Subjects: Visit to Eden-Monaro with the local Liberal Party Candidate, Joanne Van Der Plaat; the Coalition’s plan to keep supermarkets in check and stand up for Australian consumers; Labor’s cost of living crisis; Labor’s disgraceful treatment of the Israeli Ambassador; the rise of anti-Semitism in Australia; the Prime Minister’s lack of leadership; Senator Fatima Payman; the Coalition’s plan to deliver cheaper, cleaner and consistent energy; Labor’s energy policy shambles.
E&OE
JOANNE VAN DER PLAAT:
Good morning, everyone. I’m Jo Van Der Plaat, I’m the Liberal candidate for Eden-Monaro. It’s great to welcome Peter Dutton, our Leader of the Opposition today with Leader of the Nationals, David Littleproud and our Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor.
So we’ve just taken a walk-through in the IGA out here in Googong, part of Eden-Monaro. I guess I wanted to say the reason we’re all out here today in Eden-Monaro is that we all believe that our new divestiture policy is necessary for Eden-Monaro to rectify the current situation. We know under the last two years with the Albanese Labor Government that the households in Eden-Monaro have been doing it incredibly tough. They’re under immense pressure. It was great to just get a little bit of a bird’s eye view inside IGA Googong about what families are doing at the moment.
So, I’d like to hand over to our Leader of the Opposition to speak a little bit more about that. Thank you.
PETER DUTTON:
Thank you – DLP, you go first.
DAVID LITTLEPROUD:
Well, thanks. It’s great to be here today. This is what competition looks like. This is what we want to see: more competition into the market, where small family businesses who own shops like this can compete with the big guys to give more choice, more competition to families right across the country in the middle of a cost of living crisis. Those are the fundamentals that you start to pull the levers and start to make an effect on driving a fair and equitable marketplace from the farm gate to Australians’ plates.
There’s a lot of sideline experts running around at the moment giving gratuitous advice, but the one that I still look to for the greatest advice is the current ACCC Chair, the one who says that the divestiture powers that we designed are the tools that she wants to put in her toolkit to make sure that she can have an effective regulatory regime that will protect competition and make competition thrive. They’re the experts that we should be listening to – not those that have vested interests. This is about making sure that we understand what has happened and the consequences that are happening.
For the Prime Minister to sit there and ridicule it after he, himself, has already supported divestiture powers in this country – he voted for divestiture powers in the energy sector – but now, when Australians are making real decisions inside shops like that, about putting fresh produce back up on the shelf because they can’t afford it, when they’re not having meals because they can’t afford it, when they’re just letting their kids eat because they can’t afford to have a meal themselves – you got to say, as legislators, ‘why wouldn’t you do something?’, whatever it is, to try and make sure that we drive a cost of living crisis out of Australian households.
So, this is about us making sure that we aren’t putting any extra regulatory burden on big supermarkets. We’re still working within the constraints of the codes of conducts that are there and the Consumer and Competition Act, but what we’re saying is there’s real penalties. You need to make sure that you live up to the values and principles of working in a free market, otherwise there’s a consequence. We’re putting in a big deterrent – not just with divestiture powers, but also with giving the ACCC those infringement powers in the immediacy of it, in not just this wet lettuce approach of $188,000. I mean, Woolworths and Coles scoff at that. They’d take that out of one of their tills in Sydney and pay for it overnight. We’re going up to $2 million to change the culture, and then actually, as a break glass with the safeguards that Angus has designed to give that surety – that’s good policy.
That is what households want to see from their legislators: the courage of their conviction to go out and make sure there’s fairness in the marketplace and that there is greater competition as a result of that.
So, Gus, do you want to go into more detail, mate?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Thanks, David. Well look, great to be here with Peter and David and Jo, who’s an absolutely fantastic candidate here in Eden-Monaro, and I know is spending a huge amount of time getting across this part of the world, and talking to people about this home-grown inflation, which is raging right across the country right now and hurting families. They’ve seen a collapse in their standard of living. The test for the last budget was whether this Government was going to restore that standard of living and it’s not happening. It is not happening. We’ve seen an 8 per cent reduction in disposable incomes, 9 per cent reduction in real wages of working families, and that pain is everywhere to see right across this great country.
The answer to that is getting back to basics.
One of the key elements of that is more competition. Good businesses have never been frightened of competition. Every small business owner, every farmer across this country has to compete every single day – including here at this wonderful supermarket – has to compete every single day just to survive and prosper. So, we want to see more competition, not less. That’s why we are proposing this change in our competition laws: a change which has been very carefully thought through to make sure it’s good for customers, it’s good for suppliers. The safeguards are very clear. We’ve looked at similar initiatives or similar legislation across other countries, including the US and UK, who have divestiture powers in place for their competition laws, and, importantly, the safeguards ensure that this can only be used when it’s going to be good for customers. It has to be good for customers in order to proceed, and that’s because there must be a substantial improvement in competition if those divestiture laws are to be triggered, and there must also be a public interest in doing so.
Those thresholds, those tests, have been made very clear to ensure that we get the outcomes we want, because we know good competition is good for customers – it means they get a better deal, and right now, every single Australian household is looking for a better deal given the inflation crisis they are all facing.
Peter?
PETER DUTTON:
Angus, thank you very much.
First, Jo, great to be here with you. Jo Van Der Plaat’s a local member here. She’s soon to be the Member for Eden-Monaro because she’s working hard on the ground, she’s raised her family within the electorate, she’s a very successful small business person as a solicitor, and gives back to her community in many charitable ways. So, Jo, I want to say thank you very much for having us here today.
Thank you very much to David Littleproud and to Angus Taylor for being here this morning.
Most importantly, I want to say thank you very much to Isaac, who’s the local IGA Store Manager here. He was telling us a little bit about the experience of customers coming through the door. The focus for the Coalition that we lead is on that customer, is on the average Australian, who, at the moment, knows that it’s getting harder and harder under the Albanese Government.
There’s not an Australian who’s better off today than they were two years ago under Labor. The cost of everything has gone up. People are paying tens of thousands of dollars more for their mortgage. They’re paying over 11 per cent more for their groceries. But everyone knows when you get to the checkout, it’s much more than 11 per cent that you’re seeing as an increase in the amount that you’re paying for the same basket or the same trolley of items.
Isaac was telling us about families here who were buying rump or rib fillet, are now buying mince; people who are giving up meat altogether; people who are just not able to afford fresh fruit and veggies. That’s what happens when inflation gets out of control. Why is inflation out of control in our country? Because the Government’s spent $315 billion more – pumped that money to the economy – that’s what drives inflation. When inflation goes up, the prices of everything go up. Your mortgage goes up because interest rates are always higher when inflation is higher.
We also know that the Government’s ‘renewables only’ energy policy is driving up the cost of everything because it’s the farmer, the producer, the manufacturer of the goods that we’ve seen in the IGA today that faces higher electricity bills and higher gas bills, and that’s passed on to the consumer ultimately paying more when they go to the checkout.
I want a much better situation for Australians – and only a Coalition Government can manage the economy well to get our country back on track, to get inflation back under control. It’s always up to a Coalition Government to clean up a Labor mess. I don’t think we’ve seen such a mess created by a Labor Government since Gough Whitlam’s time, and it is going to get much worse, unfortunately, for Australians the longer that Anthony Albanese is the Prime Minister of this country.
We’ve introduced these laws because we want to be on the side of consumers. Mr Albanese stood alongside Coles and Woolies at the time of the Voice, and the big business groups in this country were all shouting and screaming at Australians as to what they should do in the vote on the Voice. We were standing with the average Australian and we are standing with average Australians today because I want to get grocery prices down in this country.
Through this policy – which is a policy that’s already in existence in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, most other western democracies – if there is market abuse, if Coles and Woolies are driving up the prices of groceries, I’m not standing with Coles and Woolies, I’m standing with the customers and I want prices to come down. So, if you see in a situation like in this community, let’s take it, for example, if you get one of the big chains, Coles or Woolies coming in here setting up their supermarket and then buying up other blocks of land to stop the IGA or to stop Aldi, or to stop the Foodworks or whoever it might be coming into this area so that there’s no competition, that is an abuse of market power. Under our policy, that is not going to stand.
Now, we know that Mr Albanese is a weak Prime Minister and he’s not prepared to stand up to Coles and Woolies – I am. We have stood up to them, we will stand up in favour of consumers over big business, because we want to see a fair market as much as a free market.
I’m fully in favour, of course, of a free market, but a free market means a fair go for consumers, and I’m not going to see big companies monster consumers and families, particularly during a cost of living crisis. Mr Albanese can line up with the big end of town, that’s fine. The Liberal Party has always been about making sure that we support families, small businesses, entrepreneurs, tradies, and that’s exactly the Party that I lead, and that’s going to be the underpinning of the decisions that we make to help Australians, because at the moment, Australians are really suffering under this Albanese Government.
I’ll just make one more comment in relation to another matter, and then I’m very happy to take any questions.
I think the Government’s treatment of the Israeli Ambassador is a disgrace. I think the Jewish community at the moment – doesn’t matter whether you move around to Melbourne or Sydney or Perth or Brisbane or Canberra, wherever it might be – people in the Jewish community are living with great fear. For the first time since the Second World War, we see survivors of the Holocaust who are living in our country and have done so peacefully since 1945, are now talking about leaving Australia because they feel unsafe. That is a completely unacceptable situation in our country.
I think Israel has a complete and sovereign right to defend itself against terrorist organisations, and instead of chastising the Israeli Ambassador, the Prime Minister should spend his time condemning Hezbollah, and the other terrorist organisations, who are attacking Israel. Israel has a right to defend itself, and that the Prime Minister would call in the Israeli Ambassador and give him a dressing down, shows that this Prime Minister is all about politics and not about people.
The Prime Minister should spend his time supporting the Jewish community, not chastising it, and I think the Government here is acting in a way that is in their political interests, and they’re sacrificing our national interest as a result. The Prime minister should be condemned for it.
I’m happy to take any questions.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, did you ambush your colleagues with this supermarkets policy?
PETER DUTTON:
No.
QUESTION:
Do you expect that you’ll actually use it, or is it more of a deterrent?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, we want there to be a cultural change because, at the moment, Coles and Woolies are monstering smaller operators out of business. I want to see a fair go for farmers. Somebody who’s planted a crop – 500 acres of a particular fruit or vegetable and has been told that that crop will be purchased when it’s due to be harvested by Coles or Woolies, and then they halve the order – there’s no market to sell the balance of that in to. So, I want to see fair go for farmers and I want to see fair go for consumers. We want downward pressure on grocery prices. Under the Albanese Government, prices just keep going up and up.
QUESTION:
But do you expect that you would actually see this being used and implemented by a court?
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I guess it depends on the circumstances, as we’ve pointed out. Full credit to Angus Taylor who’s done an enormous amount of work on this policy. We had divestiture powers in the last government – supported on a bipartisan basis – in relation to energy companies who are seen to be doing the wrong thing in the market, or by consumers. The same principle applies here. The ACCC Commissioner has been very clear about this being a good thing for the economy.
So, it’s like a penalty that’s there available – it may need to be used, let’s hope that it’s not – but let’s know that it sends a very clear message to the companies that we’re not going to allow practices which breach our free market principles. The free market should operate in a fair way and it shouldn’t just be about a particular company, it should be about every aspect of the market – that is suppliers, manufacturers, consumers, the wholesalers, the retailers. The market should be working for everyone, and it shouldn’t be skewed in favour of one particular part of that process simply because they’re a big multi-billion dollar company.
This applies to Bunnings as well, and if you have a look, as I grew up, you’d go to Mitre 10 or you go to smaller hardwares – I love going to Bunnings, but I want to make sure that consumers are getting the best possible prices at Bunnings and that they’re not being gouged because of a lack of competition, given the market concentration that Bunnings now has. It’s a similar story with Coles and Woolies.
QUESTION:
Mr Dutton, some of your colleagues did tell us that they did feel ambushed, so did you brief them…
PETER DUTTON:
Who are they?
QUESTION:
Oh, they weren’t named in a media report.
PETER DUTTON:
Well, I’m not commenting on this silliness.
QUESTION:
Okay. Did you capitulate to the Nationals with this policy?
PETER DUTTON:
I’ve been very clear about this: this is a policy I believe very strongly in, it’s a policy that David Littleproud believes very strongly, it’s a policy that Angus Taylor believes very strongly in, and it’s a policy, frankly, that Robert Menzies would believe very strongly in. That’s the reality. So, people can run off on all sorts of tangents. Our announcement, our policy, is about supporting consumers. The Prime Minister can line up with Coles and Woolies and lecture the Australian people on what they should do on the Voice and everything else. But I’m prepared to stand up to Coles and Woolies, because I want to fight for a better life and a better outcome and a better society and community and country, and we’re prepared to make the tough decisions to do that.
QUESTION:
Have you spoken to Coles and Woolworths about this? They’re obviously big employers across the country.
PETER DUTTON:
I’ve had many conversations with Coles and Woolies over the years, and I met most recently with one of the CEOs, and we discussed the issues, and, again…
QUESTION:
Specifically the divestiture powers?
PETER DUTTON:
…I’ve spoken about divestiture powers to at least one of the CEOs, in fact both CEOs. I have a very good working relationship with Coles and Woolies. I don’t have any problem in having a conversation with them, because I want to be very clear about our intent here, and our intent is to bring grocery prices down. It operates in the US, in the UK, in Canada, in Europe, so the Prime Minister’s faux cries yesterday were just childish, to be honest. If the Prime Minister doesn’t have the guts or the strength of leadership to stand up to Coles and Woolies, well, I think the Australian public will vote for a party and for parties who are prepared to do so. We will make tough decisions to get our country back on track and to make sure that we provide for Australians and to put downward pressure on prices.
The price of absolutely everything in your family budget has gone up under Labor, but it’s only just the start. Your energy prices are up, food prices are up by 11.4 per cent, and the prices of everything will continue to go up.
QUESTION:
Can you rule out these powers expanding to other sectors like…
PETER DUTTON:
We don’t have any plans for that.
QUESTION:
So, no airlines? Insurance companies?
Okay. And can I just ask you about Fatima Payman as well? The Prime Minister made some comments during Question Time yesterday that were talking about, ‘it will explain the strategy that has been in place for over a month’. What did you make of that comment?
PETER DUTTON:
Oh look, I think it was a political play by the Prime Minister. What you know about Anthony Albanese is that he’s a lifer. He’s been in Parliament for almost 30 years. He’s a tricky political operator – there’s no question about that – and what he’s tried to do here is to spike the story of Fatima Payman, who clearly is going to go out into another Party or into some independent collaboration. I don’t know what her plan is, but clearly the Prime Minister does. I think he’s trying to spike that story. I think that’s what’s happened there.
I think what it does demonstrate is that the Prime Minister, if he’s in a minority government in the next term of Parliament, it will include the Greens, it’ll include the Green-Teals, it’ll include Muslim candidates from Western Sydney, it will be a disaster. If you think the Albanese Government is bad now, wait for it to be a minority government with the Greens, the Green-Teals and Muslim independents. That is not the formula for bringing grocery prices down and for getting our economy back on track. Inflation will continue to rage under that sort of a government, and interest rates will go higher, as we’re saying the Reserve Bank warn at the moment.
QUESTION:
And just before you go, how much longer before we get those costings on your nuclear plan?
PETER DUTTON:
Oh, I know you’re a patient person. They’ll be here in due course. I know that everyone was calling for detail about the sites, and we released the sites…
QUESTION:
Over the winter break?
PETER DUTTON:
…we were very specific about the sites and everyone thought that was a big moment, and we had to ‘the pressure was on, release the sites’. We nominated seven…
QUESTION:
You were telling your colleagues to prepare for an election, though, so can we expect those soon?
PETER DUTTON:
…we nominated to seven sites. They’re all on end-of-life coal fired power station sites. We believe in making sure that we’ve got renewables, gas in the system, underpinned by 24/7 zero emissions nuclear power. Nuclear operates in 19 of 20 of the biggest economies in the world, and nuclear doesn’t operate in one of those 20 countries – that’s Australia. So, again, if you look at the markets where nuclear operates, energy is actually cheaper, electricity is cheaper in those markets. The Prime Minister’s fantasy of believing that the IGA here can operate 24/7 on solar and wind – it’s a joke. On an overcast day like today, solar and wind are providing very little…
QUESTION:
Just on the costings, though, is it weeks, months? What are we talking about?
PETER DUTTON:
…solar and wind are providing very little into this community at the moment, and it needs to be underpinned by a reliable baseload energy…
QUESTION:
Australians do want to know how much it will cost them, though?
PETER DUTTON:
And they wanted to know where the sites were, we’ve provided that. In relation to the costings, we’ve said we’ll provide that in due course, which of course we will.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
[ends]