We'll just leave it at that.
We have a report that came out recently from the Centre for Future Work. It notes that profits in the food retail sector as a whole grew by 120% from 2019 through to this latest period, swelling by $2.8 billion.
I took note of your opening statement of the pressures that you are going through. We've had many witnesses before this committee reflect on the same costs. Despite all of those pressures, we have taken note of the fact that those profits have gone up.
I don't want to repeat some of the questions that my fellow colleagues around the table have asked, so I'll turn to the pay that workers in your industry receive.
The price of groceries went up by over 10% in one year. That's twice as fast as workers' wages, at 5.4%. I also note that your industry, during the middle of the pandemic, cancelled the “hero pay”, which was very necessary for a lot of workers to get through that very tough time.
When you look at the profits and the fact that your industry cancelled the “hero pay”, what kind of a message is that sending to people about the value that your employees provide in your industry, if their wages are not rising as quickly as the very groceries they need to pay for?