Max Chandler-Mather

And four in 10 said that their household diet was less nutritious than it was a year ago, or that they had skipped meals or eaten less due to grocery costs.

The Greens Institute Executive Director, Max Chandler-Mather, said grocery prices have surged under a Coles and Woolworths duopoly, raking in billions of dollars in profit.

But Max, we already know that Coles has a net profit of only 2.4%, which like- is a big number but it isn't really a lot of fat but don't talk about that Woolworths is doing a lot better they're doing about 5.5% net profit but they also have a bigger slice of the pie and a bit more diversification but anyway A key report, the report by the competition watchdog, the ACCC, last year found that the pair had increased profits in recent years and had little incentive to compete on price, which we have covered at the time.

The ACCC stopped short of calling these profits excessive because, again, I remind you, 2.4% and 5% profit margins aren't exactly particularly high.

This is the Greens party think tank.

This is what funnels these ideas into the actual party rooms.

Max Chandler-Mather, he was a minister until the last election, which he lost his seat.

And so, again – What really frustrates me about this is it's so obvious to me that this is just a publicity stunt by Max to win his seat back at the next election.

I think it'll be interesting to see how it plays out in the next couple of months all the way up to the next election.

Yeah, though I did notice that Mark Butler was quick to revive the Noleition, and, uh, you know, that worked well for them in the last term against Adam Bandt and, uh, Max Chandler-Mather and a few others, that, the whole thing of Noleition.

But, um, I'm not sure that it's gonna work for them here on this one.

Um, just finally, we mentioned the Josh Frydenberg book launch that I was at.

He pledged $100 million to build five city-owned supermarkets by 2030.

Now, a key difference there being Mamdani pledged to build five city-owned grocery stores, whereas what the Greens are trying to do, which has been reframed and maneuvered by the media a lot of times I've already seen is You know, this is something that's come out of the Greens think tank, their independent think tank called the Greens Institute, which Max Chandler-Mather is the executive director of.

Now, it's kind of been interesting to see him leading this charge because what they're basically saying at a national level is there's an opportunity to kind of nationalise existing Coles and Woolworths stores by forcing them to sell to the state.

Yeah, I saw this this morning.

Could a government-owned supermarket help the cost-of-living crisis? Political think tank The Green Institute says that removing profit incentives and costs like advertising could lead to a 30% discount on essential items.

Max Chandler-Mather is a director and a former Federal Greens MP.

It would cost $25 billion over five years.

Going forward, actually the ongoing revenue earned by Fair Go Grocers, the publicly owned supermarket, would cover the ongoing operations.

Is that correct?

Yeah, Max Chandler-Mather.

I mean, who else w- I mean, could you pick, you know, a, a more, um, what can I say, indulged inner city elite type have you ever met who got turfed out at the last election and has now been the Greens' policy wonk.

Uh, and David Shoebridge picked it up and ran it, ran it.

Yeah.

So, so this guy here, Max Chandler-Mather, if, if you'll remember, was...

Well, he's reinvented himself now as, as, as a supermarket guy, right? But if everyone remembers correctly, he was the spokesperson for the Greens on housing-

Mm.

The economies of scale in being able to source these products in and of themselves allow you To get the products cheaper.

But the maths, um, broadly, the maths ends up being that Coles and Woolworths make on a good, at the end averaged, averaged about 2 to 2.5%.

So, so the point is, is that Australian taxpayers, as people try to get ahead and craft their own journey through Australia, it's people like Max Chandler-Mather who are shaping decisioning around what these policies look like.

Mm.