Since taking office in May 2022, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's Labor government has faced fierce criticism over its handling of cost-of-living pressures, with opponents arguing these failures have left Australians unable to afford food as the May 2025 election looms. The Liberal Party's November 2023 statement declared Australia under Albanese "less like the Lucky Country and more like the Hungry Country," pointing to breadlines in cities reminiscent of the 1920s, a stark betrayal of his promise that "no one [would be] left behind" after over 500 days in power.
Foodbank Australia's 2023 Hunger Report found 3.7 million households food insecure—77 percent for the first time, 60 percent employed—data critics wield to slam Labor's inaction. By early 2025, the food sector united to accuse the government of letting working Australians go hungry amid soaring prices, with a March 3 Macrobusiness.com.au article highlighting high energy costs, restrictive workplace policies, and stalled productivity reforms as culprits. Albanese's late announcement of a National Food Council and food-security strategy is dismissed as a pre-election stunt, not a fix. Food prices climbed 8 percent under Labor, alongside housing (10 percent), insurance (17 percent), electricity (18 percent), and gas (28 percent), per Liberal figures, outpacing tax cuts, energy relief, and childcare subsidies that critics say fail to stop families skipping meals.
The 2024 Foodbank update, cited by ABC News, showed 3.4 million households still struggling, low-income earners hit hardest. Opponents also blame Labor's "reckless" migration surge—net arrivals exceeding targets, per a December 2024 Guardian report—for straining housing and services, pushing food costs higher. Overloaded charities signal government neglect, with a July 2024 X sentiment (paraphrased) calling a minister's reliance on them an "extraordinary failure," echoed by a 2022 University of Melbourne Pursuit piece arguing food banks don't meet human rights duties—a critique revived to flay Albanese in 2025. Clive Palmer's December 2024 release slammed a $600 million PNG football pledge while "thousands go to bed hungry," and the food sector contrasted Labor's $2 billion smelter subsidies or $13.7 billion Future Made in Australia tax breaks (SMH, Guardian) with its silence on immediate needs. Albanese counters he inherited a 6 percent inflation surge (now 2 percent, per Guardian), delivering surpluses and policies like fee-free TAFE and rental aid, claiming in a November 2024 ABC interview "the worst is behind us" with debt relief planned for 2025. Yet Redbridge's November 2024 survey (Reuters) found 57 percent of voters worse off, Resolve Political Monitor (SMH, February 2025) showing Labor's vote at a four-year low of 25 percent.
X posts (paraphrased) vent fury—charity workers see abandoned families, parents lament hungry kids at school—tying this to Labor's "war" on mining and farming, per Liberals, while Albanese's "we've got your back" (Reuters) falls flat. Critics frame hunger as proof of Labor's misplaced priorities and economic mismanagement, turning Australia into a nation where even the employed starve—a damning narrative as 2025 nears.
Time for Albo to go.
"The food sector has united to accuse the Albanese government of failing to act on rising prices despite a growing number of working Australians going hungry, warning that customers are paying more at shopping centres and restaurants because of high energy prices, Labor's workplace relations agenda and a lack of productivity-enhancing reforms.
On the same day industry bodies across the food supply chain told The Australian they would demand a pre-election commitment to create a food-security strategy, the Albanese government revealed it would take such a pledge to the election.
But industry leaders are urging the government to go further and address cost-of-business pressures to help put downward pressure on prices.
With industry leaders saying the issue has been urgent for two years but has fallen on deaf ears in the Albanese government, Agriculture Minister Julie Collins will on Tuesday unveil $3.5m of funding to create a "Feeding Australia" plan to "boost the security and supply-chain resilience of agriculture and food production systems in Australia".
The plan will include the creation of a National Food Council, with industry experts to advise the government of the implementation of the strategy designed to prevent food shortages seen during major supply chain disruptions such as the Covid-19 pandemic.
The government announcement comes as industry bodies prepare to campaign on food security at the coming election, with the push backed by the National Farmers Federation, the Australian Retailers Association, AUSVEG, the Australian Food and Grocery Council, Foodbank, the Refrigerated Warehouse and Transport Association and Independent Food Distributors Australia.
The industry groups say the soaring cost of doing business has contributed to higher food prices and urged Labor and the Coalition to go to the election with plans to rectify the issue. IFDA chief executive Richard Forbes said action was needed to avoid high food price inflation becoming a structural feature in the economy, as warned by Rabobank senior analyst Michael Harvey.
After former RBA governor Philip Lowe declared in The Australian on Monday that low productivity was having a bigger impact on living standards than the previous run of interest rate increases, Mr Forbes said "one way to boost productivity is to reduce the cost on businesses".
"The government has some control on those costs," Mr Forbes said. "Everything from fixing labour shortages to having the right energy policy, getting rid of this very complex and inefficient regulatory system across borders when you transport freight, incentivising manufacturing."
Mr Forbes – whose members have complained about energy prices rising by more than 50 per cent – said more consultation with the food sector on how to alleviate business costs would have limited food-price increases.
Brianna Casey, chief executive of Foodbank – a charity in overdrive supplying food to one million Australians a month – said food-relief organisations were also struggling with increased costs of doing business. "We are experiencing a quite significant surge in the cost of sourcing food, certainly huge increases in the cost of transporting logistics associated with moving food relief around the country," Ms Casey said. "So our overheads, our power, our labour costs (are) escalating at a time when demand for food relief is also escalating."
Ms Casey said she had never seen anything like the current demand for the charity in her nine years at Foodbank, with households earning more than $95,000 a year facing food insecurity.
She said the government needed to acknowledge Australia had a "hunger problem".
"The reality right now is that 57 per cent of the households that we are providing food relief to have at least one person in full-time employment," she said. "In fact, in many circumstances, we're talking about multiple job holdings. So we're talking about families who are working, both parents working throughout the day … and then at least one of those adults is heading out in the evening into the gig economy to take on additional employment just to keep up with those household costs that previously would have been covered by one or even two people being employed."
AUSVEG chief executive Michael Coote said a third of vegetable growers were considering leaving the industry in the next year. "The prolonged cost-of-production crisis facing vegetable growers is still one of the top reasons so many are thinking about walking – along with an overwhelming compliance burden and unviable returns," Mr Coote said. "Australian growers produce 98 per cent of the fresh vegetables bought and consumed in this country – so if anywhere near one-third leave there will be a major impact on vegetable supply, and consumer prices."
NFF president David Jochinke said the agricultural sector's productivity was being hit by high energy prices and onerous workplace relations regulations.
"We feel like our industry is being stifled or drowned out by the burden of legislation and the amount of requirements that it takes us to run our business in the current era," Mr Jochinke said.
"Even things like environmental laws are actually placing more burden, more onerous compliance of farmers, but not actually changing or enhancing how we operate. And we see there are also industrial relations (issues) as well. Small business has more compliance, but actually it's not benefiting the farmer or the employer with any more safety."
Fleur Brown, chief industry affairs officer at the ARA – the body that represents food retailers including Coles and Woolworths – said federal leadership was needed to lower food costs.
"This includes federal leadership incentivising states and territories to simplify complex, inefficient regulations that vary across states and cost businesses, providing targeted solutions for food businesses, such as support with energy relief, and by investing in resilient supply chain infrastructure," she said.
RWTA chief executive Marianne Kintzel said an overhaul of energy policies was needed to drive down food prices. "Australia's cold-chain industry is significantly impacted by rising energy costs, including increased tariffs and substantial renewable energy levies," she said. "The additional financial burdens are inevitably passed down to consumers, escalating food inflation."
A spokesman for AFGC, which represents food manufacturers, said a new focus was needed on addressing the cost of doing business and boosting productivity.
As part of the government's plan, it will also examine the potential to increase the production of low-carbon feedstock to help bring down greenhouse gas emissions in the sector.
"When our food and supply chains are secure, it reduces financial strain on households, helping all Australians," Ms Collins said.