Everyone deserves a better deal at the supermarket

I know from speaking with our community right across Macnamara that people are doing it tough. Mortgages have gone up, rents too, and everyday expenses have been piling up. 

It is why we are working extremely hard to get inflation under control and help people with cost-of-living pressures. 

There’s lots more work to be done, but I wanted to point of some of the things we have done already as there have been some important policy reforms. 

Since coming to government, we have delivered back-to-back increases to the minimum wage, and introduced historic pay rises for aged-care and early childcare workers. 

We’ve made childcare cheaper, we’ve made medicines cheaper, we have wiped $3 billion in student debt by changing the HECS system, and we’ve funded the biggest increase to rent assistance in 30 years. 

We want Australians to be keeping more of what they earn, which is why from July this year every Australian taxpayer got a tax cut. 

However, I know the other place where cost-of-living pressures is really hitting hard is at the supermarket. 

Unfair prices at the checkout have caused a significant strain on household budgets, which is why we are cracking down on dodgy supermarket practices. 

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced it would be taking legal action against Coles and Woolworths for allegedly misleading customers through deceptive discount pricing claims on everyday products. 

We’ve all seen it: when the price of a bag of chips, originally $5, goes up to $7, then “drops” to $6 on discount – that’s not a real deal.

This deceptive behaviour needs to stop, which is why we announced a new Mandatory Food and Grocery Code for supermarkets. 

Under the mandatory code, supermarkets will face multi-million-dollar fines for doing the wrong thing. 

Earlier this year, the Prime Minister called on the ACCC to conduct a year-long inquiry into supermarket prices. 

The interim report, released in late September, found that almost 90 per cent of consumers always or often use unit pricing when deciding what products to buy.

The reality is supermarkets and companies have got away with “shrinkflation” for too long. 

Shrinkflation is where a product’s size reduces but its price stays the same or even increases – like when a bag of chocolate goes from 18 pieces to 12. 

Unit pricing should be helping shoppers, which is why we’re strengthening the Unit Pricing Code to ensure supermarkets are providing the information Australians need to find the best deal. 

In addition, we announced more funding to the ACCC to crack down on misleading prices and bad faith behaviour.

The bar needs to be raised, and there needs to be stronger consequences for doing the wrong thing, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. 

There is more work to be done, but we are holding supermarkets to account to ensure every Australian gets a better deal at the checkout. These reforms are important, and we won’t stop until the pressure eases for all Australians. 

Josh Burns is the Federal Member for  Macnamara. •