Torres Shire Mayor Pedro Stephen says he can’t wait for the cost-of -living Inquires – one in the Senate and the other a Parliamentary Inquiry - and has blasted the patronising attitudes of government departments.

"I want to highlight service delivery in the area at these inquiries.

"The problem is that the Government and their agencies ask the people want they want, and then deliver what the Government wants or sees as their priorities.

"They say to us ‘We know what’s best for you.’."

Mayor Stephen said: "They’ll come up here and hold an inquiry into the high cost of living – but they already have the data for that.

"That’s why they hand out remote area allowances and incentives to work to Government employees here so that they can be a par with elsewhere.

"Do those on CDEP get a remote area allowance? Of course not," he said.

His comments come at the same as the figures from the latest politically designed cost-of-living survey have been released.

The Torres Strait has been received a poor review from the latest ShopSmart of grocery items across the State which is organised by Queensland Liberal Senator Sue Boyce.

The survey was conducted across seven stores in Brisbane and the South-East corner of Queensland, and one each in Cairns and Gladstone, as well as the Torres Strait.

But no other remote area was included in the survey – only the Torres Strait.

The stores survey with their average price over the 13 items were: Woolworths Gladstone average $66.97; Coles Toombul $64.66; IGA Rochdale (Brisbane) $65.94; Woolworths Cairns $64.03; Woolworths Woodridge (Brisbane) $66.73; Woolworths Warana $63.54; Coles Brisbane City $66.32; Woolworths Brisbane City $66.67; Coles Upper Mt Gravatt (Brisbane) $63.77. Total average $65.77.