The Victorian Greens have launched an election proposal for 10 publicly owned supermarkets, promising cheaper essentials at five stores in metropolitan Melbourne and five in regional Victoria. The party’s published grocery policy commits an initial $350 million over four years to the trial, funded through proposed taxes on big banks and the gambling industry.
The stores would stock a range of goods comparable with Coles and Woolworths, according to the policy. The Greens said essential items including bread, milk, eggs, meat, fruit, vegetables and nappies would be priced 30 per cent below the major supermarkets. That discount is a party promise, rather than an outcome from operating Victorian stores.
The party also proposed stocking locally sourced food and drink, including seasonal produce, and giving Australian farmers fair pay for their products. Its plan links the public-store trial with changes to the way essential food prices would be regulated, rather than relying solely on opening a competing retail chain.
Under the proposal, the Essential Services Commission would be empowered to set minimum farm-gate prices for essentials. The Greens said this would support farmers supplying the supermarkets. The commission would also be given powers to set maximum prices for key essential grocery items across the supermarket sector.
Those maximum prices would be updated and reviewed monthly, the policy says. The proposed process would involve agricultural and food experts, economists and the community, with prices and the definition of essential goods responding to community needs and external pressures such as supply-chain disruption.
The Age, which corrected its earlier figure, reports the same $350 million cost for the public-supermarket trial. The proposal remains an election commitment: its funding and promised discounts are what the party says it would deliver, not an announcement that the stores have already opened.
In The Age’s report (subscription-only), former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Allan Fels warned that putting the plan into practice would be difficult. He pointed to the need to develop supply chains, keep prices low, hire experienced management and operate at sufficient scale.
University of Melbourne economics lecturer Aaron Barkley also questioned how a government retailer would compete with existing operators. In the ABC’s coverage of the launch, he said government involvement could be effective when targeted, but warned that the discounts being proposed could require taxpayer funding.
Barkley told the ABC that targeted subsidies for people on lower incomes or in rural areas could be equally effective in relieving grocery stress. His comments put an alternative alongside the Greens’ public-store proposal, while Fels’s concerns focused on the practical requirements of building and running a supermarket network.
