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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-09-11 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Grocery Prices

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:25): Supplementary to the Premier: does the Premier expect the price of bread and milk to increase?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:25): The Leader of the Opposition asks if the price of bread and milk is likely to increase. Let me reiterate or repeat some remarks I have made around grocery prices on the record. The South Australian people and the Australian people are more astute than what I think the Leader of the Opposition might give them credit for. The Leader of the Opposition would well know that the people who set the prices of milk, bread and other household groceries is the market. It is retailers in conjunction with suppliers. They make a range of decisions in a market-driven economy.

On this side of the house, we believe in market economics. We believe in governments establishing policy settings and making interventions where it is appropriate to do so, but for something as basic as grocery prices, we think the market should run its course, particularly provided that the market is competitive. We are very lucky here that in the state of South Australia, when it comes to the supermarket market, we have one of the most competitive jurisdictions anywhere in the country, because almost a third of all supermarket sales in the state of South Australia come through the tills of independent operators, which is very different to what we see in the Eastern States, where it is around 8 to 10 per cent. Here it is closer to a third.

That is a policy that we have always supported on this side of the house. It is why we have always, as a government or as a party, including our time in opposition, supported independent supermarket chains—the Romeos, the Drakes, the Chapleys, the IGAs, the Metcashes. We have stood with these retailers for years, while those opposite have always supported the policies that have suited the duopoly. They love the duopoly; we love competition.

When we think about the price of groceries, there is only one side of politics in South Australia that is firmly on the side of competition, which is what drives down prices. I would alert the South Australian public to the risk of having the alternative premier of the state suggesting that he will control the prices of bread, milk and petrol. When most South Australians or Australians hear a politician suggesting they will determine the price of bread and milk, it means one of two things: it either means that that would-be leader thinks that the people of South Australia are stupid or it means that that would-be leader subscribes not to market economics but rather to controlled, centralist economics, which doesn't befit a Leader of the Opposition who supposedly comes from the side of politics that appreciates how business operates.

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