Thursday, 17 October 2024

Supermarket prices

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:08): Foodbank has just reported that over 2 million households in Australia are experiencing severe food insecurity and that 79 per cent of these households did not have the money to buy more food when they ran out. It is an abject failure of the Labor government that there are people in this state who are going for entire days without eating because they cannot afford food. This is despite people trying to buy cheaper foods or going without cleaning and personal care products to bring down their grocery bill or having to dip into household savings to buy the basics. All the while, supermarkets continue to price gouge. They continue to jack up prices on foods that are healthy, nutritious and essential. In low-income households we are seeing this regularly: they are impacted first, they are impacted the worst and often for the longest, which is especially the case right now in this cost-of-living crisis. The Labor government needs to take urgent action to regulate the price of essential groceries so that no-one is left behind, so that no-one is going hungry.