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Speaker 1: The cost of your shopping basket, as you know, has

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Speaker 1: risen exceptionally and it feels like exponentially over the last

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Speaker 1: couple of years. The Greens in Federal Parliament are preparing

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Speaker 1: to introduce anti price gouging legislation to the Senate, to

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Speaker 1: the upper house in Canberra that would look at imposing

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Speaker 1: big fines on corporations that are caught out charging excessively

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Speaker 1: price gouging. Let's have a chat about that with Green

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Speaker 1: Senator Nick McKim on the line.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Good morning, Matthew, how are you all right?

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Speaker 1: Thank you think this would be an impediment a way

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Speaker 1: to stop large corporations doing this. I suppose you're talking

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Speaker 1: about the Colson Woolies of the world, etc.

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Speaker 2: Look, we are talking about the Colson Woolies of the world.

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Speaker 2: And you know, as you know, around the inquiry into

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Speaker 2: suit market pricing and there was epic amounts of evidence

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Speaker 2: about corporate price gouging from the big sluper market corporations.

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Speaker 2: But this bill that we're introducing would be an economy

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Speaker 2: wide bill and there's very strong and it's you know,

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Speaker 2: as people are getting smashed by everything from rents to

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Speaker 2: mortgages to further and groceries to energy, to transport costs.

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Speaker 2: That there's a lot of price gouging going on from

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Speaker 2: big corporations across the economy. And interestingly, at the moment

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Speaker 2: in Australia, the share of the economy that's going to

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Speaker 2: corporate profits has never been higher and the share of

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Speaker 2: the economy going to wages has never been lower. So

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Speaker 2: what that means, of course, is that the corporations are

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Speaker 2: making massive profits while millions of Australians are just getting

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Speaker 2: smashed by costs of living and we want to rebalance

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Speaker 2: that power dynamic more in favor of people and against corporations.

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Speaker 1: Is it gouging though, I mean are they making profits

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Speaker 1: by gouging or other profits that have always been there

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Speaker 1: and prices have gone up. We know that that's a fact.

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Speaker 1: Of course. Inflation is inflation. You can't get away from that.

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Speaker 1: Is that or is it actually gouging and how do

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Speaker 1: you prove it?

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Speaker 2: So a couple of things there. Firstly, on inflation, there's

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Speaker 2: no doubt that some supply side issues are acting to

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Speaker 2: put upward presure on prices, so there's no argument from

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Speaker 2: the Greens about that. But another contributor is absolutely the

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Speaker 2: profiteering of big corporations, and in many cases, including the

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Speaker 2: supermarket sector, that's because too few corporations have too much

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Speaker 2: market power and that lets them gouge prices because the

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Speaker 2: competitive forces that are supposed to deliver lower prices and

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Speaker 2: better outcomes for consumers simply don't exist. Now in terms

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Speaker 2: of how you prove it, the way that our bill

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Speaker 2: is framed is that ultimately it will be matter for

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Speaker 2: the courts, as it should be in a democracy with

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Speaker 2: the rule of law, and the courts can consider a

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Speaker 2: range of matters when they are assessing where the price

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Speaker 2: gouging has occurred. Firstly, a corporation will need to have

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Speaker 2: been found to misuse or abuse its market power, and

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Speaker 2: then the court can look at a range of factors

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Speaker 2: like the profit margins, the costs, the input costs for

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Speaker 2: the corporations, the costs are doing business for the corporations,

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Speaker 2: what competitors are, and if the court at the end

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Speaker 2: of the day finds that the corporations are price gouging,

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Speaker 2: they'll be able to apply a maximum civil penalty of

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Speaker 2: anything up to fifty million dollars.

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Speaker 1: So this would go to the courts, not a tribunal

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Speaker 1: or a body overseeing price gouging.

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Speaker 2: Now it would go to the courts. The A Triple

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Speaker 2: C would be empowered to apply to the court for

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Speaker 2: an order where the A Triple C, which is our

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Speaker 2: corporate regulator in Australia, where it believes the corporation has

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Speaker 2: abused its market power by prowess gaudging. But at the

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Speaker 2: end of the day, this is about redressing the power

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Speaker 2: imbalance that currently exists between big corporations and shoppers and

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Speaker 2: ordinary Australians who are getting smashed. And it's about trying

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Speaker 2: to rain in corporate profits and make sure we put

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Speaker 2: downward pressure on prices, which is the single number one

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Speaker 2: thing we need to do because we are in the

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Speaker 2: middle of a cost building crisis in this country.

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Speaker 1: So would you see it being consumers reporting what they

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Speaker 1: believe to be gouging well to who.

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Speaker 2: To their MP Well, No, the consumers absolutely would be

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Speaker 2: able to feed into this process and they would be

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Speaker 2: able to provide evidence to the A Triple C. And

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Speaker 2: then the A Triple C would be able to accumulate

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Speaker 2: all that evidence and if it believed that there was

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Speaker 2: enough evidence to sustain a successful court application, then they

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Speaker 2: could go forward in that way.

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Speaker 1: All right, So the a triple C ultimately brings the

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Speaker 1: action to the courts.

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Speaker 2: That's correct, all right.

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Speaker 1: While I have you just want to talk about the

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Speaker 1: rallies in Melbourne, the violent protests. They're not so much rallies,

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Speaker 1: it just violence and most people would find it abhrror.

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Speaker 1: Not the right to protest, everyone has that right. We

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Speaker 1: should cherish that right. But when people are throwing acid

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Speaker 1: at police, horses and missiles at police, and people are

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Speaker 1: injured in this way, and police are injured trying to

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Speaker 1: keep the peace, there's no place for this sort of

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Speaker 1: activity in Australia. There's there's no room for any There

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Speaker 1: should be no room for anyone throwing acid at anyone else.

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Speaker 1: And this seems to have and correct me if I'm

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Speaker 1: wrong here, Senator, but the implicit support of the Greens,

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Speaker 1: certainly in the Victorian State Party this level of violence,

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Speaker 1: and the other two major parties, probably everyone in Australia

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Speaker 1: condemning it, apart from the Greens.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I'm very happy to front up here at Matthew

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Speaker 2: and condemn violence. And absolutely protests need to be peaceful

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Speaker 2: and they need to be non violent. But of course

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Speaker 2: that applies on both sides. The protesters need to be

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Speaker 2: peaceful and non violent and respectful, but so to the police,

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Speaker 2: and haven't I have seen footage that I think arguably

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Speaker 2: shows the police engaging in behavior that's anywhere between a

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Speaker 2: failure to de escalate violence into provocations to violence. And

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Speaker 2: I think that the entire like no one wants to

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Speaker 2: see what happened yesterday, And you know that there will

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Speaker 2: be more protests today by the look of it as well.

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Speaker 2: And I do urge you for restraint and peace full

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Speaker 2: engagement on both sides. But I do think there's an

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Speaker 2: argument that we need an independent review into what happened

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Speaker 2: yesterday to get to the bottom of it. It's very

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Speaker 2: easy to look at footage, little snippets of what happened. Ultimately,

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Speaker 2: the Greens are very happy, as I said, to front

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Speaker 2: up and condemn violence, but that needs to apply on

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Speaker 2: both sides.

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Speaker 1: All right. So when feces, food bottles and other objects

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Speaker 1: are thrown at police, you don't think police should retaliate against.

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Speaker 2: That, No, I don't think. I think police, like everybody,

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Speaker 2: have got a right to defend themselves. It's a question

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Speaker 2: of scale, and it's a question of the proportionality of

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Speaker 2: the response, Look, I mean you and I are in

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Speaker 2: curious agreement here, I think, Matthew. I mean, the right

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Speaker 2: to protest is absolutely critical in a democracy and people

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Speaker 2: should be able to take to the streets and express

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Speaker 2: their concerns. Now, the people there at those protests yesterday

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Speaker 2: have watched a genocide occurring in Palestine and in Gaza

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Speaker 2: for the best part of a year now. They've watched

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Speaker 2: tens of thousands of innocent people being slaughtered by the

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Speaker 2: Israeli government, and they are concerned about the weapons manufacturing

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Speaker 2: industry in Australia exporting weapons and component parts to Israel

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Speaker 2: that are being used in a genocide. Now, I absolutely

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Speaker 2: share those concerns. Of course, those concerns have to be

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Speaker 2: expressed peacefully, but civil resistance and civil disobedience. I mean,

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Speaker 2: my great grandmother was a suffragette. They clashed with the

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Speaker 2: police in Glasgow in Scotland back in the early part

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Speaker 2: of the last century, and at the end of the

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Speaker 2: day they delivered women the vote, a massive step forward

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Speaker 2: for our society. So we have to find a balance

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Speaker 2: between people being able to resist and to demonstrate on

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Speaker 2: the streets. But of course, as I've said, a couple

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Speaker 2: of times now. We do not condone violence on either

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Speaker 2: side of those clashes.

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Speaker 1: Those suffragettes were largely peaceful though yes there was one

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Speaker 1: that ran in front of the King saws at a

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Speaker 1: race mansion, and sometimes those rallies descended into violence, but

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Speaker 1: it was mainly protesters moving and targeting those suffragettes. They

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Speaker 1: made the point on the whole of being peaceful.

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Speaker 2: Well, my grandmother was incarcerated in our great grandmother sorry,

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Speaker 2: was incarcerated in the Glasgow prison for putting a brick

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Speaker 2: through a butcher's shop within and went on hunger strike

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Speaker 2: by the way, But we'll come at the point remained right,

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Speaker 2: like protests are in the essential part of democracy. People

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Speaker 2: are very frustrated with the failure of labor to take

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Speaker 2: action to avoid being complicit in the genocide in Gaza,

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Speaker 2: and people are going to make their views now and

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Speaker 2: that's appropriate. It just has to be done peacefully.

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Speaker 1: Senator Nick McKim, appreciate your time, Thank you, Thanks very much.

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Speaker 1: Maka Green, senator in Canberra,