The food industry has sounded the alarm: Anthony Albanese’s energy policies are pushing up the cost of food, threatening jobs, and crippling small businesses.
The Independent Food Distributors Australia (IFDA), which represents businesses supplying food to major supermarkets, restaurants, and pubs, has broken ranks with other industry bodies to demand a change.
They want Labor to scrap its 82 per cent renewables target and focus on ramping up gas and coal production to bring down power prices.
Family First agrees – families have suffered enough. It’s time to focus on energy sources that work and are affordable.
Energy prices have surged by over 50 per cent since Labor took office.
Some businesses, like Godden Food Group, have seen electricity costs skyrocket by 238 per cent in NSW and 90 percent in Queensland.
Jeff Godden says he has no choice but to pass on half of the increase to consumers, driving up grocery bills.
“The government can make a smoke screen out of it all they like,” he said.
“They don’t want to talk about the cost of energy and how it’s affecting that supply chain.”
Chris Bowen is Gaslighting Australians
Chris Bowen claims that unreliable coal generators are the problem, not Labor’s net-zero madness.
This is a blatant lie. When coal-fired power stations were operating at full capacity, Australia had some of the cheapest electricity in the world.
Now, under Bowen’s net-zero obsession, also supported by the Coalition, we are shutting down power plants and replacing them with wind and solar that don’t work when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining.
Even the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) admits there is a crisis. AEMO’s own reports show that as coal plants are forced out of the grid, Australia is hurtling towards shortages and blackouts.
Yet Bowen refuses to acknowledge the problem and continues peddling the myth that renewables are “cheaper.”
If that were true, why have power bills exploded? Why is food more expensive?
Net Zero is Making Families Poorer
Net zero is no longer just about household electricity bills—it is destroying families’ ability to put food on the table. Businesses with large cold storage facilities are facing unsustainable costs.
Moco Food Services, which supplies 3,000 restaurants, cafes, and pubs, has seen its power bill increase by 50% to $45,000 a month.
Mike Peberdy warns: “We used to be a low-cost power country, and now we’re high. It seems like a crazy destruction of wealth across the Australian population.”
The energy policies pursued by Labor, Liberals, the Greens and the Teals is a disaster.
We must stop this reckless push towards unreliable renewables before even more businesses go under and more families struggle to afford basic groceries.
Family First Will Fight for Affordable Power
Family First’s Senate campaign is focused on reducing the cost of living by putting cheap, reliable power first.
That means keeping coal and gas in the mix and rejecting net zero until a full economic review is done.
Electricity prices are one of the biggest drivers of inflation—until we stop this renewable energy madness, food prices will keep rising, families will suffer, and businesses will collapse.
Family First is standing with food industry leaders calling for a return to common sense energy policy.
The Albanese government must stop prioritising windmills and solar panels over Australian families. The IFDA is right—net zero is an unaffordable disaster, and it’s time for a rethink.