Price gouging isn't always illegal - but it should be.
For many of us, the last few years have felt like one crisis-fuelled set of price hikes after another. Meanwhile, Australia’s biggest companies seem to be cashing in on the cost of living crisis. Australia’s concentrated markets mean that big businesses could use their market power to push prices higher than they need to.
In most cases, there are no rules in place to tackle price gouging. Last year, the government introduced new rules to ban excessive pricing in the supermarket sector – but there are plenty of other industries in Australia where prices seem quick to go up and slow to come back down. There’s no reason that the deeply unethical and unfair practice of price gouging should be banned for one kind of big business and not for others.
As global disruptions cause prices to skyrocket once again, it’s time for the government to step in by urgently banning price gouging – wherever it might happen. If we can show that thousands of people are demanding a crack down on unfair and unreasonable price increases, the government will have to act. Will you join the call and sign the petition now?