Tuesday, 17 October 2023

Cost of living

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (21:39): (500) The action I am seeking today is for the Assistant Treasurer to declare groceries a regulated industry. This week the 2023 Food for Thought report was released by the Give Where You Live Foundation and Sustain Australia as part of the Feed Geelong appeal, which runs until Sunday 22 October. Across the G21 region, which represents five local government areas in Western Victoria, including Geelong, the proportion of residents struggling financially quadrupled between 2020 and 2023. Increasing financial stress in the region means that in the past few years Geelong Food Relief has reported a 239 per cent increase in demand. The picture of people seeking support is also changing. Previously the main customers of the food relief sector were people on inadequate income support. Now services say they are seeing significant numbers of working families and full-time workers walking through their doors, and the need is not slowing down.

The food relief sector was set up to meet short-term needs and act as a stopgap in times of crisis, but with more people accessing emergency relief it is clear that what we are seeing in our communities is chronic food insecurity and hunger as a result of the cost-of-living pressures. This Labor government have taken a ‘not our problem’ approach to the cost-of-living crisis, when in reality there is plenty they can do. For example, they could introduce rent controls, build more public housing and provide greater access to essential services like community health and public dental care. The Greens will continue to push for action in all these areas, but there are other interventions that directly affect the cost of food that Labor could make.

Currently the major supermarkets are given free rein over increasing the prices of their goods. They are making massive profits at the expense of people, more and more of whom are being pushed out of stability and into uncertainty, being forced to skip meals, go without fresh food, raid their savings or go into debt just to pay for the essentials. State governments have significant power to take on and regulate industry, and they should be using these powers to lower supermarket prices for essential food items. Labor could in fact give the Essential Services Commission the power to prevent supermarket profiteering and implement mechanisms such as price controls on essential items if their prices are unfair. Once again, I urge the minister to declare groceries a regulated industry, because right now we should be pulling all the levers we can to ensure people can afford the things they need.