STEPHEN JOHNSON: Why a Greens plan for socialised supermarkets will be a nightmare

The idea of a government-run supermarket chain in Australia would have once seemed ridiculous.

That’s the kind of thing Cuba does as one of the world’s few remaining communist states which has long been stuck in a late 1950s time warp as other one-party communist states like China, Vietnam and Laos have moved towards a market economy.

But the new Greens leader David Shoebridge - a hard left protege of former Venezuela-loving senator Lee Rhiannon - has this week declared his support for the idea of the Federal Government being a supermarket owner-operator.

“I mean, isn’t it about time Government did something to make people’s lives better?” the hard left senator told News24.

“The plan has been announced by the Greens think tank… and they are independent of the Greens but we love the direction.”

The Green Institute, his party’s think tank run by former one-term Federal MP Max Chandler-Mather, this week floated a plan for the Commonwealth to own a supermarket chain called Fair Go Growers, arguing it would see consumers pay 30 per cent less on eggs, milk, fruit, vegetables, meat and cheese.

Never mind the cost to taxpayers from establishing a program that would cost $25 billion over five years to establish 624 full-service supermarkets and 13 distribution centres nationwide.

Interest payments on debt from extra government spending are someone else’s problem.

So are higher interest rates from more government spending adding to demand in the economy and pushing up inflation.

Under this costly supermarket socialism, the Government would run more stores than Aldi - which has a 9 per cent market share despite operating 595 stores.

If the Greens - or their utopian think tank - had their way, the State would force Coles and Woolworths to sell 200 stores and three distribution centres to Fair Go Grocers in a bid to break up their duopoly.

Apparently forcing Coles, with 870 stores, and Woolworths, with 1130 outlets, to surrender to the State would “take the profit out” of private supermarkets.

“The idea here is to create a public competitor, take out the obscene profits, take out all the advertising,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“Take a bunch of the incredibly expensive middle management and upper management that are creaming it out and return all of that in cheaper groceries.”

This claim that only private business pay obscene executive remunerations ignores the fact that government business enterprises bosses are some of the best paid with Australia Post chief executive Paul Graham last year allocated $3.3 million as Snowy Hydro CEO Dennis Barnes received more than $2 million with bonuses.

At least The Green Institute admitted it had plagiarised its idea from New York’s Democratic Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who campaigned on a much more moderate plan for five city-run grocery stores.

Former Queensland Labor premier Steven Miles, from the party’s Left faction, lost the last State election two years ago with a plan for 12 publicly owned service stations

“Publicly-owned fuel stations will charge a fair price for fuel, increase competition, and ensure Queenslanders have more choice when it comes to filling up,” he declared at the time.

Dr Miles, who did a PhD on union encouragement, is yet to dump this policy despite the ALP losing 15 seats, including the former regional Labor strongholds of Rockhampton and Mackay that are more car reliant.

Communist Cuba this year allowed private operators to run service stations for the first time, ending more than six decades of the State-owned oil company Cupet having a monopoly on the distribution of fuel.

Labor’s loony Left faction and the Greens don’t seem to understand the failures of command economies.

The only surprise with a Greens plan for supermarket socialism is the fact they cater to meat eaters and not just vegans.