An Australian senator has been criticized on social media for complaining about the cost of his groceries while sitting in his luxury car.
Ralph ‘Deej’ Babet, who was elected to the Victorian Senate in 2022, shared the photo of a receipt for 15 items purchased at Coles on social media site X on Saturday.
The items include diced salmon, mangoes, blackberries, broccolini and expensive free-range eggs.
Mr Babet took the photo with the receipt against the Mercedes-Benz logo in his C-Class coupe – worth about $100,000.
Australian Senator Ralph Babet has been blasted on social media for complaining about the cost of his groceries while sitting in his expensive car. Pictured: Mr Babet with One Nation member Sarah Game
Senator Babet suggested his life is hard under the Albanian government and posted an image of his Coles receipt (pictured above) on social media as proof. His followers did not react well.
‘I just went to the shops to get some stuff. I only filled one bag,” he wrote.
‘They weren’t joking when they said it won’t be easy among Albanian. Granted, Labor can’t take all the blame. The Liberals were almost as bad.”
But the post of the first-term senator, who receives a parliamentary salary of more than $225,750 a year and also owns a property company in Melbourne’s south-east, has not gone down well.
Even a follower who shared some common political beliefs with Senator Babet warned that his post will “not be a good partner.”
“On an average salary, people have to buy generic brands and can’t afford diced salmon,” they wrote.
“Inflation is biting, but especially if you can’t afford it, you clearly can.”
Another added: “Dude you bought two pieces of salmon for almost $30, two pieces of $3 mangoes and blackberries and then spent $12 on a dozen eggs.
“And you’re sitting on $200,000, cry harder.”
“(You bought) some really expensive things. Go away and come back when you understand how the rest of us live.”
“You should post more pictures of your Mercedes, Senator. Celebrate the grind,” a third wrote.
“IKR, it must be so hard to combine that with your Merc payments,” another added.
One ridiculed him even more: ‘Puts a receipt for diced salmon in front of a Mercedes logo. Man of the people, salt of the earth.’
Others reposted Senator Babet’s own selfies, taken while he was chewing cigars.
Senator Ralph Babet (pictured) said his $211,250 salary is a pay cut and working in politics is suffering
In the same post, Senator Babet claimed that high food prices “can be resolved very quickly if they stop making bad decisions and adopt an ‘Australian first’ attitude.”
Senator Babet is a member of the United Australia Party and ‘freedom and individual liberties’ and is anti-vaccine mandate.
Last June, he claimed his salary of more than $200,000 was a “pay cut” and a bad deal because being a parliamentarian was full of “suffering.”
“If you think that 200,000 euros for the amount of work I will have to do and the amount of suffering I will undergo is a good deal, then you are wrong,” he tweeted.
Senator Babet told Daily Mail Australia that shopping at Coles is ‘certainly not extravagant’.
‘I don’t think the Prime Minister does his own shopping because if he did he would better understand how bad the cost of living is.’
