‘Corporate Price Gouging’: Sleight of Hand for Troubled Economic Waters Ahead?

It easily slots into the need for a compelling narrative of heroes (trade unions), villains (business), and victims (the rest of us)—and its mostly wrong.

People queue at a supermarket in Adelaide, Australia, on Nov. 18, 2020. Brenton Edwards/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

The “Inquiry into Price Gouging and Unfair Pricing Practices“ is the latest ship to be launched in the Australian Council of Trade Union’s (ACTU) armada of misdirection to shift the blame for inflation from the real culprits—the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), and state and federal governments in combination with Labor unions—to business.