Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I support strongly the amendments moved by the member for Hunter and seconded by the member for Batman. These are amendments to the Trade Practices Act that affect the Australian economy more broadly but that specifically arise in relation to concerns about anti-competitive behaviour in the petroleum retail industry. They are pro-competitive amendments and, given that the government is supposed to be a party that supports competition and free enterprise, I would strongly urge it to support these amendments. They are well considered; they have been developed over a long period of time. If the coalition government truly is a party of competition and free enterprise then it should support the amendments. We will all be very interested to hear from the minister during the summing up of this consideration in detail debate.

The amendments deal more effectively with the abuse of market power and predatory pricing. There has been an emergence of greater competition in many aspects of the petroleum industry. Initially, after the establishment of the market by the ‘big four’ multinational oil companies, that competitive influence was brought to bear through the entry of independents. They have done a service to Australia in behaving as a competitive alternative to the major suppliers. More recently, the emergence of Coles and Woolworths supermarkets, through the shopper-docket arrangements, have provided extra competition. But that is no guarantee whatsoever that the entire industry is going to behave competitively.

Indeed, you would have to suspect that the areas in which anti-competitive behaviour might be more evident would be in remote and regional markets where the market is more segmented and there is not the flow-through of traffic and, therefore, the influences of competition. But even that does not mean that in major urban markets we are assured of competitive behaviour in all circumstances.

A number of commentators and many parliamentarians point to fluctuations in prices during the course of a week as a source of concern. I would say that that does not of itself prove anti-competitive behaviour—although the popular conception is that, when retailers put their prices up and down at the same time during the week, that must constitute evidence of anti-competitive behaviour. However, it can be. It is possible that they can get together and agree to put their prices up or down to the same extent. We should be concerned about this sort of practice, but we have to look behind what has actually happened.

One of the deficiencies of the Trade Practices Act, including section 46, is the burden of evidence that needs to be brought to prove that there has been anti-competitive pricing. As speakers on the Labor side have pointed out, the courts have tended to rule against the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on this. There was a recent court case where circumstantial evidence was not allowed, even though the circumstances seemed to be providing quite strong evidence of anti-competitive pricing and anti-competitive behaviour.

The member for Hunter has moved amendments that would give greater power to the ACCC to look behind some of the behaviour that goes on and to determine whether in fact predatory pricing or anti-competitive behaviour has occurred. On that basis, I would be bewildered if the government did not see merit in these amendments; therefore, I would strongly urge it to adopt the amendments moved by the member for Hunter and seconded by the member for Batman.

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