Just when you thought it could not get any sillier

 or any worse a former Greens politician has come up with the idea that the government should run the supermarkets. 

Yes, you read that correctly he thinks it would be a good idea if the government took over the supermarkets and ran them. According to him it would bring prices down and make them more accessible and efficient.

If you have now stopped laughing...

We have Coles and Woolworths, Aldi and the IGA (Independent Grocers) as the main players in the supermarket game. Our local shopping area has three of those. They vary in what they have to offer. The clientele varies too.

I choose to do most of my shopping at the independent one. The prices are much the same. They offer a discount of 5% for anyone with a Senior's or pension card. They deliver locally at a much cheaper rate. The staff are generally very good indeed. I have the boys trained to reach to the top shelf for me if they happen to see me. If they are collecting trolleys and I am parking my trike they will hand one to me as they are going inside. They long ago told me to leave the trolley where I park the trike. "It's easy to pick it up on the way in Cat."

Now can you imagine having that sort of relationship with a government owned entity? No, neither can I. The idea that we would all have a greatly reduced choice hedged around with increasing regulations and the inevitable shortages and delays is something nobody in their right mind would want to contemplate. This was tried back in the early part of last century in Queensland. It failed. It is the sort of thing which has been tried in Communist states. It has failed every time.

And imagine now if the government also decided that they needed to do something about our diet and could do it through controlling what was available on a supermarket shelf. What if we were told "no more meat" or "some people are allergic to X so we won't be stocking it any more." For many people food is one of the pleasures of life. They may eat sensibly and frugally most of the time but they want to break out sometimes! 

I suppose it might do something for a black market and then the lawyers and the courts when people got caught...but if we were trying not to break the law but wanted to eat? Just how silly can things get?