Thursday, 1 August 2024

Market duopolies

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (09:49): The duopolies reign supreme in Australia, and it is everyday people who will pay the price quite literally. Coles and Woolworths have shelved any chance of reasonably priced food by dominating the grocery game. Telstra and Optus control around 80 per cent of our phone and internet services, and now we have seen the Qantas and Virgin duopoly push out one, probably two, smaller domestic airlines – RIP Rex. These huge, powerful corporations will do anything in their power to keep control of their markets, and this means that we are all paying top dollar for our food, for our phones, for internet and for our travel. We need the Labor government to stop this anti-competitive behaviour. We need competition to ensure that prices do not continue to be controlled by the big two no matter which industry we are talking about, and we need these companies to be made to stop price gouging. Duopolies mean higher prices and less choice. Tear them down.