If i can change a few words you wrote for clarity....as i would explain it slightly differently.
We previously had an ACCC that prevented the rise of monopolies and cracked down on companies that used unfair anti competitive practices for excessive profiteering, theres never been policies of actual price controls that have lasted, they did some in the 60's or 70's when they had the last lot of inflation and blamed everything else except themselves but these inept ideas soon proved themselves to make things worse and increase prices but it seems people have forgotten or they think they are smarter this time and are trying again. These days they don't prevent those things anymore, in fact it's quite the opposite due to the modern economics most of the world has embraced and experimented with, they now encourage centralization of industries and decision making into the hands of the few, increase the power of big companies by allowing consolidation in sectors be it Banking, Mining, Retail, Bottle shops, hardware, Airlines etc etc etc and thus create the problems we now face like having tax payer backed companies that are too big to fail, the reason they've changed is because they think by doing this they can maintain their grip on power and thus influence the world through the industries and institutions they control with their extreme ideologies that do nothing but benefit themselves rather than the people imo.
I think government controls are scary and a bad idea however some protections for the vulnerable would be humane and required in some circumstances.
The best things governments can do is set sensible policy so companies like our big 4 banks and two supermarkets can never happen or be created, if they set the right policies they don't have to interfere and try and control markets and then those people that are currently employed by our government to control stuff and set up codes of conduct for companies to abide by won't be needed in government anymore and they can go and get a job that would be productive for Oz instead.
