It's possible to make price gouging illegal. The numbers are there in both houses of this parliament. The only thing stopping us is the Labor Party. (Time expired)

Fatima Payman (WA, Australia's Voice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to be able to speak to the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Make Price Gouging Illegal) Bill 2024 this morning, and I rise to show my support for this bill. Australians know that when they go down to a supermarket, to the shops, the deck is stacked against them. Billion-dollar corporations have the market in a vice grip. They choke their suppliers and underpay farmers. You would think that these companies just sell food, but no: they actually engineer spending. From the moment you step into a store—with the way they lay out the aisles, the music they play and the smell of fresh bread pumping through the store—they are conditioning you and nudging you to buy more.

They're getting inside your head and pushing you to buy more and to accept the prices that they have asked you to pay without even challenging it. The 2025 ACCC report on supermarket prices found that Australia has 'an oligopolistic market structure in which Coles and Woolworths have limited incentive to compete vigorously with each other on price'. The report goes on to say that, over the past five financial years, margins have increased for Coles, Woolworths and ALDI, meaning that at least some of the grocery price hikes that Australians are having to pay for are translating directly into very high profits for these giants.

And it doesn't stop at prices. The ACCC's interim report found that 165 blocks of land, largely owned by Coles and Woolies, have been left undeveloped, some for many years. This practice, known as 'land banking', prevents competitors from opening new supermarkets and keeps competition out of local communities. In WA—particularly in Maylands, which is within the member for Perth's electorate—Coles has held onto a vacant lot for 18 years. This is causing huge frustration for Western Australians who look at the empty land while driving down Guildford Road. Not only is it an eyesore; it is prime land that could be used for housing less than five kilometres from the Perth CBD. When you pose the question to Coles and Woolies, these two giants, about this, they just blame local councils and development rules for the delay and the lack of progress. But the effect is clear: fewer choices means less competition and means higher prices, and it's ordinary Australians carrying the burden of the rising cost-of-living pressures.

Before the last election, as Senator McKim mentioned earlier, Labor did promise to ban price gouging in supermarkets. At the October estimates, the minister said:

… the government's commitment, in response to substantial community concern, was to develop legislation by the end of this year.

By 'this year', he meant 2025. Yet this deadline came and went, and no such bill was brought before this parliament. That tells Australians exactly how much urgency the government has attached to this issue. Instead, we're given regulations—and this is a very long one—called the Competition and Consumer (Industry Codes—Food and Grocery) Amendment (Supermarkets Excessive Pricing Prohibition) Regulations 2025. It's quite the mouthful. These regulations were made without parliamentary scrutiny, and they won't even come into effect until July. A political duopoly that is regulating a supermarket duopoly is what we're seeing before us. These rules effectively hand the price gouging problem to the courts at a time when Australians need the government to stand beside them at the checkout.

The regulations raise serious concerns. For example, how will the government accurately measure the true cost of supply for Coles and Woolworths? Supply chains are complex and we know they're constantly changing. But, without clarity, how do the government and the ACCC keep track of these changes so that price gouging can be distinguished from supply instability?

Compared to the government's regulations, an element of this bill that recommends itself is that it does not believe, as the government apparently does, that the scourge of price gouging has quarantined itself within this country's supermarkets. We've seen it particularly in insurance, mortgages and electricity—prices just never seem to go down. We need to address price gouging no matter what happens and no matter where it happens.

Earlier this week, I moved OPD No. 317 relating to the excessive pricing regime, and I hope that, in the coming weeks, we finally get some clear answers about how the government intends to deal with this because this is a question that is circulating around dinner tables. People are having to make those really tough decisions: Do we pay rent? Do we buy less groceries? Where do we go to get our groceries? They're counting every single cent because, with the interest rate hikes, every dollar counts. Every cent counts. The reality is that the Reserve Bank has signalled another wave of inflation, if not two. As interest rates continue rising, everyday Australians will pay more for the basic essentials of life. Yet, time and time again, the supermarket duopoly just seems to walk away unscathed. We're seeing this pattern not just now; it's been happening for a while. Regular Australians carry the burden while the duopoly profits from their pain. It's not fair, and it's not how the economy should work.

I implore all my colleagues in this chamber to support this bill because our constituents—Australians out there who have placed the responsibility on us to make the sensible decisions—expect us to be hearing and listening to them. They expect us to ease their pain, to address issues like this rather than put them off or wait for the government to come to the table. This is a very sensible bill, and I commend the Greens and Senator McKim for bringing it forward.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One Nation agrees with the motivation behind the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Make Price Gouging Illegal) Bill 2024. Coles and Woolies have far too much market power and they're exercising that power in a way that benefits their shareholders, not their customers. With BlackRock Inc. holding influential positions in the share registers of these once fine companies, rapacious greed was always going to be the outcome. The accent here, though, is on the fundamental mistake Coles and Woolies are making, which is to exercise market power for the benefit of their shareholders, not their customers. Customers have been given notice. Coles and Woolies, once trusted and respected names, are now the two most disliked brand names in the Australian corporate scene. What a fall from grace!

This abuse of market power has caused customers to migrate to new options, so the market's coming to the rescue. In a stunning rebuke to Coles and Woolworths, Amazon has now paired with Harris Farm to add fresh food to Amazon. Amazon now offers same-day and next-day delivery of Harris Farm products—including meat, dairy, eggs and fresh produce—to over 80 suburbs in Sydney's inner city, inner west and surrounds. This will use specialised insulated chilled packaging via Amazon Flex for freshness. Harris Farm already had its own online store and partnered with Uber Direct for quick store based same-day delivery prior to this happening. That's the beauty of free enterprise competition. If one retailer turns a cynical and greedy operation, this creates an opportunity for someone else. And Coles and Woolies will be done.

If you haven't been into your local Harris Farm, IGA or Supabarn lately, I suggest you do that because Coles and Woolies have put their prices up much more than the inflation rate would justify, and the independent retailers have not. The price difference now is almost negligible, and you still get served by human beings. Fancy that—a human being serving! A retailer who values the customers wants to treat them as human—what a refreshing change! The 25c paper bags don't fall apart, but the Coles and Woolies' paper-thin rubbish bags faint with fright when confronted with an escalator or steps on the way back to your car. We've all had this happen.

The existing regulations need to be policed before we add new ones, especially ones as poorly worded as this bill. Seriously, this bill could mean anything. The ACCC conducted an inquiry into deceptive price advertising by Coles and Woolies and found they're using specials to put the price of a product up, then down and then up again in a way that leaves the public confused as to the real price. And the public is learning from this. They know that Coles and Woolies are not focused on customers; they're focused on their BlackRock Inc. investors. They exploit the confusion to put the prices up further. They were fined a pittance and they're still doing it. Surely we have laws already to bring these companies to heel. This Labor government needs to grow a bloody spine and just enforce the laws. You're not enforcing the laws, and then you're quite often wanting more. How much have Coles and Woolies donated to the ALP in recent years?

While we are on the subject of price gouging, will this bill cover price gouging by the government? Seventy dollars for a packet of cigarettes is price gouging. Fuel excise, the fees on passports, energy bills, insurance, strata fees—these are price gouging.

One Nation supports the principle but completely opposes the implementation. This bill won't do anything except create a lawyers' picnic that Coles and Woolies will win. It will be a lawyers' picnic, and the customers will lose.

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

What a surprise that One Nation aren't supporting the battlers out there in Australia who are doing it tough right now! Senator Roberts, respectfully, this is a chance for you to stand up for those Australians who are struggling right now in a cost-of-living crisis. This is a very constructive bill and has been well worked through for a long period of time, and I commend Senator McKim for all of the work that he has done on bringing this forward, as well as the momentum that he and the Greens have been able to achieve, pushing the government to do better on supermarket price gouging in particular—and, yes, we certainly look forward to seeing those regulations when they appear before the Senate.

Senator Roberts, you say you support the battlers out there who are doing it tough, especially in rural, remote and regional Australia. Why wouldn't you support a bill that actually takes on the power of big corporations? Is it because you're now campaigning with billionaires? Is that why you're not going to support Australian battlers? Australians have got pretty good bullshit detectors, Senator Roberts, and I think they're going to look at exactly what you're doing on the ground versus all your rhetoric on social media and the machine that you've got behind you that is funded by billionaires.

Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Whish-Wilson, I would remind you that we do try and use parliamentary language here. I would also remind you to direct your remarks through the chair.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to 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.

Tyron Whitten (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill, the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Make Price Gouging Illegal) Bill 2024, makes a mockery of this place. The Senate is a place for serious debate on the issues that affect this country, not a place for socialist dog whistles. They've titled the bill with a name that no-one could disagree with—after all, who wants price gouging?—and filled it with pure socialist government control. Let me be clear: One Nation cares deeply about the people of Australia and making a dollar go as far as possible, but this bill will not achieve that.

They call economics the dismal science because economics ignores utopian dreams and follows the ironclad laws of supply and demand. Capping prices does not work. Price caps destroy supply, kill competition, reduce quality and limit choice. What actually drives down prices is greater competition and innovation. The Greens quite rightly point out that we have a concentrated supermarket sector, but that is because of government regulation. More government regulation will not solve this problem. The only businesses that can afford to comply are the big players. Mum-and-dad stores, cooperatives, are locked out.

Who in their right mind would start a business under this Labor government? Every step of the way you are hamstrung by regulation, navigating a broken tax system. Income tax, payroll tax, fringe benefits tax, goods and services tax—the list goes on. You need to navigate oppressive industrial relations laws, green tape and compulsory surveys. There is no relief for small business, so guess what—they're disappearing. I know the Greens will say, 'This is only targeting the big end of town,' but where do you think the big end of town starts? It starts with small businesses that grow into big businesses and provide people with choice. I should know; I started a business with only me and my brother and ended up with over a thousand employees. I can tell you this: I don't think I'd be able to do it again under the current laws. I would be crushed by the red, green and black tape. The government already controls every aspect of business. Now the Greens want to control prices. We have seen this show before, in Mao's China and Stalin's Soviet Union. This is not a recipe for human flourishing; it's a road map to deprivation.

The real price gouging in Australia comes from those that are trying to push these bills—the government. If you want a real monopoly, look at the taxman. Look at those that are able to charge you what they like. The real villain, taking money out of the pocket of everyday Australians, is the Labor government. This government is the reason that people can't afford the basics. Those opposite have fuelled inflation through their reckless spending. They are the root cause of the cost-of-living crisis. If the government is silly enough to go down this path, the shareholders of these companies will make their profits, and they will do so by pushing down on suppliers, cutting costs and quality. The farmers will be the ones that are squeezed out, and when they're gone they're gone for good.

One Nation will deliver real cost relief to Australians—less tax, less red and green tape, more money in your pocket and more choice for all Australians.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome Senator McKim's attempt to try and help out here, but I must say I'm a little sceptical of the chances of this actually doing much. I don't know if people are familiar with something called Polymarket. It's an online prediction site. Overnight on Polymarket the odds of Jesus Christ reappearing this year have doubled. They were two per cent and they're now four per cent, and I still think there's more chance of Jesus Christ returning to Earth this year than of Nick McKim being able to help lower grocery prices in Australian supermarkets.

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator, I remind you to refer to senators by their correct title in this place.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As long as I've referred to the saviour and son of God by the right title, I'm happy, but I don't think Senator McKim has much chance of making a difference here. It's an admirable goal. Prices are too high. But this bill it is very, very simple. If it were this simple it'd be a little surprising that somebody hadn't done this before. All the bill does is say, 'A corporation that has a substantial degree of market power cannot price a good over an excessive price.' How do they work out what a competitive price is? It says in the bill:

The competitive price, for a good or service, is the price at which the good or service would have been acquired by, or supplied to, the other person if the corporation did not have a substantial degree of power in that market.

That is price setting. That's what this is. There is no price here that Senator McKim is referring to. There is no external data or figure that can be used to set the benchmark under this bill. You have to have somebody—someone with a slide rule or somebody with a spreadsheet—determine what the price would have been if the corporation did not have a substantial degree of market power. Who's going to determine this?

There have been examples of this over the years. It's called a politburo. A politburo gets together and says, 'This should be the price of bread, this should be the price of shoes and this should be the price of screws at Bunnings.' That's what this is. I don't know if it's news to the Greens and Senator McKim, but all of the attempts in history to do this have failed and failed miserably because there is no way for government, including bureaucrats in Canberra, to set prices in a sensible way without destroying the incentive to produce, to sell and to make the effort to provide goods and services to Australians. This would be covering the entire Australian market with a politburo that would be charged to set prices for all Australians. It would be a complete disaster if passed because we simply can't assess these things without doing great damage to the people who produce goods and services.

It is not just Coles and Woolworths that would be harmed by this naive and simplistic attempt to set prices in Australia. As egregious as their behaviour has been—and I am a big supporter of changing our competition laws to introduce divestiture powers like other countries have because of their behaviour—this would also impact on all of the suppliers to Coles and Woolworths, such as the farmers and the small-business people who the Greens are purporting to protect, because this bill does not exempt them in their supply chain that goes to somebody who has a substantial degree of market power. They will be impacted because the bureaucrats will have to sit there and ask, 'Okay, what should the price of milk be?' They'll have to assess what the price of milk should be in a competitive market without market power. They'll have to sit down and work it out. What happens if these bureaucrats make a mistake? Obviously, public servants never make a mistake, do they! But what if they make a mistake and set the price of milk way below the cost of production for a farmer in this country? You would get exactly what you got in places like the Soviet Union. You would then get shortages of basic goods, because people won't produce the milk if they're not getting a return for their hard labour and work to do so.

So, again, I am not questioning the motivations here of the Greens. They want to lower prices. We would all like to see that. But this is too simple, is too naive and has never worked before, and so we should oppose this bill.

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the bill be read a second time.