Surely we shouldn't have a country where farmers are so afraid of supermarkets

We also know that the supermarkets are experiencing record profits while everyone else is experiencing "cozzie livs" pressures like never before (and yeah, I had a mortgage in 1989, a massive mortgage and three children so I get pressure).

We hate that. Struggling financially is exhausting, dispiriting and saps any joy out of our lives, only mitigated briefly when a bill comes in a little lower than expected.

I'll tell you who else is joyless right now. That's our Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who rode into parliament on a wave of "thank god it's not Peter Dutton". He failed on the Voice to Parliament referendum (completely his responsibility) so has to do something to look good.

What better victim to pick on than greedy supermarkets? On Wednesday, Albanese appointed Craig Emerson to lead a review into the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct to make sure the supermarket sector is doing the right thing. Aldi, Coles, Woolworths and Metcash are signatories to the Code and are meant to be bound by it. That's a follow up to the Senate Select Committee on Supermarket Prices announced in December which will inquire into and report on the price setting practices and market power of major supermarkets. Submissions are open until February 2.

Yet the geniuses at the Australian Council of Trade Unions decided to call their own handy inquiry into price gouging in Australia well before politicians got on board. Alan Fels, former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and now running the ACTU inquiry, was due to report before Christmas but had to go overseas. I'm imagining it was an emergency of some kind. Looks like it will be the first week of February now. And let's not forget that the ACCC already had a go at a review back in 2008 and no-one acted on anything (not Labor, in power until 2013, not the Coalition in the decade after).

Better an inquiry into price gouging than a review of a code. I so love reviews of codes (insert eyeroll here). Anyone recall a review into the Banking Code of Practice? No? A brief recap: The code was reviewed by economic consultant and former senior Treasury official Mike Callaghan, who delivered his report in November 2021. In response, the Australian Banking Association took a year and then basically responded with a giant middle finger (yes, that's vulgar but then so are the banks). Now the whole mess is being sent off to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission for a bit of consultation (read mediation) before approval.

Anyhow, a quick scan of the submissions to the ACTU Fels inquiry will tell you that we need more competition for our supermarket dollar. For years - and years - I spent fifty bucks a pop on dishwasher tablets. Name brand. Huge cost per dishwasher tablet. Turns out it wasn't that good anyhow. I'm now buying a no-name brand from one of those supermarket disruptors and what I've saved in a month of dishwashering, I have now spent on Lego, buying identical Spiderman sets for two of my grandchildren. That set is about ten bucks more expensive than it was at the same time last year. The third grandchild is getting a hand-me-down learn-to-walk trolley currently costing 10 per cent more than it did exactly two years ago so I went for recycle rather than buy more. The cheap dishwasher tablets are cheaper than any brand sold at my local supermarket and according to my consumer bible, Choice, far far better.

The shops have been wild. I have a favourite brand of butter, a holiday treat since most of the time it's plant sterols on toast around here. Of course you can believe it's not butter. It's awful. If we can put people in submarines surely we can make something as delicious as butter but less likely to kill me. The pack of complete deliciousness used to be 250g now it's 50g less but more than a dollar more expensive.

Then Coles miraculously announced on Wednesday, coincidentally the same day as the Emerson announcement, that it would "slash" prices. As Karen Hardy puts it, no better time than the annual lambfest.

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And speaking of lambs to the slaughter, sheep farmers tell me they would love a review into the way supermarkets manipulate prices for sheep by pitting "over the hooks" versus the saleyard. One explained all this to me (deeply deeply complicated and political) and told me he'd wanted to take it to the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission but was told by his local stock agent that it would wreck the business for the entire community. Surely - surely - we shouldn't have a country where farmers are so afraid of supermarkets and the power they wield?

Bridget McKenzie, Nationals senator, tells me there's an opaque relationship between farmgate prices and what the customer pays at the checkout. Yep. And as she says, we need stronger competition laws to protect producers and customers.

"We have been calling for action for over six months on grocery prices. It's disappointing it's taken Labor almost 100 days to appoint the reviewer, as every month of delay takes a further toll on farmers and families alike." I mean, she's a National so she would say that. But she's also right.

I love regulation and can hardly wait for Alan Fels, my favourite ever regulator, to give the government some ideas about what has to happen next to protect us from cozzie livs. Cozzie livs, you ask? C'mon, get with the program. That was Macquarie Dictionary's 2023 word of the year, an endearing name for a chronic condition, cost of living. Does endearing also mean getting dearer? I think it might.