Thursday, 2 November 2023

Cost of living

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (09:47): As Gough Whitlam once said:

A Labor government will not hesitate to use its powers … to prevent unjustified price rises.

He also said:

We will establish a Parliamentary Standing Committee to review prices in key sectors.

Now, Gough understood that governments have the power to take on price gouging and to ensure that people can afford food. Food – not diamanté heels, not private jet rides, food. And Gough’s ideas sound familiar to this chamber because the Greens have recently announced our plan to stop supermarket price gouging. We need direct government intervention to make sure that everyone can afford basic groceries, yet right now the Labor government are choosing not to act and claiming that we are the unreasonable ones. How far you have fallen. This is your guy. I am just reading his words here. Gough was on the right track. You should listen to him. I wonder what he would think if he saw this current bunch of neolibs representing what he knew as the Labor Party.