Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

This is the conclusion of the debate over the amendments to the Trade Practices Act as recommended by Sir Daryl Dawson when he did a review of the competition provisions of the Trade Practices Act. He recommended that it be made more transparent, that provisions be modernised and that it be more applicable in relation to small business collective bargaining and merger provisions. This amendment bill was initially introduced to the parliament a year ago. It was passed by this House, the Senate added amendments to it, which were unacceptable to the House, and essentially it has been frustrated for 12 months.

I brought the bill back into this House two days ago and we had a very thorough debate then, where the House decided that it would not accept the Senate’s amendments and the House improved a number of aspects of the bill. As I explained to the House on that occasion, the areas where the House improved aspects of the bill were in relation to authorisations, which will now go to the Australian Competition Tribunal. The House put amendments in place which will allow the ACCC to be heard in relation to those applications, to call evidence, to examine and cross-examine and to make submissions.

When the bill with those amendments went back to the Senate, the Senate did not insist on its original amendments. It accepted all of the amendments that the House put in here in debate a couple of days ago and it made only one final amendment. That amendment was moved by Senator Fielding, who moved that, where a formal merger application is made, the time limit which gave the ACCC 40 business days to consider it could be extended for another 20 business days upon the application of the commission itself. So that is the sole amendment that is now before the House—whether or not that time limit of 40 days is extended by another 20 and therefore is a maximum of 60 days.

I do not believe either side of the House would be opposed to that amendment. I believe that even the opposition, judging from its intervention in the debate, will support it, and of course the government will support it because the government voted for it, or at least indicated its support for it, when the matter was before the Senate. So, after a long legislative history, the good news is that this amendment has now passed the Senate and we bring it back for final endorsement here in the House.

What this bill will do is make it easier for small business to collectively bargain. Small business will be able to move to collective bargaining without authorisation, just with notification, unless the ACCC wants to contest it. It will therefore be able to go into negotiations with suppliers that will improve its position. All of the small business organisations of Australia that have had something to say about this in the last couple of days have supported the passage of this bill with the government amendments and have pleaded with the parties in the Senate to let it through.

Can I indicate that the breaking of this impasse would not have been possible without the good work of Senator Ron Boswell, who worked so hard and so well in relation to this matter in the Senate. I also pay tribute to Senator Fielding, whose amendments we are deliberating on here today and who was also a very big part of negotiating the passage of this bill. Can I thank the Minister for Small Business and Tourism for the work that she has done. This is a great day for small business. It is a great day to get this improvement through for the Trade Practices Act. I hope all sides of parliament will support these amendments and get this into law for the benefit of the small businesses of Australia.

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