I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Fairer for Families and Farmers and Other Measures) Bill 2024, and it’s not looking too fair to me, I must say. Before I really begin, I want to put on the record that what we’ve seen in this parliament today is not considered, calm legislation. What we’ve seen today is more akin to schoolies week, I’ve got to say, and I’m really unimpressed.

But, given that I’m here and I’m trying my best to look at a bill that has been rapidly introduced to this House and that we’re now having a guillotined debate on, there are a couple of things I really want to put on the record.

One of them is that every person that I represent in the electorate of Indi wants to see more done to rein in the supermarket duopoly. The way everyday Australians are struggling at the checkout and putting items back into their supermarket trolleys because of the exorbitant costs that the supermarkets are imposing upon them is a disgrace.

Coles and Woolworths collectively control two-thirds of the grocery sector and are amongst the most profitable supermarkets in the world, and this bill is going to do nothing to make a dent in that. I absolutely support stronger frameworks to put an end to the supermarkets’ bad behaviour. I do, and I’m grateful to the minister for rapidly giving me a copy of his second reading speech and a quick briefing on the bill.

But I want to see stronger reform, targeted at looking after farmers, consumers and suppliers.

I note the member for Maranoa’s speech just now. He spoke about $1 milk. Let me say, as the daughter of dairy farmers, that I know the impact of that kind of egregious behaviour of supermarkets on hardworking family farmers. It’s outrageous.

I’m calling on the government to bring in economy-wide divestiture powers. We absolutely need those. Again, the member for Maranoa talked about this as a last-resort big stick, but it’s the kind of big stick we need. The big supermarkets are never going to look after us. Of course they’re not.

We need something tough to give the competition regulator the power to break up big businesses when it can prove that regular Australians like all of those people that we represent are getting a dud deal—and they are getting an absolutely dud deal.

I’m really disappointed that this bill is not going to fix this dud deal, because I would say that corporate interests should never be prioritised over consumer interests in a sector as important as food and groceries. We’re not talking about discretionary items here; we’re talking about tonight ‘s dinner or tomorrow’s school lunch.

Again, we have had no time to consider this, but I am really sorry to see that this bill, on the face of it, really appears to be a bandaid solution and it’s not going to be the bold reform that Australians are asking us for.

I’m a regional Independent. I represent the farming community in my electorate of Indi, including many, many suppliers: cherry growers, beef farmers, horticulturalists more broadly, grain croppers and multi-generational farming families.

They’re the kind of people that absolutely are the bedrock, underpinning the food security of our nation, and they’re never going to get a fairer deal with this kind of legislation. I’m always going to push for a fairer food system in this country in which farmers, all our incredible primary producers and agricultural communities more broadly are supported, not undermined.

I say to the government: do better on all accounts this week—and today especially—and do better on reining in these big supermarkets.