{"id":39023,"date":"2026-05-20T04:44:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=39023"},"modified":"2026-05-20T04:44:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:44:21","slug":"rba-confirms-corporate-price-gouging-fuelled-inflation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2026\/05\/20\/rba-confirms-corporate-price-gouging-fuelled-inflation\/","title":{"rendered":"RBA confirms corporate price gouging fuelled inflation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>New research from the Reserve Bank has confirmed what millions of Australians already knew: big corporations used the cost of living crisis to push through higher prices and boost profits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Reserve Bank has again acknowledged that changes in corporate pricing behaviour played a sizeable role in the inflation crisis,\u201d Greens Economic Justice Spokesperson Senator Nick McKim said.<br><br>In Senate Estimates in 2024 Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock agreed with Senator McKim that corporations were using the cover of a significant rise in inflation and a lack of competition to boost their profits over and above what would be required to meet increases in their input costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis backs up what the Greens have been saying for years. Corporations used the cover of global shocks to gouge consumers and pad their profits,\u201d Senator McKim said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe answer cannot be higher interest rates and more pain for ordinary people while the corporations driving inflation walk away with billions. We need strong anti-price gouging laws to stop corporations exploiting crises to rip people off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOne of the reasons Australians are paying too much for food, insurance, banking and flights is because a handful of giant corporations dominate entire sectors of the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe need a boost to competition powers to meet this challenge of concentrated market power. Divestiture powers &#8211; as exist around the world &#8211; are needed so that courts and governments can break up companies that misuse their market power and squeeze Australian consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cLabor has spent years protecting corporate profits while households have been smashed by higher prices.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Greens will keep fighting for laws that put people ahead of corporate greed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rba.gov.au\/publications\/rdp\/2026\/2026-02.html?utm_source=rbanews&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=inflation-impact-middle-east-conflict&amp;utm_campaign=sp-ag-gov-2026\"><u>The RBA paper can be found here.<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New research from the Reserve Bank has confirmed what millions of Australians already knew: big corporations used the cost of living crisis to push through higher prices and boost profits. \u201cThe Reserve Bank has again acknowledged that changes in corporate pricing behaviour played a sizeable role in the inflation crisis,\u201d Greens Economic Justice Spokesperson Senator &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2026\/05\/20\/rba-confirms-corporate-price-gouging-fuelled-inflation\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;RBA confirms corporate price gouging fuelled inflation&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39024,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39023\/revisions\/39024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}