Wednesday, 30 August 2023

Cost of living

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:52): (437) My adjournment matter is for the Premier, and the action I seek is for the Labor government to stop supermarkets from price gouging. It was reported last week that the two major supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths, recorded $2.72 billion in combined profit this last year, and at the same time that they were making these record profits these supermarkets were busy jacking up the price of groceries well beyond the rate of inflation, wreaking havoc across the community. I have said this before and I will say it again: these decisions impact people’s lives. There is a real human impact to this cost-of-living crisis, and yet these profiteering corporations and the governments that enable them do not seem to care.

Over the last few months the Greens have been running a survey on the cost of living. I want to tell you about some of the stories that we have actually received from this survey. These stories are confronting, they are heartbreaking and, really, they should not be a reality in Victoria or anywhere in this country. To start with, so many people are saying they simply cannot afford to eat three meals a day. People are accessing food banks at an ever-increasing scale. People are cutting out essential nutrition and dietary requirements for things like diabetes or coeliac disease because of cost. This is a crisis that will have untold impacts. One person told us:

I have reduced my meals per day to one, which at the moment consists of half a can of soup and two slices of bread.

Some parents have told us they are keeping their kids home from school because they cannot afford to pack a lunch for their children. Many people who wrote to us said they are skipping vital medication because they have to choose between medicine or food. They are skipping dentist appointments and doctors appointments for serious illnesses. People spoke of increased isolation due to financially being unable to afford to go out with friends or needing to stay home to conserve energy because they are skipping meals. One parent told us they are skipping their own meals so their kids can eat – skipping their own meals and having to lie to their children and say they will be eating later so the kids do not worry.

Failure to stop the supermarket duopoly from gouging prices and making food unaffordable is failure to address the cost-of-living crisis. When will the Labor government step in to protect the people instead of the supermarkets recording billions of dollars of profit at their expense?