Tom Smith to head up select committee into supermarket price gouging

After supermarket CEOs failed to make their case when grilled by the Qld Premier, a probe into high checkout prices and low farmgate profits will now be carried out and led by Tom Smith.

ALP Bundaberg MP Tom Smith has been appointed chair of Queensland’s first select committee to investigate supermarket price gouging.

ALP Bundaberg MP Tom Smith has been appointed chair of Queensland’s first select committee to investigate supermarket price gouging.

Following on from Premier Steven Miles’ January meetings with the heads of Australia’s big four supermarkets to discuss the skyrocketing costs of groceries, the Supermarket Pricing Select Committee was established on Friday, March 8.

Mr Miles said the committee was necessitated by the unsatisfactory responses from supermarket leaders to complaints of high prices at the checkout and low profits passed on to farmers.

“Everywhere I go people tell me that cost of living is having a big impact on the family budget,” Mr Miles said.

“From high interest rates to price gouging, it’s all adding up and putting pressure on the most vulnerable.

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ALP Bundaberg MP Tom Smith has been appointed chair of Queensland’s first select committee to investigate supermarket price gouging.

“In my first speech as Premier, I made a commitment to meet the big supermarkets to share the stories from families that the cost at the checkout was far too high and that farmers felt ripped off at the farmgate.

“What those supermarket CEOs had to say simply wasn’t good enough, so I have moved to form this committee.

“I’d like to encourage all Queenslanders with something to say to come forward. I am very much looking forward to seeing the committee’s report.”

The committee will investigate pricing variability throughout the state, particularly in regional areas.

The committee will examine causes and effects of increased supermarket prices and identify opportunities to increase transparency in the sector.

With agricultural industry advocates reporting roadblocks to the flow of profits through to primary producers, the committee has been tasked with probing the full supply chain including long-term trends in profits for perishable producers.

The conduct of supermarkets when negotiating with primary producers will also be on the table, with the committee set to look at solutions to the incomplete disclosure of information to growers.

Variability of grocery prices throughout the state will also be investigated, including pricing in regional areas and remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

With Bundaberg home to one of the state’s biggest food bowls, Mr Smith will head up the committee with Lytton MP Joan Pease and Mount Ommaney MP Jess Pugh also appointed.

Solutions to uneven distribution of information from supermarkets to primary producers will be explored by the committee.

Mr Smith said the committee would provide a forum through which Queenslanders could speak to how increasing prices were contributing to cost of living pressures.

“I’ve heard too many stories from my constituents in Bundaberg of paying outrageous prices for just one bag of groceries,” Mr Smith said.

“I’ve heard too many times how growers feel powerless to speak out against the tactics being used against them by the big retailers.

“It is important that this committee provides Queenslanders the chance to have their say and share their stories of how the big supermarkets’ control on pricing is affecting them.”

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Three further members from the opposition and crossbench are expected to be finalised.

Mr Smith’s political opponent, LNP candidate for Bundaberg Bree Watson, called the committee an “attempt to deflect blame for the cost of living crisis”.

“Just as the big supermarkets should be held to account for the price of groceries, so too should the government that is directly responsible for skyrocketing electricity prices, insurance prices, water costs and transport costs,” Ms Watson said.

The bipartisan committee will be given the ability to call for people and documents to assist with their inquiry, with a report due to be tabled in parliament by Friday, May 21.