At least the regulatory overreach and some of the potential unintended consequences that could have resulted from the political pile-on to the two big supermarket chains amid the “cost-of-living crisis” has been contained.

After Labor ran a political diversion blaming high inflation on Coles and Woolworths’ supposed price-gouging of customers and suppliers, the Liberal Party, the supposed party of private enterprise, joined with the neo-Marxist Greens and the rural populist Nationals, by backing the insertion of a break-up power in the nation’s competition law – something Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rubbished as the “Soviet” option.